Cruising down the Mekong, Day 2

Pak Beng. That's pretty much all there is to the town.

Spent most of the evening in Pak Beng trying to dodge a Laos Professor who'd latched onto me at the guesthouse. Apparently he specialised in earthworms.

"You've heard of earthworm?", he asked me during our first conversation. I knew he was a Professor and that he was working in the area. So, for some reason I thought he was referring to some sort of 'project earthworm', that any Westerner with a heart should know about. Perhaps some kind of Oxfam-type scheme, where they don't just get a fish, they get a net so that they can do their own fishing. Work themselves out of poverty. That sort of thing. Yep, Project Earthworm. I was a big supporter already.

"Have I heard of Earthworm?" I attempted a serious, yet caring face. "I definately recognise the name, and the sort of area it's in, but I'm not exactly sure what it does if i'm honest."

This seemed to confuse him. It evidently wasn't the answer he was after. He resorted to simply repeating himself. "Earthworm." He waggled his finger. This, I understood.

"Oh the actual earthworm. Yeah,I know those." And so he went on to talk at me for half an hour about his earthworm fun. He'd been digging up the critters all over Laos, and had even found one 115cm long in the North. I wasn't sure if this was exceptional in the world of earthworms, so I ventured an entusiastic "wow! That's big!"

"No," he corrected. "Long, not big." Schoolboy error. Clearly, I still had a lot to learn about studying the earthworm.

My wads of Laos cash

The Laos currency is Kip, by the way. It's almost as pointless as the Lira was. 10,000 Kip to a US Dollar. So, when I changed my Dollars to Kip at the border, the guy got out 2 fat wads of cash. I expected him to count out what I was owed. He pushed them towards me. Slightly embarrassed by my sudden elevation to cash-in-hand millionaire, I stuffed the wads in my bag and made my exit.

Mist on mountains next to Mekong

The journey on the Mekong the next day was a bit more pleasant as the boat was less crowded. There was, however, a massive rainstorm, which forced the driver to beach us for 20 minutes, as the engine was filling up with water and we had begun to list to one side. The baggage on board was shifted to the other to act as a counter-weight. With a bit of bailing and an easing up of the storm, we were soon back on our way, and arrived in Luang Prabang in the early evening. Joined up with some English guys I'd met on the boat and got a cheap guesthouse, before sniffing out a bar that was showing live Prem. Caught Everton stuffing Liverpool 3-0. Not the re-introduction to football I'd have liked.

Cruising down the Mekong, Day 2

Muang Pakbeng, Laos