slow boat on the mekong

Comfy?
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I was really looking forward to a couple of days lazing about on a boat, reading books and looking at life on the river banks.  However, the slow boat from the Thai border down to Louang Prabang was not quite what I thought.

This route is now big business, around 120 people tried to get on the same day as us, and from what we could tell from speaking to people in Laos, it is about the same number every day.

don't take this boat for the peace and quiet!

Just some of the many boats that could have been used. In fact, only 2 leave per day
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First problem was that the boat only has 80 seats.  Which means that when people are standing in the aisle, some old people complain and all the standing folk turnaround and get on another boat.  Apparently this ritual happens every day, although I guess sometimes no one complains and people have to stand for 2 days.

Most people do this trip as part of an organised transfer from Chiang Mai.  The main advantage of this seems to be that you get given your own personal cushion to make the wooden seats a little more comfortable.  We weren't booked on such a trip, which meant that we were able to get to the boat early and steal some cushions that were already in place.  Naughty.

Fishing on the river
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Mind you, the departure time was pretty odd.  From the Thai town on the other side of the river we had been told 8:30.  Then some people told us 9, then 10, we got on the boat at about 9:30, and left 2.5 hours later, already quite numb before we started.

The view itself along the Mekong was pretty good.  Although a little samey, lots of brown water to look at, and sandy banks with a few water buffalo and goats.  Every now and then we passed a village of mostly bamboo huts up on the banks, and of course lots of folk fishing and washing.

It gets a little cold on the boat once the sun sets down behind the mountains (around 4pm in December), so time to crack open the winter clothing bag again, hats, scarves, jumpers and coats were the order of the day.

Arrived in Pak Beng just after dark, and it was a little chaotic, not helped by the fact that some Laos guidebooks say that the people in the town try to run off (i.e. steal) bags from the boat.  This means that everyone:

A - Hates and mistrusts anyone on the riverbank waiting for the boat B - Tried to grab their bag at the same time.

Baring in mind that it was dark when we got there, and each of the 80 people on the boat had a very similar dark coloured backpack buried somewhere in the boat's hold.  With about 60 people peering into the dark hole I knew there was little or no chance of us finding our back there, so we waited for one of the riverbank touts to get our bags and start carrying them up the sand bank.  Then we tapped them on the shoulder and took the backpacks from them.  Easy.

Found a nice enough place to stay (well it was cheap (4 pounds) and there weren't any rats).  And had a really nice dinner at the small, newly opened Laos Natural Food Restaurant, a catchy name for sure.

One strange thing about Laos menus is that they always feature Water Buffalo instead of beef.  No complaints really, as it seems to taste pretty much the same.

Next day was pretty much the same.  Got down to the boat at about 9:30, left at about 11, and 7 hours later we arrived as night was falling in Louang Prabang.

The noise from the engine at the back of the boat (a large Isuzu diesel engine, for you engine fans) was so loud that our ears were still ringing 5 hours later.