10-17 (Tuesday) Cruising Down the River

I woke up sick as a dog with stomach problems. Joyce went on to breakfast without me because I couldn't leave the room until later. I think it was the "oj" from last night that made me sick. I was finally able to eat some eggs and toast with tea. I drank LOTS of water.

Last night's agent came to pick us up at 9:30. He had our passports and visas. He loaded everything in his truck and drove us to the river. First they put all our bags in the long boat we were going to take across the river (Mekong Delta) from the Thailand side to the Lao side. We got in with other local passengers and off we went.

There was a guy to meet us on the Lao side. He told us to go to the passport control. About this time I was getting sick again. I had to use the squat at the border crossing. It wasn't real clean but it didn't smell. I had taken some of Joyce's Cipro and 2 Peptos.

They loaded our bags on top of a truck and crammed 10 of us into the back. Thank goodness we were the first two in because the fumes from the back of the truck were about to gag everyone. We were drived to another river location not far away. We got a flat tire just as we arrived. Joyce and I feel about our luggage like Dinki and I did . . . we're ready to pay any amount to have someone carry it for us.

Many people got on the boat ahead of us. After our guy finished taking care of all our passprts AGAIN we were able to get on. The first group had all grabbed one wooden bench seat to themselves. I went back 4 seats and told the girl I was sorry but I'd be sitting with her. She immediately moved to the seat ahead with her friend so Joyce and I were able to sit together. The hard wooden bench we were sitting on did have a very thin cushion on it. I whipped out my tape and measured the depth of the seat (front to back.) It was 11 inches. From the back of the seat to the front of the one in front of us was 12 1/4 inches. This boat ride made coach in a plane look like the lap of luxury.

There were 70 seats on the boat and they stuffed over 90 of us on. The luggage was stacked to the roof in the front and back. The boat was open on the sides but had a covering.

The captain was a hilltribe guy. He wore a loose weave blue cotton tunic and pants. A multi colored sash mostly red. A silver necklace, siver bracelets and a large silver ring. Over his shoulder he had a colorful bag like the hilltribes use. He had a silver knife stuck in his waistband and a baseball cap on his head!

We didn't depart until 11:00. It didn't take long to figure out we were in for 7 hours of misery. At least my stomach medicine had started to kick in. I don't know how the men on the boat stood it because there was NO leg room and they have longer legs than we do. Some of them began sitting on the sides of the boat. I think still others went to the roof.

I have been wearing the same shirt everyday since we were at Inle Lake in Myanmar. You will be happy to know that I wash it every night. It is driving Joyce nuts - at first she would just hint about it but lately she has offered to buy me a new one, has started telling me how bad it looks (it doesn not!) Today she said I was worse than a bag lady with my shirt and wearing 2 hats - my baseball cap with a coolie hat on top! Of course none of this bothers me and I don't pay any attention to her. I did break down and tell her that the 1st time I went to Europe I wore a dress 21 days straight. I told her my travel companions kept trying to hide it from me. Joyce has already said she's going to hide or throw my shirt away. It looks great so I'm not getting rid of it!

We were riding up river with 3 canasters of gass about6 feet from our seats.

We stopped to let off some locals and pick up one or two. One was a man with 3 huge sacks of rice.

One of the girls in front of me was very smart and went to the front where the luggage was - there was a space to sit down there and you could stretch out your legs. She made the big mistake of getting up and going back to sit with her friend. As soon as she did I pounced on that space. I stayed there until Joyce came and took my place. We held onto that spot until we stopped for the evening at 5:00. We were thrilled to be stopping that early. We thought it was going to be 6 or 7:00.

We pulled into a mud flat that led to mud steps that went straight up a very high bank. Thank goodness there were boys there wanting to make money. There was NO way we could have gotten our bags up that hill, we could barely get ourselves up it.

We walked to a hotel that was owned by the same group as where we stayed the night before. We gave our porters 60 bhat - about $1.60. They were thrilled and so were we. We told them to be at the hotel at 8:00 the next day to carry the stuff back to the boat. They were only too happpy to do it. Tomorrow we are going to give them each $2.00 US.

The room was nicer in a way than the night before. It had very clean blue tile on the floors. The bathroom was the same set-up except that there was NO hot water. Also at thisplace we only had a bottom sheet and a thin blanket to top. Last night we had an A/C for what it was worth, tonight a fan on the ceiling. Our windows here had good screens but the edges didn't fit real tight so Joyce spent a long time putting duct tape all around them to keep out the bugs.

We went to the hotel restaurant jand had really greasy french fries for dinner. They were so greasy that I wiped each one off with my one ply, half sheet toilet paper napkin!

My stomach was so much better and my toe was feeling a little better too. I still had to wear my flip flops because of my toe so that made it hard to walk through muddy places and up steep enbankments.

We took cold showers which actually felt pretty good and got ready for another enjoyable 6 hours or crusing !