Mekong River Trip, Laos – 6 to 8 March, 2007
Our cruise liner from Luang Prabang to Pak Beng was scheduled to start boarding around 8:00 AM, so we were up early as the tuk-tuk driver was scheduled to pick us up at 7:30. It was only a five minute ride to the pier, but we wanted to buy some food for the trip from the market before getting on board. We arrived at the ticket office at the top of the hill above the pier where we had bought our tickets and dropped our bags while we went in search of some munchies. There are many street vendors in the market area who sell sandwiches consisting of a baguette, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and assorted cold cuts or tuna, so we headed for one. We each selected a sandwich for breakfast and another for lunch, and picked up one extra for the clerk at the ticket office. This proved to be money (50 cents) well spent as when we returned back to the office he grabbed one of our heavy bags and personally led us down the hill to the boat.
As promised, we had “soft seats” which consisted of bench seats that had been removed from a minibus and set in the boat. Our seats were in front and even had our names taped on them. We were glad we booked where we did because after the first five rows of soft seats everything else was wooden bench seats, although they did have a thin foam cushion laid across them.
Once everyone and their backpacks were loaded, we headed upstream around 9:00 AM. After roasting for a few days, the weather was overcast and downright cold at about 65 degrees Fahrenheit. After a couple of hours it warmed up some, but it remained overcast and fairly cool. This was a good thing as some people we met that had come down river a couple days before said that not only was their boat very crowded, the heat was unbearable. The scenery along the river was a combination of mountains, rock cliffs, and sandy beaches. We never thought there would be the amount of sand along the Mekong that we saw. Occasionally we would pass a small village, but there were fishing lines and nets set up everywhere which demonstrated the reliance of the local people on the bounty from the river.
The scenery will keep you interested for a couple of hours, but after that the ride tends to get monotonous and there isn’t much else to do. Out came the MP3 players, and a couple of girls nearby got out their playing cards to try and pass the hours. Finally around 6:30 PM we pulled into the port town of Pak Beng for an overnight stop.
The sole reason for the existence of Pak Beng is to accommodate tourists (mostly backpackers) who are stuck there overnight as the boats can’t navigate the river after dark. As we arrived in the dry season and the river was low, there was a steep slope that had to be climbed with our luggage to reach the main (and only) road. This road led through town which was a gathering of guesthouses, restaurants, and family shops. After we climbed the hill to the road we were greeted by a few locals pushing the various guesthouses in town. We had chosen one from the Lonely Planet guide, so with the help of an able bodied local boy we hiked a short distance to it.
The room was extremely basic and not so clean, but the other options we saw were not any better so we checked in. When we sat on the beds, we almost sunk between the springs to the floor. There was also some evidence of insects in the room, so out came the sleep sacks. We decided to take a walk around town to find some dinner, and as we left the room and pulled the door shut the door knob came off Js hand. When we told the front desk they came and slid it back on and provided a padlock for the door. This was evidently a known problem as the clasp for the padlock was already installed on the door.
We took a quick walk around town, but soon realized the restaurant at our guesthouse was about as good an option as any so we headed back. We didn’t want to venture too far as everywhere was dark and we had forgotten our handy (no batteries required) flashlight. It seems there is often no power in the evenings there, and the hum of generators was everywhere. After dinner at the guesthouse we called it a night as D had read the generators go off at 10:00 PM.
The next day we were up early and decided to bypass the showers as there was no hot water. It was another cool morning, but we had dressed a bit warmer expecting it. The boat wasn’t scheduled to leave until 8:00 AM, but we didn’t want to stay in the guesthouse any longer than necessary and we also wanted to be sure to find the right boat as we had to change boats for the second day so we arrived at the pier at 7:00 AM. We quickly located the correct boat and lugged our bags on board. J then headed back up the hill to find some sandwiches for the day. While walking he ran into a fellow traveler from the boat who said that he had a rat, or maybe a very large mouse, in his room during the night. It seems there were worse guesthouses than the one we chose.
While J was searching for food, D watched the boat being loaded. Pak Beng is also a center for hill tribe embroidered crafts and many large bags of them were being loaded. Once loaded they took up almost the entire front area of the boat as well as the rear cargo area, but they later proved useful as soft rest areas. Once everything was loaded the boat left around 8:30 AM. We had been promised soft seats on the second leg as well as the first, but when we arrived at the boat we were not really surprised to see there were none on board. We were one of the first ones on the boat so we had the pick of seats on the boat and at least they had cushions.
The scenery on the second day was much the same as the first, plus water buffalo and goats roaming the banks. We passed a few locations where some of the hill tribe people were panning for gold along the river, and D wanted to stop and help. The boat made a couple of stops at small villages along the river to unload the cargo, and by the time we arrived in Huay Xai the boat was empty except for tourist passengers. Most of the others we met on the boat had plans to cross the river to Chiang Kong in Thailand, but those hopes were dashed as we arrived late and the border closed at 6:00 pm. We planned to spend the night in Huay Xai anyway and were considering taking another trip into northern Laos, so we caught a pick-up truck into town and found a guesthouse where the sleep sacks came out again.
The experience with the guest house pretty much convinced us we wanted to return to somewhere with more options for lodging, so the next morning we headed for the river taxis to Thailand which were just across the street from the guesthouse. These taxis ran continuously from one bank of the river to the opposite bank. They were basically a long narrow canoe with a long tail motor on the back. We were a bit dubious as it seemed if you leaned the boat may tip over. We made it without event, and made the short walk to the Thai immigration office window.
We then found that we had not “checked out” of Laos and as a result were not allowed to enter Thailand. The immigration officer told us we must go back to Laos to “check out”. Not wanting to haul our packs back to the ferry, we decided D would wait with them in no mans land between the borders while J took a taxi back with both passports in hopes the Laos immigration officer wouldn’t notice the fact D was not present. If he did, J would get his departure stamp and return to the Thai side, then D would then have to make the checkout trip back across the river on her own. When J arrived back in Laos, he realized we had walked past the immigration office just before the river taxi area without even seeing it. Fortunately the officer didn’t notice that D was missing, and he placed exit stamps in both passports. It was then back across the river to try and enter Thailand again. This time there was no problem.
Once legally in Thailand, we caught a sawngthaew to the bus station to catch a bus to Chiang Rai where we planned to spend a couple of days. We found a bus would be leaving in about a half hour, so we boarded it and waited.
Next stop Chiang Rai.
