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Published: February 24th 2007
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What an excellent trip. Awoke at the crack of dawn and packed up, the rickshaw driver arranged the day before showed up on time and we were down to the border station in minutes. Mornings are chilly, but the days stinking hot. There's a bizarre temperature difference just walking from the shade out into the sun.
We hooked up with our tour and got stamped out of Thailand, then down to the muddy water's edge and into a motorized canoe-like boat for the one minute trip across river to Houay Xai in Laos. Got the baggage out, up the hill, stamped into Laos, then a quick taxi ride to the actual boat.
The boats are very long and narrow, with a gentle curve up at each end. Formerly cargo boats where a traveler in past would ask to ride along seated on a sack of rice or the roof, now some specifically for tourism with luxurious salvaged minivan seats bolted in. Crew quarters at rear, decent bathroom and even a retractable sunroof section. The captain sat right up
at the very front, with the heap of our luggage behind him. There is no real wharf per se, only the muddy bank and a narrow gangplank.
Soon we were off. The Mekong is reasonably wide at this point, but it is rocky and in some places more narrow and turbulent with eddies and standing waves. The boat proved quite seaworthy and dry however. At first the hills are relatively gentle, but become more interesting as the day wears on. The scenery rolled by and we chatted with the folks on board and ate the bananas, nuts etc. that we'd brought with us. Soon people shed their jackets from the morning chill and succumbed to the heat, stretching out here and there to sleep.
It feels extremely remote, and it is. Occasionally we'd pass a very small village with a garden and a few thatch huts, but otherwise it was steep hills with thick forest. There are rocks present, but they change in character from section to section, and are interspersed with sand. The boat traffic is quite light, some cargo boats and a handful of the speed boats as well. At one small village we stopped and
a couple of women vendors came aboard with baskets of pomello, oranges, bananas and tamarind. There's some crop grown by villagers in neat rows right in the sandy bank, but I can't say what it is. Also the odd herd of cows or buffalo.
One fellow had a GPS and figured we were making about 20mph. Around 5pm he calculated that we wouldn't arrive until around 8pm - not the advertised 5:30! That would make the total travel time about 12 hours, and when someone revealed that the normal slow boat trip was two 6 hour sections, there was a sudden dawning on the entire group just what this "medium" option was - slow boat that doesn't stop. The result is that the last hour and a half were done at dusk. The river had widened significantly at this point, so the rocks were not a real danger, but the boats don't generally travel after dark. Still, interesting to see it at night - I could pick out various constellations, small cooking fires here and there, a small forest fire burning, and lights from any village with a generator.
Finally we pulled into Louang Prabang and got our
stuff up the bank onto the riverside road. Farah guarded the luggage and I scrambled to find a guest house. The place was full! We've mostly winged accommodation the entire trip, partly because trying to make a reservation can be difficult, but this was the most stressful time. "Sorry, full; Sorry; full." I got very worried when one fellow said he'd put a mat on the floor for us if we couldn't find anyplace at all; he also asked if we wanted to go to a wedding - he needed some foreigners there and would supply a minivan - might have been fun, but I couldn't conceive why he'd want foreigners at a wedding, so I don't know if there was some kind of scam there. At last I found a place with a room left, and it was quite decent considering it seemed to be the last room available anywhere; still, we moved the next day into somewhere 'cool' rather than sufficient once some rooms had cleared out.
I hurried back to pick up Farah just as the cafe was closing, and we met some pals from the boat who gave us a hand carrying our luggage. Suddenly,
Pakbeng
The halfway point and only significant settlement encountered a small monkey tied to a pole near a vendor suddenly jumped on the one guy and luckily he pulled away before it could bite him. We passed by an atmospheric orange market; hills of oranges with interspersed candles casting a glow on the vendors faces. Louang Prabang is recognized by UNESCO, and my first impression was a good one, lovely houses with shutters and a very pretty night market. Time to sleep...
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