Farewell Thailand
There
wasn't much to border town Chiang Khong: an internet cafe that closed
at 11pm, turning me out into the waiting thunderstorm; a main street
terminating at the Mekong - not long, but long enough for a wet
bike-ride home; a few cheapish hotels and restaurants; and stores
offering Laotian visas. The morning, grey but dry, brought a 9
o'clock pick up by (naturally) a pickup truck. A hundred metres' drive
brought my fellow travellers and I to a waiting boat. We crossed the
river to Laos.
Huay Xai
There
didn't appear to be much to Laotian border town Huay Xai, either, but
we'd only a brief stop there - just time enough to change some currency
and buy food for the boat while waiting to be transported to the
'port'. This grandly-titled location consisted of a concrete ticket
office, a road down to the water, and a slope - more mud than grass -
down to where a dozen roofed longboats were tied up. A bunch of people
had arrived before our group, and over the next few minutes more groups
disgorged from arriving vehicles. We walked down the slick slope,
across a plank, through one longboat and onto ours.
Slow Boats
It's
possible to get to Luang Prabang from Northern Thailand in a number of
ways, but the two-day slow boat is not necessarily the wrong option
even for those of us who (*cough*) dislike long unbroken journeys. Speedboats do the
journey in only one day, but their contents need to wear crash helmets,
raincoats, and earplugs. An airplane from Chiang Rai is relatively
expensive. A mini bus to Luang Nam Tha enables access to northern Laos,
but Luang Prabang still requires another day's journey over northern
Laotian roads. Despite the overcrowding and the discomfort of its
cramped wooden seats (even the padding quickly becomes uncomfortable),
a slow boat allows you to stretch your legs and use the
toilet. Thatched open-sided workers' huts, perched with
model-like appearance on the Mekong valley's steep partially-wooded
slopes, drift by. It also gives you time to read, meet people, and
play fun silly games.
Baguettes
I bought a cheese and salad baguette for the
boattrip. It was awful: salad here means tomato and cucumber, the
cheese may well have come from a can, and the actual baguette was
greasy. I got another cheese and salad baguette on the second day
(different seller) and it was better but still poor. I had yet another
baguette for breakfast in Luang Prabang, which was merely
disappointing. I think I'll wait until I get to France for my next.
Pakbeng
There
wasn't much to Pakbeng either. Its two roads (one meets the other near
the 'port') have restaurants, some rudimentary stalls selling water and
junkfood, a couple of temples, a tiny market, a dozen guesthouses
charging a few US dollars a night, a steam room, a verandah with three
pool tables, a pair skinning a dog, and a resort charging many tens of
US dollars a night. The number of satellite dishes in a village
reliant on generator power suggest that its position as the rest stop between Huay
Xai and Luang Prabang brings reasonable prosperity. Cut logs lay
stacked near the water, but there weren't a lot of them and there
wasn't any evidence of recent logging on the
surrounding partially-wooded slopes so they may have come from
elsewhere. A handful of buildings were concrete but the attractive
ones were wooden and traditional in style. The guesthouse where I
stayed was one of these, as was the Indian restaurant where we ate
dinner.
Jim
I met Jim
in Chiang Khong while waiting for others to be processed by Thai
immigration. He's a paramedic from Tamworth (the UK one near
Birmingham), which is just far enough away from Birmingham for him not
to sound like a Brummie. He's another traveller who's having an
extended period off work - being nine months into a year's travel,
mostly in South America. He drove from Melbourne to Perth while in
Australia, which I found amusingly insane since he was only there for
three weeks!
So we ended up travelling companions for a few days - at the
same guesthouses in Pakbeng and Luang Prabang, and sharing some meals,
and some welcome conversation. I had a Beer Lao with him in Pakbeng,
sitting on the balcony of our guesthouse overlooking the rapidly
darkening Mekong and shooting the breeze. Beer Lao is a most drinkable
beer (a most drinkable drink) but just one longneck
had me a little Cadburied - I haven't had much alcohol lately. We
parted ways after Luang Prabang - he stopped at Viang Vieng, home of
river-tubing and reportedly the "Khao San Road of Laos" and I continued
on to Vientiane.
Luang Prabang
We
arrived in Luang Prabang in late afternoon. The old part of Luang
Prabang is pleasant and pretty during the day - it's classified
by UNESCO as a heritage area and filled with traditional Lao, colonial
French, and fusionally-designed buildings. The resulting melange is
slightly disconcerting, but it works -- and it's thoroughly charming when illuminated after dark. Even an
excess of travel agents, each offering the same two half-day trips,
doesn't mar Luang Prabang's charm. Many commercial buildings are
old-fashioned/traditional in style, and those occupied by travel agents
are no exception.
By the time I'd found accomodation in the silversmithing district,
showered, and identified a likely spot to find an Internet cafe, the
night market was in full swing in the main street. Most stalls at the
night market are at ground-level, with local craftwork (mainly
textiles) laid out on mats and lit by pendulous lightglobes. Quite a
few stalls and shops sell lamps, which add even more illumination to
the area.
Marleen and Elmer
I first
saw them at the travel agent in Chiang Khong; they were using the
internet there, as was I. They assumed that I was Thai, and I assumed
that Elmer was from somewhere in the region - in fact they were both
from the Netherlands (though Elmer's family was from the Moluccas).
They took the same boat from Chiang Khong. And then we actually met
at the guesthouse in Pakbeng. Another day on a boat passed.
As we pulled into Luang Prabang, they said that they'd have
to go back to Chiang Mai as soon as possible: They'd only a couple of
weeks left, they really wanted to do Thailand's beaches, and they'd
just learned that flights out of Laos - and Luang Prabang - were
infrequent and could be difficult to obtain because of this. There was
talk of going straight to the airport... I found this amusingly insane
since they'd just spent two days on a boat to get here, and Luang
Prabang was reputedly one of the nicest cities in Southeast Asia. But
they were pretty adamant that they had to leave.
I saw them later that night after they'd actually set foot in
the place, and they'd decided to stay until Tuesday. I saw them the
next night and they weren't leaving until Wednesday... [Not exactly
coincidence (Luang Prabang is compact) but a minor alignment of
patterns - there were people on the boat I never saw again, and others
who I only saw again on the bus to Vientiane/Viang Vieng]
Lao Food
With the exception of the baguettes, Lao food has
been rather good - but not nearly as heavily spiced as Thai food. On
one morning in Luang Prabang, our guesthouse proprietress invited us to
try sticky rice - you grab a small chunk of rice, roll it into a ball,
and dip it in one of the accompanying dishes. It's been a lot easier
to get a good range of vegetarian food here than in Thailand - there's
a couple of buffet stalls here, and one is excellent (they do spring
rolls using rice-paper skins, with the best lime-chilli dipping
sauce I've had ).
