The slow boat to Luang Prabang. This trip is part of backpacker legend and the subject of many stories, rumors and good and bad times. On the Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree site and on Bootsnall.com (amongst many more, I'm sure) there are many queries, answers and stories of traveler's adventures down the Mekong. I don't plan on breaking any new ground here or covering anything that probably hasn't been covered elsewhere on the Internet but I will talk about my particular trip and all the good stuff involved.

I also took ALOT of pictures while on the boat, some of which I'll publish here. I don't know if the beauty and tranquility I witnessed can be adequately described in either words or pictures but I will try to bring this to life for my blog readers.

Huay Xai in Laos (across the border from Chiang Khong in Thailand) is a major entry point into Laos, particularly for travelers planning to head south to Luang Prabang by boat. There are two main ways to travel the river, the fast boats and the slow boats.

FAST BOAT

SLOW BOAT

The fast boats are for crazy people. They are six-passenger speedboats that make the trip to Luang Prabang in 6 hours (versus 2 days on the slow boat). Sounds great until you hear the stories of accidents and actually see the things. The fast boats crash quite often and it is a hairy ride. Most of the passengers (and the driver) wear helmets and life vests and do not look like they are enjoying themselves. You see many of these things pass you (going both up and down the river) while on the slow boat. These boats are incredibly noisy and very bouncy and must be extremely uncomfortable. There are many tales in print of fast boats hitting sandbars or tree limbs or floating logs and capsizing. I don't know what happens to the passengers or if people die but that sort of traveling is not for me or for most people.

It's hard to get a good picture of the fast boats in action as they move so darned fast. Here's one that's a bit fuzzy.
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The slow boat is a two-day voyage on a boat that you would never choose to take it you had a choice. They don't look particulaly welcome, river worthy or comfortable. Looks do not deceive in this case because they are worn, faded, felt unsafe (more on that later) and were definitely not comfortable. There come in many shapes and sizes and they are put into use depending on the number of people buying tickets on any given day. They do attempt to maximize (over-maximize actually) the utilization of the boats each day, much to the displeasure of any passenger who travels in the busy period.

The trip south (with the current) takes two days including a stop for the night in Pakbeng. Day One takes about 6 hours and day two takes about 8 hours. These times as well as departure times each day are not reliable as stories abound on how long each cruise actually takes. There are many factors that effect this including the amount of water running in the Mekong, time of the year and the number of stops the boat makes on the way. I suppose these boats are supposed to leave and arrive places on a certain schedule but there seems to be no attempt by anyone in charge to keep any semblance of a schedule. This was the cause of much discussion on the boat and much good-natured humor as almost everyone realized that things would happen when they happened and that there was no use getting upset. This may be the motto of Laos.

The Mekong is a mighty river that meanders through many countries. It's headwaters begin in Tibet and it flows south into China where half its overall length resides. It then flows in Myanmar (Burma), through Thailand and Laos then into Cambodia and finally empties into the South China Sea from Vietnam. The river provides much for the people on its shores, it provides food, water and other sustinence as well as means of transportation, trade and power. It is an important, historical and vital through-way through Southeast Asia and very, very important to the Lao people. I was fortunate to witness from the boat a way of life that is so very different from what we lead in the West and it was a cool experience, even at arms length.

Back to the chronicle of the trip.

DAY 1

As mentioned previously, the departure from Chiang Khong to Laos was very organized, the entire guesthouse industry in Chiang Khong is geared toward getting people across the river and heading south. They sell you the ticket, they take you to the border checkpoint, they'll pack your lunch and give you advice. It makes the unknown of Laos much easier plus you're with dozens of other clueless travelers just doing what you're told. No one really wants to mess with the Laos government or police.

Here's a picture of Thai immigration as I crossed the border
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Both the Thailand border exit and the Laos immigration were surprisingly efficient and not thorough. I suppose they have no fear or need to fear western tourists and clearly the Laos government enjoys the hard currency that tourists bring to the country.

Speaking of hard currency, the money exchange booth is right next to the immigration counter and is the next step all new entrants make. The Laos currency is called the Kip and it's exchange rate flucuates wildly but is currently around 10,000 Kip = $1.00. The Kip is not a convertible currency which means that it is useless outside of Laos, you cannot exchange it back to another currency anywhere. In fact you cannot even exchange left over Kip for dollars or baht or anything else when you leave the country because the Laos government wants to keep as much hard currency within the country as possible. This helps lower their current accounts deficit with the rest of the world and allows debts to be repaid since no other country or institution will take Kip in payment of debts, rather they demand dollars or euros or baht.

