The Slow Boat to Luang Prabang

---

As always, please forgive spelling and grammatical errors - I do not know where the spell check is on this blog and I don't proofread my work. Also, make sure to scroll down past the ads for more pictures, or click on one and you should see them all.

Chiang Khong, Thailand was really just a stopover before crossing the Mekong to Huay Xai, Laos. We enjoyed dinner at this fabulous Mexican restaurant in Chiang Khong. The owner was best described as an aging Thai hippy with a passion for cooking western food the western way. His homemade whole wheat bread was some of the best I've had anywhere - keeping in mind that all they eat over here is white bread, this was quite the baking feat! He also made fabulous mexican food and homemade nachoes and salsa. I'm getting hungry just thinking about his food :P

We got up early in the morning to catch the ferry across to Laos. We walked to the pier, where we had to stop first at Thai customs and hand over our exit card to leave Thailand. I was a little worried about getting over to the Laos border crossing to get our visa in time to catch the slow boat. Everyone else we met had already purchased their tickets for the slow boat through their guest house - one family had even purchased the trip back in Chiang Mai. However, it was easy to do on our own. We just took a rickety old long boat ferry across to Huay Xai, Laos, and proceeded to purchase our Laos visa with no difficulty at all. Once we had our visa and our passport inspected we took two steps up the street and a whole bunch of people tried selling us tickets for the slow boat to Luang Prabang. There's a speed boat you can take too, but we've heard it's dangerous - there are a lot of accidents with the speed boats on the Mekong. I could see why later, with all the debris in the river, it would be hard to avoid it all at high speeds.

As soon as we had purchased our tickets, we were ushered up the road away from the pier, onto the main road where a tuk-tuk was waiting for a group of us. We were driven through town for a few minutes to another pier where a bunch of long boats awaited us, but first, we had to wait at a small cafe while they picked up more passengers - this took several trips and about an hour on their part. Finally we were issued tickets after handing over our passport numbers, and assigned seats on the boat. I couldn't help but wonder if we had purchased tickets for the right boat, as none of the people at our guest house were anywhere to be seen, and I was curious to know if their boat was better than ours.

On the boat I was amused to see all the seats were just car seats bolted to 2 by 4s and set into rows on the floor. We were in seats 62 and 64 - not beside each other, but aisle seats next to each other - but a quick change of seats with others in the same predictament, and all was well - seats 63 and 64. More people trickled onto the boat over the next hour, and just as I was getting impatient to go, and all the seats were finally filled, and they had even brought in an extra couple of seats and shuffled us forward (removing precious bits of limited leg room) to accommodate a few more people - a huge crowd appeared. At this point a bunch of us looked up and down this already overcrowded boat (someone mentioned the capacity was 70 and we were already at 100). It was getting dangerous that this crowd of passengers were being loaded onto our boat! Then I saw who it was - all those people from our guesthouse who had prebooked, plus a bunch of other people. They had been sitting at a different cafe for about two hours waiting to be taken to their boat. Now they were cramming them on to our boat, and there was no room! They couldn't even put their bags in the hold under the deck as it was full, so they had to carry them on. They had them sitting in the back, on the floor - anywhere they could find an inch of space. A lot of us were getting upset, and of course, these new passengers were angry because they had no seats. Then this Spanish fellow started yelling out how unsafe it was, and a small revolt happened. Many of us were yelling to get another boat, that it wasn't safe, and we even turned back the crew from adding more seats in the aisles, and the crew relented when Peter led a resounding chant of "No! No!" at their attempts. Eventually a group of new passengers got off the boat in protest, and most without seats followed, including the large family from our guest house who had bought their tickets in Chiang Mai. Initially they were told if they didn't get back on the boat they would have to wait until tomorow, but finally they agreed to a second boat, but charged an extra 50 baht per person - which is only about a buck and a half. We all cheered as we had won our battle, and both boats started the journey.

Now the trip to Luang Prabang takes two days - about 6 or 7 hours each day with an overnight stop in Pakbeng halfway to Luang Prabang. The boat has a toilet on it and snacks and beer are sold at a marked up price of course. I was wondering how two days cramped on a boat would be, but the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. Laos only has a population of about 7 million people and 80% of them live in villages. We saw many villages along the Mekong over those two days, none of them very large - just a collection of bamboo huts and a few small boats along the shoreline. There were a number of cows tied up and grazing along the river banks, as well as water buffalo. In one town we saw a working elephant pulling timber from the bush down to the river but that was the only elephant we have seen so far in this land of a million elephants. In fact, we saw very little wildlife at all in hundreds of km of jungle. Only a couple of birds and a few butterflies and one dragonfly. I thought it was odd not to see wildlife and wonder if this was the natural state of the Mekong or if the wildlife has been killed off.

The river itself was muddy brown, as are all rivers around here. The soil is red and reminds me of P.E.I. back home. I imagine there is a lot of iron in the soil. The water is full of debris - a lot of floating logs and branches, but also many bottles, flip flops (we saw several) and styrofoam containers littered the waters. When we stopped at a village to pick up some locals, young kids came on the boat selling beer and snacks and just flipped the bottle caps right into the river. The people use it as a garbage dump, which is so discouraging to see, but for them it is a way of life.

We arrived in Pakbeng around dinner time and checked into our guest house. The town consisted of a paved road coming up from the river, and on both sides were guest houses, shops and restaurants, all serving the boat passengers. We ate a fabulous Laos meal at our guesthouse restaurant overlooking the river (but if we looked over the railing, it was full of garbage all down the bank).

We were told to make sure we were back down at the pier before nine the next morning. I was suspicious when we were told we may not be on the same boat, so we made sure we were at the boats by 8:30, and it was a good thing, too, because the seating was no longer assigned, and the boat was already half full. This time they had a combination of double and triple seats and we got one of the last double seats available. I was not so surprised to notice that this boat had even more seats on it, and they weren't loading two boats. I did notice that this boat had a handful of lifejackets - something I did not see on the first boat.

Most of the passengers had seats but a few arrived and they were suprised that they did not and tried to get people fired up to demand another boat, but few people were interested because this time they had seats. One Spanish couple refused to stay on the boat, and we left the pier wondering if they would get on an overcrowded boat tomorrow if they had a seat or if they would perhaps spend extra money and take a private boat or a speed boat.

By the time we arrived in Luang Prabang, I had seen enough of the Mekong and the jungle to last me a lifetime. It just goes on and on for forever. I cannot say I have ever seen so many hues of green in one place and probably never will again. The banks along the Mekong are stunningly beautiful and in this overcrowded area of the world it is surprising to see so much pristine land. A lot of it is used for farming - we saw many corn fields out there - but so much exists in its natural state and the beauty of it should be seen by all before the banks become commercialized with industry.

We were glad to see Luang Prabang, a UNESCO world heritage sight, and a town of 26,000 people where the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers meet.

---

Photos

Playing guitar on the boat
It was great that I could practise and no one could hear my guitar over the engine of the boat!

Comments

[Loretta]

love the picture of you playing the guitar! This sounds like quite the journey - in theory I'd love the idea of a slow boat, but there are definitely challenges. Enjoying the blog a lot!