more photos.

I have finished uploading the Thailand Photographs and have started a new album for the Laos photos which I will be steadily adding too.

Travel costs in Thailand

I kept notes of all my expenses during the Thailand portion of the trip and averaged out spending 1200 Thai Baht or NZ $48 per day, this includes the cost of my visas for China and Vietnam which were 2600 Baht each.

The average cost for some of the major daily items is below.

Accommodation 495 Baht/Day

Food 305 Baht/Day

Transport 70 Baht/Day

Entry Fees 45 Baht/Day

Accommodation: I stayed mainly in air conditioned rooms some of them quite nice. If you stay in fan cooled rooms or bargain better then I do you can probably do it for half this price.

Food: Three meals a day and plenty of coffee but no alcohol. I normally ate in restaurants but you can save yourself a lot of money by eating in the food markets. Any alcoholic drinks will add significantly to the cost.

Transport: This is largely intercity transport as I tend to walk a great deal when I am at my destination. Preferring an hours walk over a five minute taxi ride.

Entry Fees: Depends really on the speed with which you visit museums, temples don't charge an entry fee but might ask for a donation.

Miscellaneous: I spend some money on Internet access, toiletries and a few post cards. The major expense were the two visas which I had arranged via a travel agent. You can get them a lot cheaper by going to the embassy and doing it yourself, but who wants to deal with embassy officials more than he has too?

Be careful what you wish for.

A few days ago I wrote about the lack of rain so far on this trip. Well my message must have gotten through to the Buddha of the rain.

It started to rain the evening that I arrived in Luang Prabang and hasn't stopped since, 36 hours and counting. It is not your European drizzle or New Zealand squalls but torrential monsoon rain all day longs as if someone has opened up a fire hydrant and aimed it at the city.

The Mekong is a mass of floating debris and big churning water. it's also steadily rising. Last night just before dark I grabbed my umbrella and walked to the boat landing to see what the skippers of the long boats were doing. Quite tellingly they were all busy moving there mooring ropes as high up the bank as they could,and the water looks indeed like it's rising.

At least another ten vertical meters to go before it hits the road though and there is a hill in the middle of town that goes up another two hundred odd meters so now worries about washing away anytime soon.

Note: Just when I was about to post this the power failed. Now 24 hours later it rains again but it was dry for a while yesterday afternoon and I went for a walk. The places along the river bank have suffered quite a bit of erosion with banana plantations and vegetable gardens just slipping away in the river. The cause for the power outage became clear too. An enormous tree had lost it's footing on the hillside and crashed across the power lines leading to a small transformer. It was eight in the evening before the lights came back on.

Slow Boat to Luang Prabang

It's early in the morning and I am up and ready to take the boat to Luang Prabang. This is a two day trip with an overnight stop in Pak Beng. Our scheduled departure time is 9am and I am ready well before then.

9am arrives and departs I ask the skipper when we are going to do the same. "maybe 10am" OK what's an hour amongst friends. Meanwhile people keep on trickling down and the boat starts to fill up, by 10am all seats are taken and still more people are arriving by 11am they have crammed every available space with people and there are still twenty or so back packers on the quay side.

Midday, after a lot more waving of arms and frantic phone calls, a number of the locals is unloaded and the tourists, who pay higher fares, are put on in their place. We are on our way!

The country side changes quickly to hills and jungle with the occasional open patch with a village in it.

From time to time we make a stop to let someone on or off but mostly we steadily travel down river. Most people gasp at the first large set of rapids but the captain negotiates them without a hitch, and after five and half hours we arrive in the Pak Beng a village whose only reason for existence seems to be to put travelers in rooms, sell them some food and get them on their way again.

A young man whispers "you want to buy opium?" I decline he goes off in search of other customers. It slowly starts to rain.

The next morning it's absolutely pouring down we get back on board. Three English guys who took the drug dealer up on his offer almost didn't make it in time and end up sitting all day in the engine compartment. the only space left on board. We do depart on time. it rains most of the morning and the pattern of yesterday repeats itself.

Two young monks sit stoically through it all and try not to touch any of the women, difficult given how crammed it is on board.

A young girl, initially shy ends up playing peek a boo with the tourists and is given plenty of attention, lots of sweets,and even a toy, funny what some people have in their backpacks.

The rain stops by midday we roll up the tarpaulins that have been keeping the worst out of the boat. It does stay quite overcast but that's all right with me, keeps it from getting hot. Then all of a sudden we are there it has taken almost nine hours today and my body feels sore from all the odd angles I have been sitting in. I stretch out, get my pack, avoid most of the touts and go in search of a hotel.

Laos

After a mad dash across the countryside I made together with Kelly an American traveller. We got into Laos about a minute after they closed the border. Luckily the immigration officials were having a beer around the back of the place and processed our visas out there.
Tonight I have a room that overlooks the Mekong river and tomorrow Ill set off for a two day boat trip to Luang Prabang.
Any further news will have to wait until then.