A real Burma of a Day

Xmas Lunch

It's Christmas Day, and we're on a journey into the unknown. Last night, we clicked with a New York couple over a few BeerLaos, and decided to charter a boat to head up the Mekong, through the remote jungle of Northern Laos. Around midday, our pilot pulls up on the Burmese side of the river, and tells us to get out. We're initially somewhat alarmed, particularly as the quicksand immediately swallows Susan's legs. But it turns out that the next stretch of river involves crazy rapids, and the pilot doesn't want to risk our lives as well as his own. So we end up having our Christmas lunch of tuna sandwiches on a riverbank in Burma, hoping that immigration rules don't apply in the jungle. After a trek through the undergrowth, we rejoin our boat upstream, which has happily survived the rapids.