The Slow Boat Up the Mekong

There are only two affordable options for getting back to Thailand from Luang Prabang: boat or painfully long bus ride. Molly, Allison and I opted for a two-day boat cruise along the mighty Mekong river to the Thai/Laos border.

Day 1

The Mekong

We slept well, stuffed on India food after our hospital adventure, and awoke early to be on the boat by 8 am. There are no docks allowing you easy access to the boats, as none of the boats are that large. No big steamers ships from the Twain era in Laos; our abode for the next two days is a replica of the Thai long-tail boats with what sounded like a jet engine attached to the back. At the bow of the boat is a little box with a steering wheel for our “captain.” There is a paved boardwalk high above the banks of the river that is teeming with men sipping coffee and travelers waiting to board their boats with bags of goods to bring back to their village. Sandwich stands had long lines of people waiting for their breakfast and lunch baguettes, as there is no food on the boat (we learned that the hard way.) Heavy with our packs and hands full of sandwiches and drinks we slowly make our way down steep stairs to the banks of the river, crossing a shoddy wooden plank and stepping into our tiny, open air boat. The seats of the boat look like they had been taken out of cars and placed in rows of two leading back towards the engine, which is exactly what they were. Nothing was bolted down which made for fun naps later that afternoon. The chairs covered the only flat portion of the bottom of the boat so to get to your seats we walked at an angle while holding onto the moving chairs for balance.

Loaded with 2 parts farang, one part Lao the engine revved, the plank is pulled in and lines are thrown off to get us moving about 45 minutes after our scheduled departure time. We go nowhere.

“Please move front!” One of the boat attendants asks. We all stumble and slide to the front of the boat, which had a small platform space we later utilized for hours of card games. Still nothing happens. The sound of the engine makes me cover my ears and hold on tight as I was sure we were going to take off into the air at any moment. We are firmly root in the mud. Slowly people from the boardwalk make their way down to the banks. Men dressed in work slacks took off shoes and socks and roll up their pants to help. No one watching hesitates, from a hunched over geezer to the hipster in skinny jeans; everyone helps in whatever way they could. People are on the roof of our boat throwing lines to other boats to pull us, people are in the water pushing and people are standing in the water yelling at the people pushing.

“Everyone off boat,” they decided.

Allison and I follow the throng of people, jumping off the boat to land calf deep in the muck of the Mekong. Squishy silt sticks unnaturally to my toes and the arch of my feet as I walked carefully to the sandbank, trying to avoid anything sharp and reminded of those leeches in Khao Sok. Molly stays onboard to record the action from inside. The boat maybe moves a centimeter. While snapping photos I watch this big burly man with a tangled red beard and hat take off his shoes and jump in the water from our boat. He splashes to the back of the boat where the Lao men make room for him. He slaps his hands together and starts roaring something like

“Oakey! One, two, three!” I swear it was only when the grizzly man started making load groaning noises that the boat actually start to move.

Martin's in the yellow at the back

“Look at this guy,” I tell Allison. We both laugh at the crazy figure and cheer them all on. Suddenly we’re being pushed back towards the boat and helped inside while everyone is still pushing. At the very end the crazy man jumps in and we all wave to our helpers as we slowly  float to the middle of the river and begin our two day journey up the river.

Sitting on the platform an hour later we make friends with the crazy man, a French Canadian named Martin, his fellow Canadian Patrick and their travel buddy, Elena. Martin's English “iz not zo good” he tells us but he can understand English and Patrick is fluent so we begin slow conversations which eventually turn into fights over the rules of different card games.

We spend the day talking, napping, sharing what little food we all managed to get when we realized there was no food on the boat and playing cards. Conversations are slow over the drone of the jet engine, which was starting to give everyone a headache. We were happy and famished when we reached our stop for the evening, the city of Pak Beng, a city with almost nothing but guesthouses, each with their own restaurant.  

Showered and ready for food our group settles at a table and eats our way into a coma. Our group grows as we annex other tables of travelers from other boats. I sit back in a food stupor and look around this dimly lit, shabby deck stretched over the Mekong and made of bamboo and listen. French, French Canadian, Spanish, Basque and English fill my head. I find the sound lovely, the liveliness in everyone’s face and hands as they gesture and speak even more so. When I ask Elena (who speaks all five languages) what everyone is saying she replies,

“They are talking about languages, actually.” Of course. I enter the fray when asked about teaching techniques for grammar and the different uses of grammar in all languages when I feel Elena’s leg really start to shake the table. I turn to her ready to say something along the lines of “switch to decaf” and find her looking at my legs. I notice her legs aren’t moving yet the walls behind her are now shaking. Suddenly it’s dead quiet on our deck and everyone is looking at each other or under the table to see why it’s shaking. I watch two Lao people get up and start making for the door that leads inside the guesthouse and before anyone has time to say “earthquake?” it’s over. And so the conversation switchs from language to earthquakes. When Patrick joins us five minutes later I ask if he felt it.

“It was an earthquake? Shit, I thought it was the guy having really loud sex in the room next to me. I was going to knock on his door and shake the man’s hand.”

Day 2

It was essentially a repeat of day one. I spend the morning checking out the Mekong itself. It’s a dirty, filthy, nasty, brown, smelly river. It’s incredible how poorly Lao people treat the river when it’s a major nutrient artery for their country. The banks change with every turn, from swept up sand dunes to black rocks and cliffs and even little gardens. Dense foliage hangs off the limbs of trees rooted perpendicular to the cliffs creating canopies that hang down over the black rocks on the banks. The valleys just beyond the banks stretch towards rolling hills in light or dark green colors with the occasional white flash of tree trunks. I find it creatively stimulating and spend most of the morning writing.

But really, there is only so much to do on a slow, slow boat. You smoke an unheard of amount of cigarettes. You play game after game of cards (poker really attracted the attention of the local men on the boat as gambling is strictly forbidden and conducted secretly when played.) You try not to ogle the French Canadian built like a Muay Thai boxer (a valiant effort was given for all of ten minutes.) You observe the secluded villages we pass by or stop at, unloading sacks of goods for trade and taking on passengers as some get off. By the time you reach the border city your head is pounding from that damn engine. The six of us splurge a little on nicer beds for the night as everyone is wiped or ill.

Molly’s burn is starting to get painful and perhaps infected, Patrick is suffering nose bleeds from a sinus infection he’s been battling for over a month and Martin’s is coughing more than he's talking. We cross the border early the next morning and high tale it to Chiang Mai where we drop our bags at the guesthouse and go to the hospital (Elena and I going along for moral support and, well, we were bored.) Molly’s burn is cleaned, declared healthy and rewrapped by a doctor who spoke English, Patrick is given five different medications to treat his sinus infection (let the pill box jokes begin) and Martin is admitted to the hospital to receive treatment for pneumonia.

Don’t feel too bad for him. Bastard had his own private room with air con and a T.V., his own Thai nurse, his own French translator nurse and use of the hospitals private car. The Canadian health care system kindly picked up the tab. 

 

 

 

Giving us a send off

Sundown, day one