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Dec.7 We wanted to take a truck up to Phong Sali - but we were leaving too early so we had to take a slow motor boat up the Nam Ou. Down at the harbor we met a man who spoke a perfect oxford English (wonder what & how he had ended his life as a port captain in a small village in the middle of no where) he told us that we should pay 7000 kip for the trip like any other. Found a boat & started our journey up the river. It was a very long (8 1/2 hour )& beautiful trip. Rain forest - villages - mountains - children - water buffaloes - fishing men - rocks - life was relaxing & life peaceful. The boat was long & slender & we sat in the bottom of it - a guy stood in the front with a long stick & guarded us through rough areas like rocks & mini water falls. Finally we reached Hat Sa. The boat owner wanted double amount of money from us - I argued it back to same prize for us like same prize for locals - using sign language. It was really funny - especially when I told him he was a flat nose by pressing my nose flat with a finger. The Ferlang sign is holding the hand up like you make fun of them. I won 7000 kip for each of us is what he got. Now the adventure started. "Indiana Jones GO HOME". Phong Sali was up 13 kilometers away - but the car was an old Chinese jeep & the "road" looked like a dried riverbed & it went very up hill. The Jeep needed water for every 15 min. it drove - & it somehow kick started backward - crawled a little on this road of rocks & holes - coughed & died - again it needed water. We hung on to the wires inside (NEVER knew I had upper arm muscles like this). The seats fell apart & the gasoline smell was horrible. Finally after 1 ½ hour we reached town. Was dropped off out side a Chinese Cooperative kinda hotel. Placed way up over looking town. We got a room with 4 beds - thick feather quilts at least the beds were clean - there were spider webs everywhere in the room. Ate a strange dinner in a room fully decorated with glitter decorations & went to bed at 06:20pm. Dec.8 Slept wonderful - woke up at 08:00am. Went sight seeing - it a wide town very close to the Chinese border. It's full of tiny wooden houses - a few concrete ones & a new Chinese hotel - downtown. The surrounding hills are brown & wild. We ate some noodle soup - mainly water - gray noodles & watercress. To stay away from getting ill - we bought some vitamin C & eat them like candy. We went down to register - the poor official couldn't figure out how we were related - so to make him more confuse I told him that David was my baby - I would have been a young mum - but the guy accepted the facts that ferlangs are strange. We went back to the "castle on the hill" & had fun sitting on the wall looking at the kids dancing & jumping around under us. We dropped go cards& Carlsberg combs we won in Cambodia down to them - we all had great fun. Later we took another walk - feed a monkey - said "Sa bai dji" to 100's of kids & ate veggie dinner at the new Chinese hotel. The night was cold & dark.