We Wander — Mark & Meghan’s World Travels

After a marathon, week-long journey north from Sumatra, we finally arrived at the Laos border in Northern Thailand. We covered almost 3000 kilometers in just over 7 days, on a bee-line up through Malaysia and Thailand. Our goal: to reach the border and have about 10 days to wander south through Laos towards the capital, Vientiane, where we’ll be meeting our friend Rachel. We crossed the border from Chiang Khong, Thailand, to Huay Xai, Laos, and were all set to begin an exciting new leg of our journey.

Our first destination in Laos was Luang Prabang, an ancient city built on the Mekong River, and a Unesco World Heritage site. We opted for the true “slow travel” option to get there: a two day boat trip from Huay Xai down the Mekong River. We were excited and happy to slow our pace down a bit, after the string of bus and train trips we’d recently been on.

We purchased our boat tickets from a recommended guesthouse, and made our way down to the docks. The slow boats were all lined up along the bank of the river, and they had the look of long, narrow houseboats. Inside, they have very narrow, very small, very upright wooden benches for most people, and floor seating for some. Seeing the size of the benches, we decided the best way to achieve comfort for the long ride ahead was to each grab our own. This we did, and settled in to wait for the boat to leave. Over the next hour or so, more and more people started to trickle down to the boat, until it reached the point where we had to give up our separate benches and squeeze together on one. Still the boat kept filling and filling. Our supposed departure time came and went, and still the boat was taking on new passengers. Finally, when every possible seat and every square inch of floor was taken, they started to file the new passengers into the adjacent boat — which had comfy looking, reclining seats! We couldn’t believe it, but the latest arrivals were being loaded onto a nicer boat. The clock kept ticking. After we’d already been on board for two hours, the next unbelievable thing happened: the second (nicer) boat pulled out and started down the river! Our boat had been chock full for an hour already, and we were still sitting around waiting. Frustration was mounting amongst the passengers, and this only increased further when it became apparent that we were having engine troubles. We grumbled and stewed on our little benches.

Finally, nearly two and a half hours after getting onboard, the engine came to life and the boat pulled out into the Mekong River. There was cheering and applause all around, and to lighten the mood and celebrate our departure, we wandered to the back of the boat and bought a nice, cold Beer Lao. This is a local beer, and it’s absolutely everywhere — they are very proud of it in Laos. It tasted wonderful. We turned our attention to the passing landscape.

The Mekong River is beautiful. We drifted along past jagged rock formations, sandy shores, and forested mountain slopes. The sun shone brightly on us as we went, and we started to relax. We passed fisherman in long, narrow boats, although we never saw them catch anything. There were small herds of water buffalo on the sandy shores, and we decided that they must be the world’s happiest water buffalos. We made ourselves as comfy as possible and relaxed.

We pulled in to Pak Beng just after dark. Pak Beng is a tiny town on the Mekong whose sole purpose for existing seems to be as a stopover point for the two-day journey to Luang Prabang. There’s a nice little scheme set up here to separate people from their money. The boat pulls in to shore in the dark, and everyone scrambles madly to find their bags. It turns out that the shoreline where we’ve docked is a very steep slope of loose sand. People watch helplessly as “porters” grab their bags and take off up the hill. They scramble and fumble behind in the dark as best they can, and when they finally reach the top, the “porter” tells them how much they owe them for their service. We were very heads up, and managed to grab and carry our own bags. We found a cheap guesthouse and turned in for the night.

The next morning we wandered down to the shoreline to board the boat for our second day, and guess what? Not thirty feet from where we struggled up the sandy shore in the dark the night before was a lovely concrete staircase. Conveniently, no one pointed this out to us before. We opted to take them on the way down. No porters in sight.

We arrived to find one boat already nearly full, so we boarded the adjacent boat, remembering the fiasco from the day before. It was a wise choice. We scored some spacious floor seats near the front of the boat, far from the engine noise at the back. To make things even better, they retracted the roof over us once we were underway, and we reclined in the sunshine. Although the first boat left before us, we passed them on the way. It felt good to be on the better boat this time. The second day was even more enjoyable than the first, and we wound down the river for 8 hours before arriving in Luang Prabang, tired but happy. We managed to find a nice little guesthouse, and even explored the night market before calling it a night. It was a very memorable journey, and one we’d highly recommend to others traveling in this part of Laos.