I left Chiang Mai a few days ago with the basic idea that I would take a slow boat down the Mekong River. I really don’t have a good reason that I was going to be doing this since it was about five years ago that I did the exact same thing. I managed to rationalize it by telling myself that when I did it before I didn’t remember some of the key things that I had done. I remember tubing down a river, or I remember a certain temple, but I couldn’t remember what city I was in when I did some of these things. I was on a tour when I did it before, everything was taken care of along the way, so all I had to do was show up at a certain time and  get in the jeep or tuk-tuk. I think that made it so I didn’t have to remember the details. This time is different though, I’m doing all the logistics on my own and am forced to know what the name of the next city is.

Mekong River Ken Curtis' web site
As the boat made it’s way down the Mekong River we would stop to pick up passengers. This was a young girl wait for the boat to stop.

My hostel was about 200 meters from the bus station and there is a bus leaving every half hour, so I left the hostel and was on my way to the border in about 30 minutes. The bus was old, maybe about fifty years old… maybe older too, it had wooden floors and very uncomfortable benches, but it was fun just riding along, the windows open and

The bus dropped my off at a bus stop outside of Chiang Khong where about five taxis/tuk tuks were waiting. Only two of us got off the bus and we both jumped into a tuk tuk. In about five minutes I was at the border to exit Thailand. The last time I went across the border here I had to take a ferry to cross the bridge to Lao, but now there is a bridge. I have to admit though I kind of liked the ferry better. It just felt more authentic, or exotic to get on this little boat and have it motor it’s way out of Thailand. Anyway, passport control took maybe five minutes and I was on the shuttle to cross the bridge in about another ten. Like I said things just were going so smoothly… it was almost scary. :)

As I headed to get my Lao visa I was approached to buy a ticket for the slow boat down the Mekong, which as I mentioned was my goal. So I bought my ticket and proceeded to get my visa. Because I was kind of late to the border and the slow boat was going to be leaving in about an hour the lady that I bought the ticket from gave me a ride to the dock on the back of her scooter. I’m not going to lie, I was kind of terrified that I was getting a ride from her. She had my day pack on, I was sitting behind her with my full pack on, and we were going down the highway at probably about fifty kph. I made it there though safe and sound and got on board the boat. Since I was running late I was probably close the last person to get on. It was okay with me except that there didn’t appear to be any seats. I finally asked someone if I could sit down and to my surprise she said yes. This part of the boat trip takes about seven hours and to be honest I had a really good time. The girl was from Germany and was taking a few months off before she goes to college, there were two guys sitting across from us were taking two months off from their jobs in London to see the area. It really surprised me how nice these three were. We even met up later for dinner.

The dock where we started out for Luang Prabang. These boats are very large and hold about 100 people, ours was full.
The dock where we started out for Luang Prabang. These boats are very large and hold about 100 people, ours was full.

 

Mekong River Ken Curtis' web site
A local along the Mekong River. I think he is a fisherman but I’m only guessing.
Mekong River Ken Curtis' web site
This was the kind of boat that we were on. From what I’ve heard they are specially built for the river with a shallow draft and powerful motor.

 

Mekong River Ken Curtis' web site
This was the first boat that we were on, as you can see it was full. I met three really good people on the trip though so the long day seemed to go very fast.

I got on the boat about 7:30 this morning which was really too early. I ended up just sitting there for about an hour and a half before the boat finally left the bank. No worries though.

Mekong River Ken Curtis' web site
Just a couple of boats tied up on the bank of the river.

I am now sitting on the boat killing time writing for the blog. It about 11:30 and I think there is supposed to be probably another four hours before we arrive at Luang Prabang. The boat is pulling up on the shore to either pick up passengers or drop some off. More later….

Mekong River Ken Curtis' web site
A view from the back of the boat where the engine was. I was able to spend time back there because I had earplugs. I’d been carrying them around for like forever and never used them, finally got a chance. Even with the earplugs it was almost too loud to be there.

