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Published: January 4th 2011
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The trip from Huey Xai to Luang Prabang by "slow boat" takes 2 days - compared to the speed and noise of the fishermen seen along the river, the expression seems preposterous: our modernized junk-boat carries from 80 to 120 people. Its shape long and slender, its single aisle, a wooden roof and open windows, rows and rows of what used to be car seats, an exposed truck engine roaring in the back, make the whole thing seem the weirdest trip on a plane from another dimension. In the morning of the second day, I get down to the boat at 7am. Although it is "scheduled" to leave at 9am, I know from yesterday's experience that getting a "bad seat" (a wooden planck so near the next row of wooden planks that you barely can squeeze your knees inside) means 7 hours of agony. So i get a good seat and wait.
By 9am, the boat is already full with 120 people. New rows of car seats have been added from the roof - yet, there are still 16 latecomers who will not accept to board the ship (at this point the space is so restricted that getting another 16
people on board means really agony for everybody. They refuse to board, and a discussion ensues with the captain. For them, getting a second boat to take the 16 foreigners to Luang Prabang means a loss. Each morning all passengers from the previous day are shifted to a new boat, trying to send as less boats as possible down the river. So lot of pushing and pulling. The farangs get on board calling for help from the other travellers.....if another 20 people get OFF the boat, for the Lao rivermen will be definitely more convenient to send another ship rather than issue a refund. But us passengers remain silent, and nobody joins in the protest getting off the boat.....each place has been hardly gained and the prospect of being stranded for one day in Pakbeng is not rosy....
The captain (a stocky Lao with a seasoned face and a big golden watch at his wrist) threatens to leave all of them in Pakbeng (hardly a village in the middle of nowhere) if they don't board the ship immediately and leave them waiting for the day after.....I imagine that the same scene repeats itself more or less each day......farangs protesting
they've been cheated, captains pushing them on board with very few compliments.....after half an hour the coin is tossed. The ship leaves with the 16 mutinees remaining on the ground. I feel divided: on one hand, they're right: most of them have paid more than double the actual price of the trip and been issued a receipt for half the amount paid by the greedy government officials selling the tickets....on the other, they're not: I think it is about time to stop whining about minor inconveniences and get on with the trip itself.
So we leave them on the ground, and start our trip down the Mekong. A few stops along the way for some remote hut in the middle of nowhere, to deliver maybe a bag of rice, and we hear another boat coming from behind us. Almost empty, it carries 16 farangs who are now cheering....just as we all do, happy for their victory. Way to go guys, way to go!
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