Chiang Khong to Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang the old French capital of Laos, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is said to be one of the best preserved French Indochinese towns left. You can fly there from Bangkok but not on a budget of 20 pounds a day. My fate was to catch the painfully slow boat from Chiang Khong/Huay Xei to Luang Prabang down the broad, spectacular Mekong River which at 4880 kilometers is considered the tenth longest in the world. As it is low season, only one boat leaves each day for the two-day journey, and the ticket hustlers cram it with as many passengers as possible. For the first time on my journey I encountered dozens of sparkling-white-smiled Westerners in one place and the atmosphere was jovial, carefree and filled with solidarity for the bum-numbing journey ahead.

The creaking, ancient boat had hard wooden seats without cushions and a mere inch or two of legroom if you were lucky. By way of compensation, cheap cold beer was sold and consumed in vast quantities. Laos is one of the few countries left in the world where the majority of its landscape is forested. Sailing down the river, the soaring limestone mountains on either side were densely covered in lush, verdant montane forest buzzing with butterflies and swooping birds. The occasional cottage one sees peeking through the vegetation looks like an intruder on what must be one of the world's great remaining wildernesses. While our captain skillfully navigated floating debris and eddying whirlpools for hours on end we hardly saw another man-made thing apart from a few long, flat, narrow fishing boats being paddled by dark-skinned semi-naked locals. It is a shame that the physical discomfort of the boat dulled the enthusiasm for the extraordinary countryside vista and by nightfall the passengers positively cheered with delight as we berthed at the small town of Pak Beng for the half-way mark.

One of my overwhelming perceptions of the journey will be the obvious wealth difference between the Westerners and locals. The majority of people on board were European students backpacking in their university holidays. Despite the inevitable grubbiness of the travellers they looked infinitely healthier and wealthier than any local you could encounter. The average backpack contained more value than most locals would see in five, perhaps even ten, years. A cleaner in a guesthouse in Laos earns about 15 pounds a month, a sum so pitiful that one can lose the heart to bargain over rooms that only cost a pound a night but could be had for less if you were tough.

On the second day of the boat trip, I sat next to an American girl who took no time to tell me she suffered from ADHD. I assumed she needed a bucket of cold water over her head, but as time wore on and the air became discomforting, sultry and humid, I was exceptionally pleased that she was regularly taking her four different types of medication. "I need to lock my house exactly five times every morning before I leave" said nutcase Jenny from Boulder, Colorado "or I spend the rest of my classes banging my head against my desk. But that is not the worst of it" she continued, "if I don't lock my car exactly seven times, I have to drive home again and start my morning routine over, which makes me late for class, often". Jenny was reading a book called The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, but I think there was a much bigger crack in her head and that the interior was filled with albumen and little else. Still, her lunatic ravings made the day pass with wry amusement, and day two did not seem as bottom-numbing as day one.

When we finally docked at Luang Prabang, I managed to escape Jenny's pleadings "to see the world from the seventh cosmic perspective" and headed into the sleepy but idyllic town of cafes, bakeries and teak shuttered century-old French buildings.