It was funny to watch everyone getting a pile of money from the exchange. It is a bit overwhelming. I exchanged $100 and received 1,000,000 kip and the largest note they have is a 20,000 kip note so I got back fifty 20,000 kip notes. It is like monopoly money and it fills your pocket full!

Once in Laos we went to the ferry dock and waited around. Someone came up to us and said they needed our passports which we all handed over (scary!). It would have been a great scam if the person didn't work for the government (which thankfully she did) because I think we all would have been stupid enough to hand over our passports to anyone who looked official.

There were 60-70 people heading south on the slow boat that morning, which I am told is typical in the high season. They first tried to cram all of us onto one boat that is designed to hold maybe 50 people and at that number it would be very tight. They unexpectedly brought another boat into service when enough people complained so most people had a hard wooden bench seat to themselves rather than crammed two to a small hard wooden bench.

We left at 11:10 AM versus a scheduled departure of 10:30 AM. I was to learn later that this is the same as an on-time departure in Laos where nothing happens on schedule and multi-hour delays in transportation schedules are the norm.

It was COLD that morning on the boat as the fog was late buring off and there was a bit of a wind chill. Many of the passengers had shorts and no jackets and most of the backpacks for our boat were put in the other boat to even out the weight. I had my gore-tex shell jacket and pants on so I was okay. Kacey would have froze though had she been here!

Here are some Mekong River pictures:
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It was a great group of people on the boat and a very diverse group. Many couples, a few solo travelers, 99% were non-Lao. There were a few people from the USA, a bunch of Canadians, people from Israel, Russia, England, Australia and many other countries. The camaraderie was great as we all knew we were stuck with each other for a few days so everyone made friends and talked and read and ate and shared food and drinks.

The seating was very uncomfortable. We sat in unpadded wood bench seats that after a time seemed to became harder and harder. There is alot of advice on the Internet on these slow boats and the biggest piece is to bring a seat cushion. That's great advice but who carries a seat cushion in their backpack? I am surprised some enterprising Thai or Lao doesn't sell them at the dock and/or enroute and have someone collect them at the end of the trip for resale. Almost everyone would buy one and most would leave them on the boat at the end of the trip. Maybe if a local reads this he'll start that business, if so please e-mail me for my address to send a finders fee!

It was a six hour cruise the first day and we docked at the town of Pakbeng at 5:00 PM where everyone got their stuff and scrambled to find a guesthouse for the evening. Pakbeng is a small town with one main drag that has numerous guesthouses and restaurants. This town is extremely fortunate in that the all the slow boats (going both north and south) stop here for the night. A captive audience. The guesthouses have great variety and charge between $2.50 and $90.00 a night with most between $5.00 and $15.00. There are a bunch of restaurants that looked quite nice. I had a great Indian food meal that night.

I paid $10.00 for my room here:

I felt extravagant paying $10 for the room but the owner said it had hot water and I really wanted a shower. Unfortunately there was no hot water in the morning. They said something was wrong with the power but I think he BS'd me upon check in. Oh well, it's not like I'll be back again. A cold-towel bath was all I got in the morning after sleeping on yet another HARD mattress (another Laos theme).

DAY 2

After a good nights sleep (another theme on this trip so far - traveling can be tiring, sitting on your butt for 6+ hours is tiring and makes for good sleeping) I was ready for another day on the river.

No one could say definitively when the boat was supposed to leave in the morning. A guy on the crew said 8:00 AM, another guys said 9:00 while the guesthouse guy said 8:30. Not wanting to be late and always a stickler for being on-time, I hustled down there at 8:00 AM. Most of the other travelers were there also at that time - no one wanted to get stuck in Pakbeng!

Of course we didn't leave the dock until 10:00 AM.

The second day was a bit more interesting and much less comfortable. During the night one of the slow boats left and they crammed everyone from two boats into the bigger of the two that left Huay Xai the day before. This boat was bigger but more uncomfortable.