 

 

 

Sat 10/01/09 03:06
More photos and movies of my trip up the Mekong

Just like the other post, I’m adding all photos and most of the movies that I’ve taken along the way. This group is of the Mekong River journey, with some photos of our overnight stay at a small river town. You can access all images, not just those of the Mekong at Photobucket.com

  
Some sample images from my Mekong River Cruise. More

 

More movies at Photobucket.com

Sun 04/01/09 23:38

It was just a short bus ride to Luk Sao, the border town that we were staying at before we came to Vietnam. The weather was great in Vietiane, and it was freezing in Luk Sao. It was so cold that it wasn’t any fun at all. My best guess was the temp was about 45 degrees and windy, way too cold to hang out and just drink beer. So everyone went to bed about 730, but this town was not meant to be a tourist location, it was just the point where we were going to get an early start for the border, so it was unfortunate that it was so cold, but not a tragedy. What was a tragedy was when we got up there wasn’t any electricity. No lights, no heat, and what really sucked, no hot water. That meant that for two days I haven’t had a shower… doesn’t really bother me though, though I haven’t asked anyone in the group if I’m bothering them.

The border crossing was almost surreal in some ways. The weather got worse overnight and when we got moving, it was colder, fogging and rainy. So as we’re driving along we turn a corner and there is the border crossing hidden in the dense fog. People were appearing and disappearing into the same fog. All these “officials” walking around in uniforms straight out of the sixties, trying to look impressive, but through no fault of their own, they didn’t. They just looked kind of obsolete relics of a military state that tries to impress people based on what may have been impressive in the fifties and sixties. We crossed the border with no problems and arrived in Vihn about 12 noon.

Sun 04/01/09 23:37

We got into Vietiane on about the 29th of January, but for the life of me I don’t know the exact date. I do know that I spent New Years Eve and left on New Years, we were there for about two or three nights, so that puts the date that we got into the city on or about the 29th. Vietiane is the capital city of Laos, so it’s a little more cosmopolitan than many of the other cities that we’ve been to on this trip… except for Bangkok that is.

For the most part it was a fun city, it is on the bank of the Mekong and directly across the river from Thailand. There was a lot of preparation for the upcoming New Years Eve, the town center was being set up for a live music festival, and it seemed that there were decorations everywhere. Like Bangkok, it seems that capitalism is alive and well in Vietiane. Shops are everywhere and the general speed of life is very fast, but the people seem to have taken it all in step, they move fast, but have a very mellow outlook on life. They deal with tourists with a smile or nod and are generally friendly. There are hundreds of tourists everywhere you go, so many that it seems almost unnatural. Except for a few attractions there isn’t a lot to see, and I took pictures of nearly everything that I thought was interesting. They have an arch, similar to the Arc de Triumph in Paris, but smaller. According to what I read it was built with cement that was initially planned to build a runway for the American Air Force, but was donated instead to the Laos people, so they build the Arch as a memorial for their soldiers. It was very cool.

On New Years Eve we headed down to the town square to usher in 2009, but we couldn’t find any seats… the band was already playing and it was tough finding anyplace to settle into, until we found a place on the Mekong, that had a bonfire going, and better yet, it was serving free beer. . We were there for a few hours and then the fireworks started. It really turned out to be almost perfect, about 100 people dancing to loud music around a bonfire watching fireworks. I met some new people and got an email address, and was kind of set up with a Laos girl, so I was having fun.

About 1 we headed to a disco and bar across the town. We stayed there for a few hours and in general it was a lot of fun. I have a little bit of a hard time partying at my age. I just feel out of place sometimes, and at the disco I kind of had to force myself to have fun. The Laos girl that I was introduced to was there and we hung out for a while, but nothing really happened.

The next morning we left for the border of Vietnam.

