The Slow Boat to Luang Prabang

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The two-day boat trip down the Mekong river from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang has been billed as one of the most worthwhile journeys to take in Laos. It certainly introduced me to the natural beauty of Laos, and to the great people here. It also gave me a front row seat to witness the damage that tourism and outside influences can do to a peaceful, agrarian culture.

I took a lot of pictures on the trip, and many of them were quite beautiful. However, many of them were also crap, and a lot of the landscape shots seemed redundant. So, I've edited the pics down to the 30 you see here, and given some commentary. Enjoy.


My Top Four Photos

The first four photos here are really my favorites of the whole bunch, reminding me of exactly what I love so much about the country of Laos. There's the massive river and the beautiful views of its banks; the indications of an aesthetic, ascetic farming lifestyle; the fabulous wildlife; the quaint style of cooking, and the hints that food and sharing really are central to the culture; and there's the awe-inspiring majesty of nature to be witnessed everywhere.


Getting Ripped-Off in Huay Xai

When we came into Huay Xai (on the Laotian side of the border from Chiang Khong), we thought the place looked fantastic, but it quickly left a sour taste in our mouths.

Immediately upon disembarking from our border-crossing longboats, we were corralled onto a porch outside the customs office. A woman who may or may not have worked for the border-post began to request passports and paperwork. Two or three more than a dozen confused Farang milled around the porch, confusedly filling things out and asking her for help when unsure. So, by the time she started taking passports and asking for money, we'd all begun to place our trust in her. Sadly, this trust was wrongly given, as we discovered minutes later that she had over-charged most of us for our Visa fees: paying the proper amount to the border personnel herself and then pocketing the change.

Still stinging from this one, we were pushed through a questionably-neccesary line to have our passports and visas verified, then ushered down a staircase onto a muddy road where we were left bewildered and afraid.

And that's when the vultures set in on us. I'd expected this kind of predatory rush when emerging from the airport terminal at Bangkok, but I didn't get it there. It did come, however, in a couple of places around Pattaya and Bangkok, where over-eager Tuk-Tuk drivers, prostitutes, and tailors had assailed crowds of foreigners--begging for business. What happened here was worse, however, because none of us had a clue where we were. We were still thinking in the Thai language and working with Thai currency. We had no maps and no concept of where we were going in this town. We hadn't even located all of our friends after the chaos of the border crossing. But, the people here knew all that, and that's why it was a perfect time to strike.

Most of us got robbed in one way or another at this point--usually in some indirect fashion. We were hassled and harangued enough in the first few minutes that the decision to get on a Slow Boat to Luang Prabang as fast as possible was pretty much universal. This gave even more scam-artists an opportunity to overcharge us on the price of tickets, or to demand additional payment from those who had already purchased their tickets in advance. It all got pretty confusing, but eventually Mike and I and the Canucks and the Swedes we'd joined up with all made our way to some seats in the shade to await the free Sangthaew ride to the boat docks.

And that was when the worst one came.

At first, it seemed like a joke. One of the ladies from the ticket-desk came up to us and insisted that she'd only recieved payment for 5--not 6--tickets. We laughed and gave her a long look at each of our faces and reminded her of the passport numbers we'd written down for her and of the receipts she'd given each of us when we put our money in her hands--one at a time, with witnesses. She smiled and apologized and left.

Then our truck arrived, and the driver got out to check our tickets and start loading us on... and the lady came back. This time she told him the story about the missing payment, raising her voice and waving her arms and making it seem like quite the travesty. He told us he refused to leave until the issue was resolved.

So we sat there for a very long time. It wasn't just us who were inconvenienced, either, it was a group fo 7 or 8 other foreigners who'd had the bad luck to be thrown in with us while we were being scammed. The lady decided that it was one of the Canadians, Paul, who hadn't paid her. She sat across from him and scowled and railed off bullshit in Lao to the driver while the rest of us told both of them over and over again that we had all been standing there with Paul when he paid her, and SHE HAD GIVEN HIM A RECEIPT.

