Lili and I had retired to our bunks once again. Bunks on this boat were thin mats on the floor, covered with a thin blanket. Surprisingly comfortable.

Lucile, (Lulu in France, Lili in China, amusingly) who had quickly managed to befriend, seemingly, the entire crew, and all the rest of the passengers, came in and let us know she’d just been told we’d be arriving near in Laos within an hour and a half, and, due to the shallow depth of the Mekong at this time of year, would be taking a smaller boat to Thaliand.

“Cool!” Lili and I hadn’t been expecting to arrive at least until the following night, given the lazy way we were proceeding until that point. We got our gear together and waited out the rest of the trip.

Eventually we pulled up near the bank.. and.. sat, waiting for a while longer.

Ultimately a speedy little thing with a massive engine and one of those whippersnipper type shafts depending into the water, pulled up alongside. Owing to our planning and aggressive nature, Lili and I were among the first in line to get on the thing. Lulu was first, passing her bags to the guy and lowering herself into the rocking boat. Then Lili followed suit, as I passed her gear to the driver. Lili isn’t quite as seaworthy as she might like, she asked Lucile how to say “I’m scared” in Chinese, and, along with “Fuckfuckfuck” repeated it like a mantra, until she was safely aboard, where she hunkered down and did her best not to move an inch. The boat, now half full, was blessed then with my presence, followed by Asing. It looked like we were full, but the driver moved some bags around and three little Chinese people- two women and a boy, crammed in infront of us.

This boat was clearly designed for speed, with other considerations left until later in the design. So much so that the driver was very anxious not to let it bump against the ship we were on. I assume because we could easily get damaged, or.. I suppose thinking about it now, be capsized by the thing if it shifted weight right alongside.

“Xiexie!” We cried to the crew as the boat backed out and turned, and then we were off.. skimming at a ridiculous speed down the Mekong.

Picture the beautiful scene - calm waters, the green of the Mekong’s banks on either side, the setting sun over Myanmar, and eventually Thailand glinting its haze off the water. It was awesome. Lili just kept her eyes shut for most of it, and squeezed my leg in a whiteknuckled grip, still convinced, I think, that if she moved an inch she would tip us.

Eventually we arrived at Chiang Sean, disembarked over another boat and climbed the concrete steps up to the little immigration control office by the bank of the river. I let the bulk of us go ahead, dealing with the weight of my backpack - which I must investigate before we think about getting on a plane - and its significantly less functional nature now my waist strap is half missing.

When I rejoined the group, it became apparent that we were having trouble.

The greasy looking official behind the metal screen was telling us over and over that he stopped stamping passports at 6:00. It was 6:05.

I dumped my stuff and got my passport out. No way in hell I wasn’t being granted entry, damnit!

Asing was pleading to the man to process our entry. The fat fucker, smug behind his screen and heavy green uniform, kept telling us it was too late, the computer was switched off, he stopped at 6:00. The man repeated over and over that this wasn’t an airport, he wasn’t available at all hours. He didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and neither were we.

I stood back, biting my tongue. By some evolutionary sidestep I am entirely unequipped to survive in these situations. I’m looking at the guy and fantasising about waiting by his door on the other side of the building, and punching the side of his big fat head when he finished his shift for the night and emerged. Useless fucking beaurocrat. Authority figures always get my goat.

“Go back!” he told us, “Where to?” I ask, “How? We just came from China, on a boat for three days, our boat is GONE! There’s nowhere for us to go back to.” I point down to the water. He stares at me, expressionless, before switching to Thai and continuing (I assume from the tone) his rhetoric about this not being an airport. Asing lept to the breach, and resumed the pleading.

We assemble our passports and push them through the screen, onto his desk. He ultimately relents.. after half an hour.. and proceeds to hand out little forms. He takes his sweet time, which is fine by me, since apparently it IS his time he’s encroching on now. Stupid little wanker. Mine gets processed first, without any drama, then the others, and finally the Chinese people.

“Welcome to Thailand” offers the arrival card, clearly a mistranslation from the Thai “Go FUCK yourself!”

An hour or so into the ride, the boat seemed to sail directly into the sandy banks of the Mekong. Intentionally, it would seem, for dinner was soon served, and we ate a big meal.

Lili and I were worried that we wouldn’t be able to keep up with a horde of Chinese people, eating communal food.. but we underestimated ourselves. We seemed to be as fast as they, and certianly hungrier. We ate our fill and there was even food left over, which I think went over the side, in the end.

Rather than continuing into the night, everyone turned in and got some sleep. By now we had a forth person in our little cabin - one of the three outlaws - a guy named Asing from Northern India, also studying Chinese in China, Kunming to be exact.

Woke, for a second time, to the sound of Chinese people hawking, hacking, coughing and spitting, and shortly thereafter, by the growl of the ships engine starting up, and soon we were on our way. Seeing the bank passing, I realised that this was, in a symbolic sense at least, definitely a journey towards home. Our trip drawing to an end as we head towards the last major section of our travels - Thailand.

The day wore on at a fairly lazy pace, which saw me sitting around reading and playing my gameboy, pausing occasionally to go outside and enjoy the experience of having Laos on one side, Myanmar on the other, and the narrow rocky stretches of the Mekong below.

We appeared to run aground again, this time in Myanmar, and a few people, myself included went up from to see what was going on.

Reaching the front of the ship, I realised that half the crew were gathered chatting and joking with some local tribal-looking people - dark skinned guys in skirts. Between them, a small doe, dead, legs tied together around a bamboo pole. Some money was exchanged and the Myanmarians left. The deer was carried to the central area behind the engine room and the ship pulled away, once again, heading to Thailand.