What was funny (in retrospect) was why it took so long to get going in the morning. The captain and some crew members needed to get a count of all the passengers. The had the number of people who cruised the previous day plus the few who bought tickets in Pakbeng for today then counted the number of people on board and, I guess, could not reconcile the two numbers. They must have done a headcount 20 times and probably came up with different numbers each time. It would have been funny except we were just sitting there waiting to leave. Finally they brought out a manifest of names and started to check passports to check off and see if there was someone who hadn't paid.

This was going to take another hour or two, at least, when finally some guy (an American) stood up and asked how much they were off, meaning how much would it take to get the stupid boat going. One of the crew said they needed 300 baht ($7.50) to balance. We took up a collection and 3 minutes later had the 300 baht and were off. I don't know if this was a scam or not. If they were off 300 baht it probbaly came out of someone's pocket but it was also a good way to get a bit of extra cash from impatient foreigners.

So we were off on the second day, the boat was packed beyond whatever capacity might be normal due to not only consolidating two boats but the addition of at least a dozen Lao's from Pakbeng. After about an hour we stopped at a village and picked up about 20 more people. This was nuts and a bit scary. Many of the Lao's went back to the engine room area and some Lao and some travelers went onto the roof of the boat (the Lao did not interact much, or at all, with the foreigners).

Here are a few interior pictures of the boat:
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We stopped at intervals during the day at various villages, dropping people off and picking up others. About half the trip was spent with a guy in the Laos Army and his AK-47. I don't know if he was there for protection or just heading home. There are many instances in Laos of insurgent behavior amongt groups opposed to the current Communist regime although they rarely mess with foreigners.

Here's the AK-47 guy:
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Here are some pictures of a village and villagers:
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About four hours into the day the boat started listing pretty heavily to the right and the captain kept trying to get more weight to the left the counter-balance the listing. He was only partially successful, after he overloaded the left side the boat still listed but not as much. I think there was a partial leak in the boat.

Here are some more Mekong River pictures:
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A little bit later the people on the roof started moving around a little and the roof started cracking, it made a big noise that everyone heard over the engine and scared the crap out of us all. The captain must not have known people were on the roof. He stopped the boat and stepped up on his window and saw the dumb-f&#@'s moving around up top. The movement up top (it was all foreigners by then) had greatly unstabled the boat (simple physics tells us that weight transfer higher up off the base of something has a greater effect on the stability of that object). The captain yelled at the guys and they came down, I thought he was going to throw them overboard!

A quick mention needs to be made about the safety standards of these boats. If a boat like this was in the USA or Europe or any other regulated country it would have capacity constraints and some flotation devices. From what I've read and now seen capacity means how many people can you squeeze in without the boat going under and I did see two or three small intertubes (flotation devices?) in the toilet but that's all. Despite the listing, the overcrowding and dumb asses on the roof it really never FELT unsafe but I did at times judge how long it might take to swim to the shore and how swift the current was... Clearly there would be fatalities if the boat did capsize but it never seemed to come close despite the captain's anxiety towards the end of the trip.

Once again, the combination of the previous days boats resulted in a fun group of people, many of whom I would run into over the next week (and probably longer as some are going to the same place I plan on going). However, there were a few knuckleheads smoking pot on the boat. Pot is a big deal amongst Southeast Asia travelers and you can find it, or it is ofered, everywhere.

We arrived in Luang Prabang at 6:00 PM, eight hours after leaving Pakbeng. Everyone was ready for this trip to be over plus we all had the anxiety of trying to find a place for the night (in a crowded town), especially since it was dark by the time we docked on the beach.

One final funny story. About 1/2 hour before we got to Luang Prabang we were coming around a curve in the river and saw the most beautiful sight:
SUNSET ON THE MEKONG

Upon seeing this incredible sight (it was off the right side of the boat) nearly everyone grabbed their camera and leaned over the right side of the boat to take pictures. Naturally this transfered the weight quite dramatically and greatly unbalanced the boat. This was the closest we'd come to capsizing. The captain immediately stopped the engines and came back and yelled at us in Lao. We didn't know what he said but could understand his gest.

Off topic: Here's me petting a cow outside of Vang Vieng on Tuesday afternoon (1/11/05):

Thank you for reading this. I hope to make this blog both interesting and entertaining. Please post a comment and let me know your thoughts, observations or counsel. Hearing from readers and knowing I have an audience is a great motivator and will be a great morale booster during down times on the road. Don’t forget to bookmark this site and tell a friend! Please feel free to e-mail me at “JeffMichie at Yahoo Dot Com”