But she wasn't gonna let it drop, not after getting the driver on her side and really tasting the position of power she was in. Who knows, maybe she pulled this kind of thing every day; there was no one to report it to and nothing they could do about it anyway.

Eventually Paul paid her the extra fare (which wasn't cheap) and we were all released to catch our boat, which was minutes away from departure.

It took quite a while for the calm and excitement of adventure to settle back into our bones. Joy was especially delayed when they decided to take our passports again at the boat terminal for another check. Eventually, though, close to a hundred of us ended up crammed into a couple of wild-looking riverboats--cargo strapped to the top--and we pushed off down the muddy Mekong, waving goodbye to the deceptively cute and primitive Huay Xai.


Nic, the Laotian Boatmen

After a few long minutes on the river, we all began to forget Hauy Xai and appreciate the fascinating landscapes surrounding us. A guy went along the aisles selling bags of scraggly Lao weed, and most of the passengers rolled-up joints. Others of us hung off the sides of the boat taking pictures. I quickly found my own way to fill the time.

I'd climbed on the roof of the boat in Huay Xai, at first to switch my backpack and Mike's over when we switched boats, then later to help load some cargo and to take a couple of pictures. So, when the other boat broke down and we moved in to give them a tow, the Lao boat-tenders invited me back on top to help them with the ropes.

Our monstrous Isuzu engine gave enough power to drag both boats in to the next river-village where the other one could get started. Then, of course, I served as a boatman again: tossing ropes and using a long bamboo pole to push off from shore. This was the beginning of two days of work that allowed me views and experiences that none of the other travellers had access to--in fact, I bet very few people (if any) have ever had a Slow Boat trip quite like mine.

I spent most of this entire day, and the next, running around on top of the boat. A lot of that time was just playing around with the Lao kids that worked up there: making joking attempt to push one another off, hanging our heads over to scare the people below, waving at other boats, pointing out the cool houses we saw hanging off the hillsides and the elephants we saw bathing in the river. I also got a few opportunities to sun-tan and to get some exercise. But the reason I was up there was to work, and the most important thing we did on the rooftops was guide the boat into and out of the multitude of small village-harbors along the way.

I saw a lot of pretty stuff up there, but I there's no way I could have fit it all in a camera.


Bat Beng, or Whatever the Hell Its Called

Potheads, Photographers, Boatmen, Conversationalists: we all had a peaceful and satisfying first day on the river. But, that was all crushed when we got into Bat Beng.

I've heard the name of this place pronounced many different ways, and I've seen it spelled a few ways also--mostly accompanying warnings about how shitty the town is and entreaties to not take this as representative of all Laos. "Bat Beng" is how it sounded to me when the people living there pronounced it, and that's what I'm going to call the place.

It sucks.

As soon as we got off the boats, we were assaulted again, just as we had been in Huay Xai. Luckily for me--or so I thought--I had a boatman friend who had a friend in town who was gonna get us a good deal on a room. The Swedes and the Canadians were nowhere in sight, so I grabbed Mike out of the crowd and we followed this 'helpful' character up to the cheap guest house he'd promised. It was cheap, and it was well-located, but that was the only silver-lining around the cloud of this sleazy river-town.

I was then required to accompany this guy on a long motor-scooter ride (helmetless, in the dark, along some really dodgy, crowded roads) out to his house on the outskirts of town where he attempted to pressure-sell me some grams of opium. It turns out that the Lao boatman I'd befriend was like 14 years old and this guy was his 'cool' older friend. In reality, this dude was a shitty rural drug-dealer with some bad homemade tattoos and he coulda stood side-by-side with dozens of people I knew growing up in Sedro-Woolley. I'm not sure what kind of Farang he'd met over the years, but he thought I'd be pretty stoked to hear how much opium and crystal meth he smoked. I wasn't.