The crew immediately set about the carcass. The young guy who met us at the bus stop nearly two days previous, who quite clearly had attention deficit disorder, unsuccessfuly fired up a blowtorch and, as far as I could see, a large section of the metal (luckily) ship, too. One of the older guys sorted the thing out, pumped the pressure up for him and ADD (as Lili came to start calling him) started torching the hair on the beast, while another used a long blade to start scraping away the fur.

The process was a long one, which we eventually grew tired of watching. We sat above decks, watching the Mekong streaming out behind us, drinking green tea and reading.

We stopped again, eventually, and some bits of offal started drifting past. Realising that we were missing the good stuff, Lili and I lept down the stairs.. but too late. The carcass was cleaned and spread open, and the cook was splitting it with his meat cleaver.

Lili bit back frustration as she watched them take the skin off with about as much skill as I, my inexperienced self, could muster if pressed.

We went back up to kill time before lunch was served. The usual rice based fair, this time with wild Burmese venison mixed into the assorted dishes! Mmm, gamey.

By this time, we figured we had another couple of days left on the boat before they finally got us to Thailand, but we were happily resigned to that fate. The food was good, the company fine and we were, at least, heading in the right direction.

Lili had been in contact with a woman who runs the Forrest Cafe in Jing Hong. One of the go-to people for getting on to a cargo boat heading to Thailand.

We were assured that there would be no problems, that we would take a boat the following afternoon and urged to catch the earliest possible bus south to the river-side town where the boat was being loaded.

Sounded all very straight forward - we bought a bus ticket and got the phone number of the captain of the ship, and the next day, hopped on one of the less comfortable busses we’ve taken on our trip. Chinese people smoke, and spit, wholeheartedly. It’s just the way things are there. So we’ve got people all around us smoking, and spitting out the windows. After we load up the bus with people, we set off, heading south. The driver stops every so often to pick up some more people - a few of which seemed to be moving, or something, since they had a LOT of boxes which were stuffed into the aisle, along with our bags, which the driver was too lazy to put on the roof. A guy in front of us had a coke carton tied up with string, which at one point, started whining and yelping, and turned out to contain two puppies. Much to my delight.
So, Lili had this theory that the guy was just pocketting the money from all these additional passengers, and I think she’s probably right, they were paying cash, and there was noone there to ensure this guy paid anyone anything.

The short bus ride turned into a long bus ride, with what appeared to be unscheduled detours to drop these late additions off. The road was, for the most part, impossibly bumpy, and the driver seemed to slow for the most inconsiquential dips in the road, and speed up for the worst of it. I think he was a certified sadist.

Eventually we arrived, and were greeted by some random kid who didn’t speak English. He helped us find a phone, I called the captain, arrangements were made. The kid snatched the phone and, it turns out, also called the captain, who told me to go with the kid, who it so happens also worked on the boat.

We boarded, and settled in, and.. waited. We managed to ask the crew what time we would be leaving. “A few minutes” we were assured. A few hours passed, dinner was served.. we got invited to watch the crew play basketball against the local border guards.. we chatted with an immigration official who kept turning the conversation around to a group of three tourists who we hadn’t encountered. Everything was pretty surreal, but reassuringly friendly and easy. It is worth noting that this little border town has at least TWO basketball courts - one, well kept, right infront of the police station, which is where the game took place. The boat crew lost, just.. and we returned to the ship.

It was getting late when Lucile, a young Frenchy who has been / is studying Chinese in China, boarded the vessel. She was nice and friendly, luckily because the three of us would soon be sharing a tiny cabin. So, dispite the three of us all being under the impression that we would be leaving any moment, night fell and we went to bed.

In the morning, breakfast was served, and we wasted a bit of time going in to town to buy some water and snacks and stuff. Later, the three tourists the border guard had been asking us about turned up at our boat, trying to gain passage to Thailand as well. Apparently another boat had agreed to take them without first checking whether they could get permission to do so. Our crew didn’t seem to want to be troubled with them, probably because we would soon be joined by a whole mob of Chinese people also making the journey, and space on this boat would be at a premium.

These newcomers, a little later, broke the news to Lucile, who passed it on to us, that the ship might not be leaving after all. Given that this was more than half a day after we were scheduled to leave, we didn’t discount the possibility, and started to worry. Lucile, our new translater, queried the crew, who basically told her not to worry. We’ve all come to know, in Asia, that such assurances are often a sure sign of impending trouble.

Not to worry, though.. ultimately the three were allowed on board, and the previously mentioned group of Chinese people also joined us. Ultimately we set sail, and all was well.

Today has been the first to start out with us having no real plans or time restrictions.. so, we didn’t get up until late, preferring to catch up on sleep and oft-sapped energy.

About 5 minutes before we would need to, I suggested we could check out and give ourselves the option of leaving Kunming today, if we so desired. It took a tad over 5 minutes to pack our stuff and sign out, but they didn’t try to charge us for the additional minutes.

The plan, thus far is to take a night bus back the way we came - leaving tonight - and get on a cargo ship to Thailand.

This random plan is justified by the fact that most of China, and its potential experiences, are closed to us, given the language barrier and our lack of planning and preparation. We both agree that we’re going to come back better prepared, probably able to actually speak a little Mandarin, and do this massive country justice.

Conversely, Thailand will be easy. We have books, and they’ll be sickeningly used to talking to English speakers, meaning we’ll hopefully spend our time feeling a bit less lost and at a loss as to what to do.