Mekong slow boat to Luang Prabang 🇱🇦
Week 8
Welcome back readers. Well in last week’s exciting episode we voted our friend Eleanor off the island and welcomed Lissa and Pete Peters into our happy band of travellers, then quickly headed for the Thai/Laos border at Chiangkong. It’s a nice little Thai riverfront town that’s separated from Laos by the mighty Mekong.
It’s famous for its Giant Catfish 🎣which were memorialised in sculpture every 100 metres. However Chiangkong is now most memorable to us as being the place where “After-dinner entertainment” finally caught up with us. It was a Saturday night to remember, sequins, bangers from the 70’s and 80’s and a Casio keyboard. Our chanteuse had it all! She warbled all the greats, Lennon, ABBA, Sinatra, but when she proudly announced her next tune was, “a little song from Miss Lady Ga Gaaaaa”, we were outtaaa there! 😬
Laos might be economically richer than Cambodia, but it definitely feels more like a developing country. With things like old-school customs paperwork (in triplicate🙄), and the need to make a personal contribution to a customs official’s personal superannuation fund by way of a cash donation 😬. Also… roadside rubbish is back!
Slow boat.
Our long-tail (emphasis on long) boat journey to Luang Prabang took 2 days, stopping overnight at Pakbeng. There was about 18 people on board and was all very comfortable. We had our own allocated booth, with seating/sleeping/viewing areas at the front and back of the boat. W also decided to take the flash accomodation option, all of which came to a very reasonable US$195pp.
For a wide river, the Mekong flows mighty-fast even during the dry season. We started out with open flood plans and plateaus either side, but after an hour or so we were clear of Thailand and the Laos mountains quickly crowded in. There was plenty of granite geology 🪨 on either side and under the river too. In the narrower parts this makes navigation for bigger boats tricky, with small rapids, whirlpools and water boiling up and over the underwater rocks. The flood marks on the rocks clearly show how much water comes down the river during the wet season. One rock we passed had captured a tree trunk, it was probably 9 meters high 😳. Along the riverbank in between these granite outcrops there’s metres and metres of fine alluvial sand piled up high by the force of the river.
It’s fascinating just to watch it all go past, there’s local kids mucking about/waving, water buffalo 🐃, local (very poor) villages, and the other boats too. I’d hoped to get some reading done over the 2 days, but the river is never the same, it’s so watchable.
There’s gold in them there hills (unfortunately😬)
Gold, gold, gold for Laos (maybe). As we were passing along it wasn’t unusual to see a villager or 2, just panning for gold by the riverside. Or there might be a small family group working out of an encampment by the river with small scale equipment. But most often we saw industrial-scale sluicing of the river bed complete with Caterpillar excavators and other heavy equipment working right beside our boat 😳. Certainly there’s gold in the alluvial sands of the Mekong, but I’m not sure anyone’s managing it.
Another type of gold up here is the native teak. Unfortunately we saw whole mountain-sides that have been clear-felled. Certainly areas of jungle on the Mekong still exist, but there’s been a lot of habitat lost here. For instance we were hoping to see some bird life over the 2 days, but sadly there was nothing! Thailand and Vietnam have both banned the clearing of teak forests, hopefully Laos will follow suit🤞.
Lastly, with a hydro dam being built upstream from Luang Prabang, soon the water itself will become the gold. It’s a couple of years off completion but we cruised past part of the future dam wall. Our main contact guy on the boat said that in-parts, it will flood valleys up to 30 meters from current river levels 😬. The government are keeping details to themselves, and even the boat’s operators doesn’t know how much longer these slow boats will run for ☹️.
Luang Prabang
Oh my, this is the town I’ve been looking for. There’s a UNESCO heritage listing on most of the town, so it’s almost fully intact. And anything built in the area has to adopt the same style👍. This also means trucks and busses can’t come into the old town, it’s so very walkable. It really is magnificent.
One of the first things Pete noted after we arrived was just how laid back it was, especially given it’s the country’s number one tourist destination/cash cow! It’s true, the only hassling/touting we’ve experienced is from the drivers, and even they give up after one attempt 👍. We will do another more detailed blog later on Luang Prabang, we’re currently reorganising our plans to come back for another week (it’s that good). In the meantime enjoy some photos.
Tomorrow we’re off to Laos’ Plain of Jars for three days. It’s an ancient archeological site to the south east of here, up on a mountain plateau. Its origin and history is a bit of a mystery??? It’s also a part of Laos that was mercilessly bombed by the US during the 60’s-70’s as part of the “Secret war” on the North Vietnamese. We’ll wrap up the week in Vang Vien, where we’ll say farewell to Lissa and Pete as they head to Vientiane and Bangkok😩. Stay tuned readers.