Mekong, Wekong

We departed Chiang Rai at about 0600. In a car. We were expecting a van, but it was just us two and a driver, so a car it was. The drive to the border took about two hours. Once there, we went through the formalities of exiting Thailand. After that, we were met by a representative of the company who had organised our trip. We could have done it all ourselves, but it was easier to pay a little bit more and know it was all sorted.

We sat there for about twenty minutes waiting for the bus to take us across no man’s land to Laos, walking is not allowed. Once there we had to go through the usual paperwork completion, handing over of US Dollars, and passport stamping procedure before we were officially in Laos. Now we had to another wait another hour and a half for our ride to the boat pier. We asked the rep why we had to leave Chiang Rai so early if we were just going to sit there. We didn’t get a satisfactory answer. The boat didn’t depart until 1130.

Finally our ride to the boat arrived. Our first stop was at the company office where they gave us tickets for the boat. They also lied to us; “you can buy food and drink here as there is none on the boat”. There was. And at the same price. They also offered to exchange money. We were glad to have used the ATM at the border.

Anyway, they then drove us to the boat, the slow boat down the Mekong river to Luang Prabang, stopping at Pakbeng for the night along the way. The boat was long and narrow and appeared to be watertight. We managed to get seats on padded benches facing inwards at the front, where we had room to stretch our legs. Most people had to sit in seats facing the front, though some of the young English mob (who were laden with cans of beer) got seats facing each other with a table between them. They were well back towards the stern thankfully. They got progressively louder as the day went on.

Once underway we were able to relax and talk to some other travellers and enjoy the view. It was hot but the breeze came in and made it quite bearable. We made a couple of stops to drop off and pick up passengers, but apart from that, it was just cruising down the river.

The scenery was nice, very green along the banks and up the sides of the valley, and some nice rock formations along the banks and in the middle of the river. The high water mark was visible on the rocks. We saw lots of water buffalo, including many albino specimens, along with cattle and goats. There were small villages along the way, and people at seemingly random places panning for gold. According to a local on the boat, they sometimes find a diamond, which must cause much excitement. Fishing nets were also placed at strategic points anchored on the rocks, and some people were fishing from small boats.

We arrived at the small village of Pakbeng at about 1730, an hour earlier than expected. Our ride to the guesthouse we had booked was waiting for us. We had a nice view from the balcony as the sun was going down, and also in the morning when we could see an elephant in the river a few hundred metres away. The elephant belonged to the nearby elephant park, but still, an elephant is an elephant.

A different boat took us from Pakbeng. This was a bigger boat, much wider than the first so it felt like there were fewer people. The young English contingent was much quieter and drank a lot less that day. The seats were of the type facing each other with tables between, however, we had similar seats to the day before.

This day was longer than the first, eight and a half compared to six hours, but also very relaxed as we continued down the river. There were more mountains on display, more rocks in the river, and what looked like riverbanks of sand, but must have been some sort of stone. We also got a good view of the Pak Ou caves (Buddha Caves) about an hour out of Luang Prabang. For a while we thought we were going to get rained on as we could see the rain up ahead but it cleared as we approached. The only negative of the whole trip was watching locals on the boat throwing rubbish, including used nappies, overboard.

There were other boats on the river; some similar to ours, others were small canoes, and there were the fast boats which are small long-tail boats which go horribly quickly. They are dangerous as evidenced by the fact the drivers wear full-face motorcycle helmets. The passengers don’t. As we cruised along, the river got wider and narrower, deeper and shallower. We could see eddies and whirlpools, and at times we had to slalom our way through the rocks. Sometimes we went through what were almost rapids. We also passed by two large incomplete bridges for the railway line being built by China, purely for altruistic reasons of course.

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Arriving in Luang Prabang at about 1730 everyone got off the boat at the pier, which was about 10 kilometres from town. There was a small fleet of tuk-tuks waiting for us, at a fixed fare per person, which saved a lot of negotiating. We really enjoyed the boat ride over the two days. We saw some lovely scenery and met some interesting people, some of whom we would see again.

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