A couple of days on the Mekong River

Cute village girls
see all photos »

After a slight delay at the border, we were allowed to enter and board our river boat which would take us down the Mekong River for two days on our way to Luang Prabang.

Our boat was a delight as was our local guide, Mr. Chang, and we stopped midday at a small village to see and learn more about the daily life of the locals in the village and see their homes. We were so impressed. The children of course were fun and curious and the homes and village itself were lovely. It’s amazing to see how simple and pleasant life can be. You only need a little bamboo and some reeds to make a swing for the kids – they are just as happy. We took many photos of the kids and they were very excited to see themselves on the camera. The children were very curious and followed us about the town as we learned about how they break the rice grains by hand. The village had chickens, pigs, turkeys (fun to see since it was Thanksgiving Day for us and these were the first turkeys we’ve seen in Asia), dogs and more.

Scott making friends by dancing on the beach and teaching the boy how to snap his fingers (our boat in the background)
see all photos »

We stopped for an overnight stay in Pakbeng and had a great Indian and Lao meal. The town is a stopover town enroute to Luang Prabang and the only electricity is made by generators and is only available from 6-10pm. Our tour leader, Tom, brought along a very large lantern that is used at this time of year to celebrate the mighty Mekong and to ask forgiveness to the river for all they have used from it. It was fun to set this huge lantern off into the sky. The festival is held in Thailand more so than Lao, but since she is Thai, she wanted us to experience it with her.

Walking up to our first village visit
see all photos »

The following day we continued our journey down the Mekong making another stop at a village – this time the village was of the mountain people (Hmong). In this village we found that they had many goods to offer us in the way of knitting, embroidery and handmade fabric bracelets. We even were able to tour a home of one of the families here. It was pretty special. We were also able to stop at the Pak Ou Caves. These caves hold over 4,000 buddha images that have been brought here over the years.