The Journey Down the Mekong

As most of you know, when Kev and I booked our trip here, we didn't plan much in the way of travelling. We knew we wanted to do it, but in true 'us' style, we figured it would just sort itself out. Laos was never really talked about as a destination, but when we got here and talked to people, it became obvious that we had to get there. So from Chiang Mai we decided to do the long, slow journey down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. We had heard some horror stories about the trip, boats sinking yada yada, but we figured it was nothing we couldn't handle.

The first leg of the trip was getting from Chiang Mai to the border between Thailand and Laos. The bus picked us up at 9pm and said it was about a 5 hour drive. We figured we could sleep on the bus.... we figured wrong. It was an AWFUL bus ride, whipping around corners, winding streets, speeding and all that jazz. We were so incredibly uncomfortable i thought it would never end. When we finally pulled up to the hostel at the border it was 2 in the morning. The hostel was a total dump- bugs and lizards everywhere. Needless to say the bus/hostel combo put us in a pretty miserable mood. We woke up in the morning to a pouring rain. We had to prepare ourselves for the worst ahead- the dreaded boat ride. By the time we crossed the border and got to the loading dock for the boats, we were pretty confused. There didn't seem to be anyone around to help us, and we hadn't picked up any sort of confirmation for the boat, even though we had paid for our ticket. We started asking and as it turned out, we were supposed to have met a guy at the border who was gonna give us tickets and take us to the loading dock. Oops. Luckily, he came there with our tickets, and we went to the boat to set up!

Much to our surprise, the boat was incredibly cool, and comfortably set up. It was basically a big wooden box with a bunch of seats that had been pulled out of old minivans, but somehow it was a really nice set up. There were a bunch of bright colours on the boats, blues and pinks and yellows, and it made for some great photo snapping. Almost immediately after sitting down my fears were eased and I got the sense that the ride was going to be a lot more fun than we had expected.

Inside the boat here were big open windows where you could watch the world go by. The sill was wide enough that you could sit on them, and Kev spent the better part of the first 7 hour day sitting reading his book on the ledge. It was a really serene boat, nothing was too loud, people were nice and calm, and Kev was in the middle of a Hemingway classic, so it was the perfect time for him to finish his book!





I wasn't in the middle of any good books, so I found myself spending a lot of time sitting by the window, just watching. Much like Coop Dog does at my house, I sat there almost all day, with my head in my hand, just thinking about the trip and what we had seen, and what we were getting out of the whole experience. The scenery was absolutely GORGEOUS. Because it is the rainy season here, the water was brown (because of the mud run off from the mountains), but the rain means that the mountains themselves were really lush, and everything was super green. Floating through the middle of it really gave a cool perspective, because it all looked so huge from the bottom.

Aside from just the beautiful scenery, there was a lot of life along the riverbanks of the Mekong. The majority of the villages in that part of Laos are situated along the river, so that they have access to fishing and water for bathing. There were constantly people to watch, whether they were families playing in the water, small fishing boats, or kids running around near the water. The boat stopped a few times to let some locals off at nondescript villages, and little barefoot kids slinging giant bottles of beer jumped onto the boat from the riverbank like monkeys and worked through the crowd of travellers selling beer, candy and fruit. We took some really cool pictures, but even they can't do justice to how beautiful everything was.

We arrived in Pak Beng around 6pm, after 7 hours on the boat the first day. Because it gets so dark, its too dangerous to just boat all the way through, so you have to spend the night at the halfway point. Pak Beng didn't really have much to see, it was mainly just a few guesthouses and their restaurants for the tourists that were stopping along the way. We did manage to meet a bunch of really cool people from our boat, a lot of whom we have seen again since! We spent the night hanging out and drinking, Kev was challenged to some arm wrestles by the kids in town, which he promptly won. It was a good night, and we woke up the next morning ready for another big day on the river! The boat the second day was a bit fancier, the seats were actually bolted into the floor, and they had tray tables. Since Kev had finished his book, we spent most of the ride chatting and playing cards, he wrote some postcards and I wrote in my journal.

All in all, the trip from Chiang Mai to Laos had its ups and downs. Much to our surprise, the slow boat down the Mekong turned out to be one of our favourite experiences. It gave us the perfect amount of time to clear our heads, and reflect a little bit. Since there was nothing to do, we didn't feel pressured to keep moving or sightseeing or going out to do something. We took the time to relax and it really payed off. By the end of the second day on the boat, we were both in a much better headspace. It was obvious that we needed the time, and we were lucky we took it. It was a long, but beautiful ride, and we enjoyed it a lot.