Slow Boat to Laos

It’s called the Slow Boat to Laos, but you are actually already in Laos when you start. It’s a 2 day trip down the Mekong River from Huaeixey to Luang Prabang in an old houseboat type craft filled with bus seats and a few benches. They cram 160 or more backpackers and their gear on, and when it’s full they leave. We were told to go down for 8:30 since it theoretically leaves at 9, but everyone told us that it never leaves at 9. 10 to 10:30 is more realistic. We left this morning at 10:30 after they packed on enough backpackers to make us ride concernedly low in the water. Each time we said there was no more room, another bus would arrive and they would file them in somewhere. It feels like a chicken bus full of foreigners. This would never pass safety standards in Canada. Especially since there are only 8 life preservers on board. 8 life preservers = 8 crew members. 

What’s nice is that we are all crammed in with people from around the world and we are all chatting and sharing snacks. People travelling alone are making friends. It feels very communal, at least at the front. Not sure what’s happening way in the back in the loud from the engine seats.

Sailing along is mellow. Initially it’s Thailand on one shore and Laos on the other, but now we are firmly in Laos. We have gone through a few mountain passes, which were interesting. Most of the way so far, there is vegetation or sandbars with cows or water buffalo and people who appear to be panning for something. I guess there’s gold hereabouts. Honestly, it looks like most people are rock farmers.

It requires serious non-stop steering from the captain to keep such a long heavily loaded boat away from rocks and in the deepest channel with the water being so low. He had quite a load of Red Bull to keep him alert and the other crew members to feed him.

Since this is a local boat it makes stops for people to get on and off at remote villages. At one stop, a group of locals got on selling fruit, cookies and other snacks. I bought a cup of cut pineapple. At the back they sell chips, beer, water and cup noodles. The beer appears to be doing a brisk business. Our guesthouse packed us lunches and we loaded up on snacks before we left so we were already set.

Most of the luggage went into a hold under the floorboards of the boat but, when that space ran out, they piled them in a back room near the engine & toilet. The back luggage room is like a youth hostel full of huge backpacks and suitcases and people lounging and sleeping all over them with their noise cancelling headphones on. 

Our evening in Pak Beng was unremarkable, except for me breaking my middle toe slipping on mud. Cold beer, bland curry and an early bed in our riverside bungalow. Aside from our Chiang Mai pizza, our food has been disappointing this trip. I haven’t been able to get anything complex or even spicy unless I added the chili powder or sauce myself.  

Day 2 - Off to a mediocre breakfast of cold toast, bananas and test grade coffee, but then we came back to our room to see a baby elephant across the river from our balcony! She was just chilling on the shore after her bath like she didn’t have a care in the world. That’s got to be a good luck omen. 

We had been warned that the boat would change to an even smaller boat on day 2 and the seat reservations we had paid for would be ignored for a first come first serve system. We were early enough to get seats near the front again. Very lucky, because this boat had wooden benches after the first cluster of bus style seats, and it was already full of locals in the front seats. We got to sit and watch the look on peoples faces as they boarded and saw the cramped wooden benches. 

Once again, the boat was scheduled to leave at 9am but there was no sign of that happening. In fact, around 9 we saw some motorcyclists we had seen in Huaeixey come down to the boat and then we saw guys rolling the first motorcycle down the steep stairway. They re-jigged the bus seats at the very front to make room for the motorcycle, and then another motorcycle. They got 2 wedged inside the front of the boat, but they just kept coming down the stairs. Our friend who has been cycling around Asia had to move his bike to the top of the boat so they could strap an additional 4 motorcycles to the front deck of the boat. The next holdup was that the guys counting the people on the boat couldn’t reconcile their numbers. They must have gone up and down the boat a dozen times trying to count people who kept swapping seats and moving around. Some people settled in with their 9:30am beers and we finally left just shy of 10.

This boat is much louder, even at the front. I regret packing my earplugs in my night bag down in the hold. I don’t regret the trip, though. It’s slow and beautiful and disconnected technologically, and very connected in a human way. We mainly know people by their nationalities: the Belgian, the German girls, the German couple, the French couple, the Dutch couple, the little Chinese girl travelling alone, older French woman, Italy and older Japanese guy look like they have made a romance connection. The British guy we know more as biking guy. Everyone adores the young Chinese woman because she’s so open and friendly and she leaps in and goes to work. As we were loading on day 1, there was a staff person handing out plastic bags to put our shoes in. No shoes indoors in Thailand or Laos, even in an open boat! Anyway, before long our young lady had taken her place opening and handing out the shoe bags, and soon she had the older Japanese guy doing it alongside her. Today she went down in the hold where they were packing the bags. She communicates well with everyone through her phone since she doesn’t speak Thai, Lao, English, or the other languages people are speaking.

There are a lot of locals joining us at stops along the way and bringing on loads of cargo. Our boat will cut the motor and aim for the shore until the bamboo pole guys pull us in and throw ropes to people onshore. There are so many more people than seats that the captain got out a long plastic floor mat and they sat on every inch of floor space. I had people leaning up against my legs most of the trip, making sure they missed my throbbing toe. 

One mom got on with two young children and the girl was leaning against my legs for a bit until a seat became available. Then her mother pulled her in her lap and busily got to work pulling, crushing and throwing lice from the girls’s long hair. Every once in awhile she would hand the girl a louse for her to crush and throw overboard. The other older Japanese man sitting with them watched completely aghast. I can honestly say I’ve never before watched someone being deloused on public transit. A few hours later a man came alongside us in a speedboat and the children and woman were handed down into his boat.

A large family got on and ended up sitting around our feet and along the front of the boat. When the guy next to us got up to go to the bathroom, the mother took his seat on him and immediately began showing up photos of the wedding they had all just attended. A large bag of some citrus fruit was produced and they shared their fruit with us. I dug out the container of homemade date jam coconut cookies our previous guesthouse sent with us and they happily devoured them. When they reached their stop there were hand pats and goodbyes all around.

At the same stop a speedboat pulled alongside us with more cases of beer. We needed restocking since some people had been drinking non-stop since before we left the pier in the morning. 

We made it to our stop, 5km outside Luang Prabang, around 4:30. They had to let the locals out so they could lift the floorboards and access the luggage. Once we got our bags we had to squeeze past all the motorbikes and up a long steep staircase to where there were tuk tuks we could pay to bring us into town. Our driver seemed confused but he eventually got us to our guesthouse. We got cleaned up and out onto our balcony in time to see the lunar eclipse. 

Elephant, boat ride, eclipse makes for a pretty special day.