The Slow Boat to Thailand

There’s definitely such a thing as too much research online, especially about travelling. If you go by the reviews online, the overnight buses we took in Vietnam are guaranteed death traps. One person even said that they regularly get in head-on collisions, where the bus bursts into flames “incinerating everyone on board.” Yikes. Our chosen mode of transportation to get back into Thailand, the slow boat up the Mekong, has some pretty bad reviews as well. Stories of 150 people crammed onto a small boat, long delays, even mutinies were all online, prepping us for what was sure to be a disastrous two days. We did have a couple things going for us. One, people only go online to rant about a bad experience, so we know not to put too much stock into those internet web loggers. Two, it’s low season around here. Three, most of the tourists seem to use the downstream route instead of the upstream, which we were taking. We were trying out best to be hopeful and positive, but were certainly expecting the worst. In reading all the awful reviews online, we did pick up some tips to make it as pleasant as possible. We loaded up on snacks (Pringles and candy), made sure we had our electronics fully charged and each had a book to read, and tried to get there at least an hour early to secure a seat. Well, we didn't make it an hour early as we were hoping, putting Steph’s anxiety on high alert. I was a little worried myself when we got to the pier at the lack of activity. We bought our tickets to Pak Beng, the halfway point and our destination for the night, which were actually cheaper than we were expecting. That at least made me happy. We raced some other tourists down the hill, eager to snag us a couple seats, to find a nearly empty boat. There was heaps of room, so we grabbed a couple bench seats facing each other with a table in between (bonus!) and spread out our stuff to dissuade anybody from trying to join. We were still guarding our territory when the boat pulled out an hour later, still nearly empty! Sweet relief!

Steph taking a nap with a bag over her face

Now, don’t get me wrong, this was no luxury cruise. No, that would have been about 4 times as expensive. This was the “local” option. That said, the boat was surprisingly nice – a bunch of tables with bench seats on either side, some seats pulled out of a van or car or something nailed down to the deck, a little shop with food and drinks, even a bathroom. There was maybe 10 of us tourists and at least that many locals. Everybody on board had enough room to stretch out and even nap if they so chose to, which pretty much everyone did at some point. We settled in for the roughly 8 hour journey to Pak Bang.

Cruising up the Mekong was relaxing, exciting, boring, beautiful, all of that at different times. The scenery, especially in that first day closer to Luang Prabang, was beautiful, with dense jungle framed by the occasional limestone cliff or mountain. We kept looking out for monkeys in the trees, as it just seemed like there should be, but never had any luck. Every now and then we’d hit a small rapid, more like a shoals, where the boat would slow down, the engine would groan, and we’d all watch, silently playing out the whole scenario should the engine cut out and we get smashed against that rock… Despite being seemingly remote, that stretch of river had a lot of activity. We literally didn’t go more than a couple hundred yards without some sign of human activity. There was generally always someone fishing at the shoals whenever we passed them. Every hour or so we’d pass a small village, where inevitably every child from the village would be splashing around naked in the water. They must do that a lot. We napped, read, listened to music or played cards to pass the time. Having a light load on the boat must have allowed us to go a bit faster than usual, since we pulled into Pak Beng only about 7 hours after we had set off. Day 1 down, easy as pie.

Day 2 wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t as smooth as Day 1. Disappointingly, we had to take a different boat. We tried to get on the same boat as Day 1, but they just said “no” and pointed us to another boat. Nobody spoke any English, so none of us tourists were quite sure we were on the right boat, but couldn’t do anything else but trust the locals. Our new boat was not so nice. No tables this time, only a bunch more car seats. Still, they reclined so it wasn’t too bad (this is what we were expecting on Day 1 anyways). Also, it was a bit more crowded this time. All the same tourists from the day before were present, but more and more locals from Pak Beng kept streaming onto the boat. It never really filled up, and Steph and I were left with two 2-seater seats to share between us. Another win. The boat wasn’t as good, the scenery wasn’t as good, and the trip took a couple hours longer on Day 2. We passed the time in much the same way as Day 1, minus the cards and when it dumped rain on us for 10 minutes and we scrambled to tie down the rain curtains. Pretty much everyone we had talked to in Laos who had just taken the slow boat the other way said the same thing: “it’s fine, but just a little too long.” That was us the second day, we were ready to get off the boat and kept precise track of our progress on my phone for the last couple hours. All in all it was a great experience for us and we’re certainly glad we chose it. We rolled into Huay Xi right about 6 pm, too late to cross the border into Thailand that same day, so we grabbed a room at a guesthouse in town and reflected on our trip to date. It was our last night in Laos. Tomorrow, Thailand!

Luang Prabang

Personally, I think the UNESCO World Heritage designation has been handed out a bit too often, watering down the product a bit. We’re not even really sure what it means, but there are so many places advertising their UNESCO World Heritage status that you eventually stop caring a bit. The entire city of Luang Prabang has this special distinction, and in this case it’s easy to see why. It’s a charming little town right at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers. I was actually quite shocked at how remarkably clean the city was – unheard of in this part of the world. Every street and alley in the town is spotless. The town is full of traditional Lao wooden houses which seem to be influenced by the former French occupation, with wrap-around balconies and shuttered windows. There’s plenty of intricately decorated wats scattered around the city, narrow alleyways to explore, and small handicraft shops to browse. Easily the most charming city we’ve been to in Asia. I guess the city has a lot of history – it was the capital of the first Lao kingdom way back in 1353 – but that’s about all we know. We were just here because we heard it was nice.

