Is it Lao or Laos?

We arrived in Chiang Khong about an hour and a half after we left Baan Immanuel. I tried to sleep on the drive, but it was a curvy, bumpy ride that kept forcing my tired head to hit either the chair in front of me, the window next to me, or Cherise’s shoulder. I finally decided to just stay awake and Cherise and I translated the Thai worship songs that were playing on the radio and sang them with passion and the driver and his friend were just smiling as we sang. When we arrived I’m sure the two guys were relieved because they no longer had to listen to our singing, but my dad was still stuck with our lovely voices as we walked to our boat to take us across the Mekong River to get to Laos (or as the Thai people say, Lao). We piled into the long, wooden boat, with many other foreigners from all around the world, and sat as our boat driver tried 3 times to start the boat. He would start it, we’d move a couple feet and then it would stall- exactly what we pictured our boat would be like to get us to Laos. Five minutes later, we were on the Laos side getting our Laos visas, handing our passports to the border patrol and then waiting for our taxi that took us to the 2 day boat that would bring us to Luang Prabang.
We had no idea what to expect for our boat that would drive us to Luang Prabang. It was longer than our first boat, but still wooden and creaky and the fumes that emitted from the engine were enough to make you want to jump over the side for some fresh air. We sat on wooden benches that could barely fit two people, with small cushions on them- which didn’t even help once your butt was completely numb anyways. The first boat ride was 8 hours and had us moving from the seat to the ground to standing to try to get the feeling back into our butts. We stayed that first night in Pakbeng- a small village on the way to Luang Prabang. We had a cute little guesthouse and we spent the night playing card games on our balcony and watching the locals as they went about their normal business. There is a large French influence in Laos, so the architecture was beautiful and at every turn there was a small food stand that sold sandwiches on French baguettes- it was so nice to have an actual sandwich. Our boat left that next morning, and this time we arrived early to try and get good seats. We were so thankful that we did, because this boat actually had seats in the front. There were about ten rows, with two seats on each side. The seats were like bus seats and they reclined. Our butts were very happy that we woke up early. This boat ride was another 8 hours to get us to Luang Prabang where we met really neat people from all around the world (Spain, France, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Switzerland, England, Germany, Canada, The States, Italy, Ireland, and more), had wonderful conversations, and filled up our time with more card games. Even though our seats were more comfortable, we were so glad when we saw the town of Luang Prabang approaching us. We gathered our backpacks and made our way down the plank, through the water, and up the hill. When we reached the top, there were the Laos people attacking us with “good price on guesthouse…best price, really I have best price”. We walked around the town, backpacks on backs, and ended up really finding “the best price”. We were exhausted but we treated ourselves to some pizza (which actually tasted like pizza), and then enjoyed a wonderful night’s sleep on our first night in Laos….or is it Lao?