Fri 02/01/09 04:18
I don’t know the date, but it should be the 29th

Day two in Vang Vieng. Today started okay, we got up about 8 and had breakfast, before we had to meet with out tour leader at 9. The agenda was pretty simple, we were going for a little hike to some caves and a swimming hole not far away from the city. The total distance was no more than 2 kilometers so we got there in a short time. The area was straight out of some postcard, really serene. Right now I don’t have internet access so I can’t load any images up for a little while, so you’ll just have to take my word for it how pretty it was. There were little wood bridges over clear pools of water that lead to alters, and on the side of the mountain was a series of stairs that lead up to a cave.

Later in the afternoon we decided to do some kayaking down the river here. I didn’t take any pics along the way but you have to imagine this, there are 8 of us just slowly going down the river, and we come up to a bend. You can hear loud American music, and as we make it around there are dozens of people dancing, drinking, and swimming. Some are jumping of zip lines some are jumping off ropes. There’s a girl with a beer in her hand in a bikini just dancing to the music, and some guy has two water bottles tied with rope and is swinging them like num-chucks. It was like stepping into decadence. So we’re still cruising along, most of stunned on what we are watching, and we come around another bend, this time there is twice as many people, and there’s a water slide that people are using to launch themselves into the water. The whole thing seemed wrong in some ways, but so much fun. If you’ve seen Apocalypse Now and can remember the part when they come into a camp that has all these lights on in the middle of the jungle, then a helicopter lands and out come some dancers, you’d know how strange it felt to see the people partying on the river today. So we pulled over and joined them. Since I’m older I felt a little strange being there, but it was so much fun. Now this is totally subjective and not based really on any facts, but from what I’ve been told is that during the Vietnam War, there was an American base here, which would mean that there are people here that know what it takes to satisfy the Western style of partying. As we were walking back to the hotel a couple of the girls were saying how much they didn’t like what they saw… I couldn’t help but think how great it was. :)

Tomorrow we leave early in the morning for a short bus ride to Vientiane.

Fri 02/01/09 04:11
A small town on the banks of the Nam Song River.

So I’m in Vang Vieng and the weather is beautiful. The town/village is nestled in a valley surrounded by huge jungle covered mountains. It really is beautiful. The town, like I mentioned in an earlier post is pretty much a tourist spot, with all the things that tourists would like to do here. You can rent scooters or bikes, go inner-tubing down the river or even go kayaking, all of which I’ll probably do tomorrow. Right now though, I’m sitting in an open café drinking a beer… a Beerlao to be more precise, and enjoying watching the people go by.

    

The bus ride to get here was fun, out of maybe a total of 200 miles… and that’s a stretch, it took us eight hours. There were places that there wasn’t any road at all, and there were places that the road curved so much that there weren’t any straight parts for hours at a time. Some of the people got car sick it was so bad. I thought a couple of times that I started to get sick too. The bus stopped occasionally to pick up people along the way, at one point an older woman got on with a live chicken. I couldn’t have been happier to see that. It’s like one of those things that you hear about and wonder what it would be like to live it. The chicken’s legs were tied together, and the body was covered in a plastic bag. At first I thought that it was dead, but when she lifted it up the chicken moved its head and made some noises. I’ve got video of a portion of the ride, but unfortunately it doesn’t have the chicken in it.

  

I was sitting next to a Brit on the bus that freelances as a writer for magazines, web sites, and newspapers about traveling. It really is remarkable to hear that someone has been traveling for about a year, and is going to all the places that I want to see eventually. After he goes to Vietnam, he’s heading to Australia, New Zealand, and then eventually to South America where he’ll travel up to the states for a bit. That’s exactly what I want to do. This is his second really huge trip. He doesn’t have any plans for Africa yet, so maybe after the summer when I meet another person like that, I can at least feel somewhat equal. So far it seems every one I meet has traveled more than me… I guess one of these days I’ll be a “world traveler” and be able to rub elbows with the best of ‘em. J