Missing… Presumed Having A Good Time

From Luang Prabang, I decided that it would be a good idea to take a boat trip up the river to Nong Kiaw after reading the Lonely Bastard’s description of the river scenery. Don’t get me wrong, the scenery is quite beautiful, but after a few hours the beauty starts to fade and boredom sets in. We were put on this little boat fitted with Playschool Chairs with just enough room for your head while seated. Standing was not an option as we found out quickly when the large guy with the camera decided to shift to the opposite side of the boat to get a picture. He almost sank us. I told him to “think canoe, sit down”. After about 5 hours, I figured out there was one place you could stand on the boat and got a much needed stretch and some nice vistas. We stopped along the way and I got to see the erosion of the river happening right before my eyes. There were hundredes of worms struggling to not get sucked into the river. But overall, I’d say don’t bother with the ride up river to Nong Kiaw, take the 3 hour bus ride instead. The worst part is that just before we get to Nong Kiaw, it starts to piss down rain. It’s funny because I really hate it when you arrive somewhere and there are 100s of touts trying to take you to their guesthouses. Here, no one greeted the boat and we had no clue where to go or what was available in this sleepy little village. In between rain drops I decided that I needed a beer and stopped at a restaurant when the rain got heavier. All of us from the boat ended up sleeping at their guesthouse after a few beers and the inability to bother crossing the river. We sat there and drank for hours and I realized that I didn’t have a room yet. After a few more beers and dinner, I decided to just crash with Peter, a Belgian guy from the boat. We ended up traveling all across Lao in 4 days to get to Huay Xai for the Gibbon Experience (see this post on my new blog site). If you look at the map on this site, you know that’s it’s a long way to get to the Thai border.
There was no internet or much of anything in NK except some beautiful mountains surrounding the river. We had to travel for about 6 hours in order to get to an internet cafe to confirm my reservation for a treehouse on the 16th because for some reason the ‘Gibbons’ weren’t answering their phones. We hopped on a Song Thaew (a pickup truck with 2 rows of bench seats in the back) with about 20 other people in the back. We changed trucks in Pak Mong and got a driver that was hell bent on breaking the land speed record from Pak Mong to Udom Xai. A trip that should have taken 4 hours was easily made in just over 2 hours. I said to Peter, “well on the bright side, if we live, we’ll get there quickly” One of the locals on the truck was hanging on for dear life When we go to the bus station in Udom Xai we saw a great sign at the ticket counter. Good luck Everybody ala Dr. Nick from the Simpsons! Well to make a long post not short, we took another truck and a full day boat trip to get to Huay Xai, but made it in time to register and pay our 1.3 million Kip for the Gibbon Experience.

Here I am in Luang Pragang for the End of the rain festival. All weekend there have been Dragon Boat Races, boat parades, fireworks, parties… celebrating the end of the rainy season. The funny part is that its been bucketing down for the last 3 days and today has been raining non-stop ever since this morning. I’m sitting in an internet cafe whiling away the day and escaping the rain. The festival has been a riot tho. It was a special treat to be able to watch the boat races for me. I came here specifically to watch the races, but missed them by a few hours. Fortunately, the large annual all village boat race was only about 40mins away on Saturday. There were thousands of people all gathered along the banks of the river and in the river watching some really good competition. These boats are a little different than the ones we race back home. Our boats only have 20 or 22 people in them if u count the drummer and steersman. These boats have about 30+ and I’ve seen some with 50+ in them in the Capital. They have 3-4 steersman and no drummer. The winning teams also were amazing in their unison. I’m not positive on the distance they raced, but the winning time was in the low 1:40s and it looked like a sprint. If that’s for 500M, that’s pretty quick. I remember for the events that I was at, the winning times were in the 1:50s for 500M. Last night was the best part of the festival. Thousands of people were out regardless of the rain celebrating with thousands of boats and floating flower bouquets lit up with candles and sent down the river. Some boats caught on fire before getting into the river other’s would have made a Viking funeral proud while most just sailed down the Mekong with twinkling lights for all to see. I was a bit naughty and sorta lanunched whistling bottle rockets in the general direction of several of the boats. I personally was not responsible for any of the viking ships. It was sorta like Venetian night in Chicago with fireworks and lit up boats, but on a model boat scale (seeing as no one seems to own sail boats around here). Well, that and the food vendors had a slightly different menu than burgers, hotdogs… as well. Thank God there were no giant Crayola blow up crayons here either.

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