Our hotel, kinda hard to tell but it was nice

Thailand is the king of the silk industry in this part of the world (thanks to our old friend Jim Thompson), but some people are working hard to get Laos’ textile industry internationally recognized as well. Ock Pop Tok is a company working to achieve just that, while also providing income for some of the ethnic minorities who specialize in this industry. These are a lot of the same ethnic minorities that we came across in Vietnam. Ock Pop Tok has a couple shops in town, which have some really beautiful pieces (and tempting souvenirs), but to really see the process you have to visit their “living craft center” a few miles out of town. Here, you get to see some of the ladies working their big weaving looms, which seems incredibly complex. It was hard for me to even wrap my head around them making such intricate designs with such basic, although complex, tools. We also got to see how they produce silk (it comes from the cocoon of the silk worm if you didn’t know) as well as how they dye it using natural ingredients. It was actually pretty fascinating and Steph was dying to take a weaving class. I don’t think I’d have the patience, much less the skill. I also got to try silk worm poo tea, which is exactly as you read it. Wasn't too bad, tasted pretty much like green tea just as the waiter promised.

I shall drink your poo later

All the colors and the natural products they use to dye them

Loom

They hand-draw these patterns on there with wax, dye it, then melt off the wax to leave un-dyed pattern

Says it right there, Silkworm poo tea

One of the most popular tourist activities in Luang Prabang is slightly controversial, and that’s the giving of the alms. Every morning at about 5:30, all the monks file out of the wats and walk around town in their orange robes collecting alms of food – typically sticky rice but sometimes little baked treats – from kneeling worshippers. This is all the monks will eat, so they rely on the generosity of the locals for their sustenance. It’s a beautiful ceremony. Unfortunately it’s become a bit too popular with tourists, who often want to participate for their own amusement, or who cross much closer than would be considered a respectful distance in their effort to get close up photos of the ceremony. Well, this is at least what we hear. We didn't want any part of that, so we made sure to stay well away from the touristy areas of the ritual. Luckily the monks walk right in front of our hotel, so we simply had to walk outside and sit off to the side to see a few locals kneeling on the sidewalk offering their daily alm to the passing monks. Pretty cool.

Steph did get off a cheeky picture

Another activity that might actually be more controversial, depending on who you talk to, is the elephant tourism industry. You may remember from when we were in Chiang Mai that we chose to visit an elephant sanctuary that didn’t allow you to ride the elephants. I did a lot of research again, and could write pages on the subject, but I’ve come to this conclusion: Best case scenario for these elephants is to be wild and free. No doubt about it. They should be able to live in the forests and go about their lives in peace. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly realistic, at least for the elephants that were born in captivity or have already been domesticated. Second best case is elephant sanctuaries, where they can basically live as they would in the wild, but might get herded together daily for tourists to come take their pictures. Third comes elephant camps, where domesticated elephants are kept in camps with their mahouts to entertain the tourists. Last and absolute worst case scenario is for them to remain in the logging camps where most of these domesticated elephants come from, where they are worked hard, beaten into submission, and generally not well taken care of. Anything is better than that last option, and it’s not realistic for them all to end up in elephant sanctuaries or back in the wild, so we chose to spend our money on an elephant camp. Now, there are different levels of these elephant camps, and we chose one that, as far as I could tell from my research and observations, truly did care for the elephants and want to give them a better life. They did chain the elephants (otherwise they could run off – it’s not exactly easy to build a fence to contain an elephant), and they did carry those nasty bull hooks with the sharp metal hook on the end of a stick (but I never saw them use one or could see any signs of abuse on any of the elephants). Not long ago I would probably have judged someone that spent their money on a camp like this, but the number one goal is to get the elephants out of the logging camps and provide them a better life, and I feel camps such as ours are doing just that. Sorry. That wasn’t as concise as I was hoping, but now you get to look at elephant pictures. We had an awesome day at the camp. Feeding time might have been my favorite as you really got to get up close and personal with the elephants. We went for a ride, which was okay but certainly the least-interesting part of the trip. The most fun part was getting to sit bareback on the elephants as the walked into the Mekong River for a bath. Steph had not signed up for this part, but even she couldn’t resist and jumped at the chance to sit on an elephant in a dirty river. She’s come a long way.

As part of our elephant trip we were taken to Kuang Si, a nearby waterfall which is a very popular excursion out of Luang Prabang. I was expecting something similar to the Blue Lagoon near Vang Vieng – a dinky waterfall (we’re right at the end of the dry season here) with an overcrowded pool at the bottom. We were pleasantly surprised – the waterfall was definitely one of the most beautiful I had ever seen, nobody is allowed to swim at it’s base, and there were lots of other pools for people to swim in so it wasn't overly crowded. We also got to visit a sanctuary for Asiatic black bears, also called Moon Bears, which were rescued from bear bile farms around Laos. Yet another cause you can consider supporting (Free the Bears). I got myself a t-shirt to do my small part. The only problem with our visit to the Kuang Si waterfalls is that they only gave us 2 hours, so after the waterfall and bear center we only had about 20 minutes to tour the butterfly center. Too bad.

Luang Prabang was the kind of place we could have easily stayed at for a few extra days. Heck, I could have gone out on a few more elephant trips (did I mention it was only $30?). But, we were feeling a bit anxious to get back to Thailand and a combination of excited and nervous about how we were gonna get there. There’s a few options – expensive flight, long bus ride, or 2 days on a ferry chugging up the Mekong. Any guess as to which one we chose?