Day 130 - Thursday, May 31
As I mentioned in the last entry while describing my frantic morning in Chiang Mai, I had booked a transfer from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang in Laos that involved a minibus ride from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong (on the Thailand-Laos border), a night there, then, after crossing the border, taking a slow boat for 2 days down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.
So Thursday afternoon was spent in the minivan, traveling through rural Thailand. We stopped briefly in Chiang Rai to check out Wat Rong Khun aka "the white temple"
There's basically nothing in Chiang Khong, so once we got there, I just relaxed and caught up on some sleep.
Day 131 - Friday, June 1
Crossing the border was pretty painless, and then we headed to the "slow boat." The slow boats actually move at a pretty good pace, but are slow compared to the longtail speed boats that move very fast. I had seen pictures from other people's slow-boat trips and was looking forward to a leisurely boat ride down the river. I was expecting a boat like this:
Unfortunately, I guess because it's slow season, instead of a standard size slow boat, we got put on a smaller boat because there weren't that many people going that day. And the smaller boat was really cramped with virtually no free space. The ceiling was really low too, so there was nowhere on the boat that I could stand up, nor anywhere that I could sit and stretch out my legs. Kind of like this:
And contrary to what we had been told, there was no food or drinks for sale on the boat, and I was starving the last couple of hours. So it was not exactly the most enjoyable 7-hour ride. The ride did, however, provide some nice scenery; the river was lined with impressive rock formations and boulders and rolling hills off to either side.
That night we stayed in Pakbeng, which is a tiny town on a hill with a few hotels. The sole function of the town appears to be as a break point on the 2-day slow boat ride from Chiang Kong to Luang Prabang. The view of the river from our Pakbeng hotel:
Day 132 - Saturday, June 2
The second day on the slow boat, we actually had a regular-size slow boat, which made the whole experience vastly better. I could stretch out a lot more, could actually stand up on the boat, and there was food and drinks for sale. So that made for a very pleasant ride down the river the 2nd day. Some more photos:
Leg Injury Update
I realize that I never provided any more info about my leg as I had intended in my last post. After the x-ray showed nothing was broken, I figured it would be sore and bruised for a while, but I was still having the cramping sensation in my calf that seemed odd. When I talked to my parents the day after the spill, my mom (a physical therapist) mentioned that it might be some minor tearing of the calf muscle causing that cramping sensation. I figured that wasn't a big deal, and would heal within a week or so if I didn't do anything too strenuous to aggravate it. Well, after the long slow boat ride on Friday, about 5 days after I injured it, I noticed that, moreso than in the couple of days after the accident, my ankle was really swollen and the whole area around my ankle was purple and severely bruised. I did a little bit of research and decided that my mom was probably right, but it was probably a somewhat more severe calf strain (i.e. tearing of the calf muscle) than I had initially thought. All the bruising and swelling in my ankle was likely a result of the internal bleeding from the tear, and the blood was pooling down by my ankle. It probably also didn't help that I remained somewhat active in Chiang Mai the previous several days, including walking 18 holes of golf. So, as of Saturday, a week after the injury, my ankle was so swollen you could hardly see my ankle bone (I had cankles), and my leg wasn't really feeling any better. So when we arrived in Luang Prabang, I went out and bought an elastic (i.e., Ace) bandage to use to compress the leg and help with the swelling, as well as some ice, and decided that I should probably take it a little easier until my leg felt close to normal again, which if the internet can be believed, could be a month or longer.
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