The cool part about this little side-treck, though, was seeing the way that most people in rural Laos live. After 2 kilometers or so of the well-lit Bat Beng village that foreigners got to see, we got into the real village. There were no more restaraunts and over-priced little trinket shops and shoddy guest houses, now it was just campfires and shacks and the flicker of candle-light: for miles. It reminded me a lot of the way my parents lived in the treehouse when I was a baby, and I liked it. Sure, the sanitation isn't that great, and you've got no TV, but this is the chilled-out back-to-basics kind of lifestyle that a lot of people in the west are trying to recover. Except for the opium and crystal meth part.

Ok, back to that guy. He dragged me around a few places, we rode the motorscooter down some rocky trails that a horse would have trouble on, and eventually I got dumped back in town.

I found my friends (all of them, including Ronan and Lucy, the Irish dude and his Scottish girlfriend that we met on the road from Chiang Khong), and we went into a restaraunt. However, we were followed into the restaraunt by pushy-opium-meth-guy. And it wasn't just him: it was 3 or 4 other pushy opium guys as well. They harrassed us and pressured us while we ate and drank our fruit shakes or beers. They also followed us and harrassed us while we walked down the street and went from bar to bar. At some point we shook all these guys, miraculously, but it didn't last long.

You see, the 'touristy' part of Bat Beng is run on a system of generators, and at 10pm every night, all the generators are shut off. That means that even the swanky part of town is taken down to campfires and candles and flashlights and the illumination from cellphone screens.

We were all shocked, having been used to staying out all night every night in Thailand, but we quickly figured ways to enjoy ourselves. For example, a group of us decided to go up to the balcony of our guesthouse and play card games by flashlight. And that's when the opium guys found us again.

I guess the opium racket is so reliable in Bat Beng, and the opium laws so unenforced, that these guys pursue it relentlessly day and night. Even though we were sitting on the balcony, in a guesthouse, enjoying a game of cards, and minding our own business, the same pushy-opium-meth-guy from before came all the way up there to continue trying to pressure us for a sale. He also bummed cigarettes off of my friends and had the gall to try to join the card game.

Eventually we convinced him to get on his way. After that, every time we heard someone approaching in the street below we turned out our lights and hushed our voices and hid ourselves while they passed. When that got old, we felt our way through the dark to our beds and turned it in.

We awoke early the next morning and rushed to get onto the boats. Lo and behold, there was pushy-opium-meth-guy to greet us. I guess the meth had kept him up all night and he was ready for some early morning high-pressure sales.

Not at all prepared to deal with this shit, we hurried down to the docks, got on the first boat that was ready, and waved goodbye to Bat Beng and pushy, meth-smoking opium dealers.

Time again to embrace the forgiving sweetness of the river.


Jane the Monkey

Just as expected, the river quickly erased the foul tastes of the night before. The sun was out, and we were soaring past early-morning fishermen, stopping now and then to dock in little river-villages and pick up cargo or passengers.

I continued with my job as an honorary Lao Boatman, poling the boat into a series of villages hit extremely hard by the recent floods. In one such village, we took on a monkey.

At first, the monkey was just an interesting sight at the side of the river. They had her in a cage outside a shop that was selling wierd snacks and warm Beer Lao. When we got out to look around, she became a real popular photo opp. and we all thought that was gonna be it.

But then they put her on the boat.

At first we thought this was a sales tactic, 'cause someone carried her over and put her in Ronan's arms (she'd taken a special shine to him in the village). I did some detective work, however, and discovered that an older guy asleep in the back was the monkey's owner, and they were just using our tourist-curiousity as a tactic to get free babysitting. Ronan really didn't want to end up buying this monkey, so I was presented with the totally-sweet opportunity to be a monkey's babysitter for the day--and I jumped at it.

You can see some pictures of Jane here, but they don't even come close to showing you how cute the little critter was. I named her Jane because we all needed something to call her, and because it made me think of, "me Tarzan, you Jane." She was just a baby, but everything about her was already so human. She wanted to explore everything, she got a kick out of surprising people and giving them a scare, and she went right to sleep when you helped her groom her fleas.

I'm sure I could say quite a bit more about Jane, but it's not coming to me right now. Let it suffice that caring for her was one of the highlights of my entire trip.


