Slow-boat down the Mekong

With our Laos visas in hand, we bussed up through progressively more rural countryside to the border crossing at Chiang Khong, on the bank of the Mekong river. With just enough time to spare, we had our passports stamped and jumped on a narrow ferry boat to cross the river which beached itself in the shallow water and we stepped off onto the wet, muddy shores of Laos - fortunately we were wearing flip-flops. We paid our 'overtime' fee of 50 cents to the Laos immigration official and found ourselves a room at a basic guest house in the sleeping border town of Huay Xai.

We gradually grew accustomed to the glacial pace of things in Laos - the internet cafe, at twice the price of those in Thailand, was using a dialup connection (the horror) as we searched in vain for tips on how to revive Katie's iPod that suddenly refuses to switch on. We went out for dinner and waited half an hour before I tracked down our drinks, and then another hour before my food arrived whereupon we realized that Katie's order was still a complete mystery to the staff. And the food... well, I guess we're not in Thailand anymore.

In some ways, Laos reminds me of Bolivia, in being a country where poverty is such that for most of the population the main objective each day is merely surviving. There is little money to spare for the luxuries of creative cuisine.



In the morning, after much confusion about our ticket, we boarded the slow-boat to Luang Prabang with 100 or so other travelers (and a handful of locals). For the benefit of other travelers I will mention that even at this time in high season there was absolutely no need to arrive the night before to buy a ticket - one could simply buy a ticket at the office by the dock in the morning an hour or so before the scheduled departure.

As the boat filled up, a comedy ensued as a German couple insisted that their seats (as indicated by a number on their tickets) were being occupied by a large Dutch woman. They had arrived two hours early and then both gone off to buy supplies for lunch, confident that they had assigned seats, and in the meantime the boat had filled up with most of us assuming it was free-seating, with guides and the boat operators confirming both points of view. The Germans held to their principle of correct seat assignments (in spite of the fact that any move at that point would necessitate that half the boat changed seats), and the Dutch woman stubbornly refused to bow to pressure (with moral support from a gaggle of heckling Dutch girls across the aisle). The showdown ended with the worst possible outcome, when a boatman produced a plastic chair which he placed in the aisle and all three of them had to sit next to each other for the rest of the day.



The Mekong starts its meandering path in Tibet, then passes through China and Myanmar, and outlines the border between Laos and Thailand for a while before entering Cambodia where it spreads wide enough to embrace thousands of islands as it finally turns East into Vietnam and empties into the sea. Where we began our trip it was as narrow as 150 feet in places, but usually about a quarter of a mile wide. There were rock outcrops everywhere and powerful, swirling currents of reddish water and occasional little rapids in places where the water was shallow. It was clearly not a trivial river to navigate in a long, overladen, lumbering boat at this time of year (it was clear that there was no limit to the number of tickets sold, and after the first 80 were seated on the cramped benches, the remaining passengers found plastic chairs, floor space, or perched themselves on backpacks wherever they could fit).



The alternative to the slow-boat (which takes 2 days with an overnight stop in Pakbeng), is unsuprisingly, the fast-boat. These are brightly painted, slender speedboats with a high-revving engine and a long propeller shaft sticking out the back producing a rooster-tail plume of water. A small handful of brave, helmet-wearing passengers crouch in pairs, leaning into the 30 knot wind as they are pummelled by the light chop. Occasionally a fast-boat hits a submerged log, or a rock and disintegrates - recently, two tourists were killed when this happened. Occasionally a slow-boat fails to maneuver around a rock outcropping and sinks too. It was all very easy to imagine, especially since it was clear that the waterline during the rainy season was 10 or 15 feet higher, with a completely different set of obstacles.

We passed a rather sleepless night in Pakbeng, after more difficulties ordering food at dinnertime, and after a very long second day on the river, we arrived in Luang Prabang where we treated ourselves to a nice clean bedroom with comfortable beds, private bathroom and hot-water.



Apart from being woken at 4am by the rooster outside, we both had a glorious night's sleep.