The Mekong, Beer Lao, and Comrades

We made it to Luang Prabang yesterday after an awesome boat trip down the Mekong. The boat journey was about 9 hours followed by about a half hour mini bus ride. You see we had to stop before town because it got dark out and the boat cannot continue without light. Despite this, it was a fantastic trip with the most amazing scenery I have ever witnessed. 9 hours surrounded by mountains and jungle truly in the middle of nowhere. We saw our first wild elephants grazing on the shore and numerous tribal villages that are truly unreachable via land. I wish the photos could do it justice, but there is no way. Laos is just a beautiful country. We spent the majority of the trip with 4 truly fun British guys. They ranged in age from 30's to 60's and were swilling Beer Lao with us all afternoon. When we arrived we were pleased to see that Luang Prabang is not Thailand. It is a sleepy town of good size and is very clean and charming. We will probably stay for a few days. Laos in general is fascinating. It is a communist state and the hammer and sickle still fly all around the country. The people have been so friendly and since it just opened it's borders after the Soviet Union collapsed, it is not covered in tourists yet. Of course this has its drawbacks such as the fact that there are no ATMs anywhere (apparently an ATM does exist in the capital or so we have heard) and Jenn had no money to pay for her boat ticket. The boat captain was very gracious, however, and we are meeting him today with payment. Laos is one of the 20 least developed countries in the world and the effects of the Vietnam war are very apparent. I read that we dropped a few million tons of explosives on Laos during the war making it the most heavily bombed country in history. This book was from 2000, so Iraq may now make that claim, but it certainly illustrates the enormity of what happened here. Truly surreal. So here are the obligatory pics. I especially like the one of Jenn in my sweet shades. Not to mention the pic of me that I think should be used in Beer Lao's new ad campaign. You know how many cases that face would sell????