Grubbin'

This was the second day of our two-day trip, and before taking Jane on I'd been doing quite a bit of boat-work. I also took a few chances to hand the sleeping Jane off to a relief-sitter so I could pop up on the roof when needed (and after she woke up pissy and hungry later in the day, I returned her to her owner to deal with).

The Lao guys were really excited to have me up there with them, so they invited me down every now and then for a snack. This had happened on the first day as well, but I'm just writing about it now 'cause it seemed to fit better here.

The way they eat here is constantly. And they share everything. So, while working during the day, they stop at every break and at every hunger-pang to nosh on some sticky rice or some morning-glory soup or some BBQ river fish, and they make sure to never eat alone. So pretty much every time we got done pushing the boat away from shore or repairing a hole in the roof or something, I got invited down to the makeshift kitchen at the back of the engine room, and I spent a significant portion of the two days eating authentic Lao peasant-food with the guys.

This was a really great opportunity to get up close and personal with the food they enjoy in Laos, and a great opportunity to get to know some people. They're very friendly here. The language invites you to smile, and the sharing thing (with all food and drinks) is essentially geared at making others smile with you.

We ate a lot of sticky rice, some fresh fruits, some chinese-style sausage, river fish, soup made from a plant they called 'morning-glory', and a lot of 'Samu'. Samu was something we saw in the north that had a lot of resemblence to the ever-popular Laap (or Larb). It may have been the same dish, in fact, as every town and minor region of Laos has it's own fiercely-defended local dialect. Basically, Samu is diced-up meat and chillies and garlic and greens, served cold with sticky rice and eaten with your hands.

These were the moments when my love for Laos really started to blossom. This was good food, not too spicy or harsh. The flavors didn't conflict with me as much as those of the authentic Thai foods. I really enjoyed sharing with each other while smiling and telling stories. The small-talk wasn't pushy, or even neccessary most of the time.

Rolling up a ball of sticky rice and dipping it in some sauce then looking out the window at the fat, brown river and the lush jungle was just great.


The Rapids Workout

One last thing I need to mention is the workout I invented on the second day on the river. I think this is something that could become a fun sport: it's definitely extreme, and athletic.

I was on top of the boat, and the sun was hiding briefly behind some clouds. Like many times on this trip, my body was feeling soft and flabby.

So, I started to do pushups.

Then I did a set of situps.

Somewhere in there, the narrow boat hit a real rough patch of rapids. I stood up and just surfed the boat for awhile, feeling the thing shift underneath my feet and leaning my balance from side to side so as not to go flying off into the Mekong.

And that's when I saw the stick.

It was about the right length and the right circumfrence, so I picked it up and started to do some warmup stretches.

By the time we hit the next patch of rapids, I was ready. I anchored my feet and started doing big sets of seriously-deep overhead squats. It felt great and was a real physical challenge: balancing the length of your body while executing a controlled movement and staying upright on top of a shaky little boat.

At the end of the rough patch, I stopped and soaked up a wave of exhiliration. I looked around and saw there was another boat trailing us a little to the Port side. This boat was full of senioir citizens, all hanging slack-jawed out the windows, watching my antics.

And that's when I came up with my new adventure-sport: Mekong River Whitewater Weightlifting.

Maybe you can meet me there next year for the championship.


All Good Things...

"All Good Things..." was the title of the last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, I'm a geek and a plagiarist. Sue me.

But, just like the fantastic 8-year run of science fiction's greatest television series, the two-day Slow Boat trip to Luang Prabang had to come to an end.

We started in a scuzzy scam-town, spent the night in a veritable opium-den, and had two beautiful, sunny days floating along the Mekong river. I'd worked the boats, babysat a monkey, and got in good with the locals. All along the way we were treated with gorgous scenery and the fantastic company of fellow travellers.

Now we were arriving in Luang Prabang, the spiritual capital of Laos, and we were ready to come upon more great adventures.

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Photos

me, just after spraying 100% Deet directly into my eyes
(Thanks to Mike Morgan for the picture.)

Comments

[Bragi]

WOW what a trip that must have been ! I am going there soon so this was great to read before. I am looking so much forward to it. Nice Pics.