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?

Vang Vieng

Our planned route through Laos follows a well-worn tourist trail. Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage city, is the real draw but on the way there’s Vang Vieng. I’ve been struggling with whether I actually want to visit Vang Vieng for a while now. You see, it is legendary for it’s party scene, which is focused around a tubing “culture” where backpackers float down a river in an inflated truck tire tube, stopping at bars along the way to get drunk and jump and swing into the river. They do this daily. For weeks, sometimes. Well, I like tubing and I like jumping and swinging into the river, but I’m not much for the drunk backpacker scene. I was never into it before, but certainly feel too old for it now. This was all Vang Vieng was known for for years, that and said drunk backpackers later going to restaurants to watch Friends reruns while they watch dinner. If that was all it had to offer, we definitely would have skipped Vang Vieng. Apparently, times have changed. Turns out, drinking and water don’t mix too well, and a bunch of tourists drowned. The party scene was shut down, or at least seriously cut back, but people kept coming. Evidently Vang Vieng did have more to offer, such as rock climbing, kayaking, and a seriously beautiful setting. Sounded okay to us, so off we went.

The town itself is a dump. There’s no two ways about it. It’s not clean, it’s dusty, it has no charm whatsoever. But the setting is amazing, with huge limestone mountains just on the opposite side of the Nam Song river. Our arrival in Vang Vieng unfortunately coincided with Steph taking a turn for the worse. She’d had an upset stomach for maybe two weeks, but it wasn’t a big deal until we got Vang Vieng and it developed into nausea and all the other unpleasentries that go along with Montezuma’s Revenge, as they call it in Mexico. It was a good enough reason to take it easy for a few days, so while Steph hung out in our hotel room, I tried to make the most of it. What else to do but hire a motorbike and go exploring? It’s incredibly cheap at just under $5 for the day, plus about $3 in fuel. I did a big loop through and around the limestone mountains on the other side of the river from town, stopping at the uber-touristy Blue Lagoon on the way. It was really beautiful and nice to get out on my own, but the road was seriously bumpy at times and seriously muddy at others.

the Blue Lagoon was filled with Asian tourists

After a couple days of doing nothing, Steph was finally feeling well enough to venture back into the world. Tubing made this town famous, we can’t leave without giving it a shot. We devised a plan to avoid the drunk backpackers – leaving in the morning before they all wake up. Our plan worked well since the only other tubers we saw was a French family with two young kids. Thus we had the river basically to ourselves, save the locals fishing in the river and the occasional kayaking group paddling past. We floated right on past all the bars even as they tried to wave us in, though did stop at one for fruit shakes and to play some pool. All of the rope swings, slides, and jumps have been removed, so we had a nice relaxing float down the river. The scenery was beautiful, the water was refreshingly cool on a very hot day, and there were no drunk backpackers in sight. Mission accomplished.

With tubing in Vang Vieng crossed off my bucket list, we gladly left town for Luang Prabang, the place to go in Laos. We had heard a lot of conflicting reports on how long it would actually take to get there, anywhere from 5 to 8 hours, so we were surprised when our driver said it was only 4 hours. Susie had just done the trip from the other direction and she said it was at least 7 hours. Apparently the confusion is due to there actually being 2 different ways to go – the new, fast road on which the transport companies are not yet insured, or the old, slow, windy, pothole-covered road on which they do have insurance. Luckily our driver was a bit of a rebel and took the chance on the new road and we were glad for it, arriving in Luang Prabang in just under the promised 4 hours and ready to explore!

Vientiane

We have a rough semblance of a plan for this trip, but we’re kinda making it up as we go. It’s the first time that we’ve been travelling and haven’t had a time constraint. If we want to stay a day or two longer in a place we like, such as Hoi An, we do. It’s a nice luxury to have. Anyways, we were planning on taking that long 30-hour bus ride from Sapa into Laos, but were gonna split it up over 2 or 3 days. Still, it sounded unbearable. In the end we’re glad we decided to fly, since this put us in Vientiane and thus in a better position to do a loop through Laos into Northern Thailand. We weren’t expecting much of Vientiane, and it did not disappoint. Actually it wasn’t bad, there just isn’t much to see. It’s wonderfully quiet for a city in Southeast Asia, especially considering it is a capital. If you don’t know much about Laos, you now know the capital is Vientiane. In English, it is actually pronounced "Laos" with the s, much to my dismay (I've always thought you were supposed to drop the s and I'm having a hard time adjusting). It’s full name is Lao PDR for People’s Democratic Republic. I’m sure a quick google search would explain this to me, since Laos is a communist country, but I’m currently on a boat.

We spent just a couple nights in Vientiane, enjoying the empty sidewalks and a few Western comforts. For such a small city, it seems to have a large expat population. There were Swedish and Italian pizza places, Scandinavian bakeries, and western-style coffee shops. We indulged in a few. Our first night we met back up with our friend Susie, who had taken that horror 30-hour bus ride and was traveling the other way through Laos but was flying back to Switzerland the next morning. We met up for dinner, she shared some tips for Laos, and we said goodbye. It's always strange meeting people while traveling, who you consider new friends but you'll probably never see again. Lao food seems to be kinda Thai-lite with some standard Asian dishes also available. There are curries, but usually only red or green (there’s lots more in Thailand). They have the green papaya salad we love in Thailand, but it tastes much fishier. If all else fails, every restaurant has fried rice or a wide variety of stir-fried veggies/mean/sauce combinations.

Bringing in food for the night market

Grilled fish from the Mekong

It’s been so hot on this trip that we haven’t been able to exercise, or at least that’s our excuse. We’ve looked at getting day passes to gyms in some of the larger cities, but they are always at least $20 each. So, we walk everywhere. We met a Kiwi family in Vietnam where the mom wears a Fitbit wristband. She said they average at least 10 miles a day, and I believe it. I’m sure we walked at least that far in our one full day in Vientiane, first to something called Patuxai, or the Victory Gate. Exactly what it celebrates the victory of, I am not sure. It’s a huge concrete monument similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris (and just a bit higher to trump the French). It had nice views over the city from the top, but the best part was the sign at the bottom that calls it “a monster of concrete.” Apparently the concrete was donated by the US to build a new airport and they built that instead.

Patuxai - good from afar, but...

Pha That Luang is the national symbol of Laos – a big golden stupa, kinda like a round pyramid. Somehow we managed to time it to show up during the one hour they are closed for lunch, but we could still take our pictures and get out of there. It was surprisingly dirty considering it’s their national symbol. Somebody get a pressure washer.

The most memorable visit we made in Vientiane was at a place called the COPE Visitor Center. COPE stands for Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise, and it’s not a happy place. Flash back to the 60’s during the Vietnam War. The North was using Laos as a supply route to get supplies to the Viet Cong in the south. Despite signing a treaty to not have any military presence in Laos, the US quickly set up a secret base somewhere in the north of Laos and proceeded to bomb the crap out of Laos. In over 580,000 bombing missions (yes, you read that right), over 2 million tons of explosives were dropped on a country that wasn’t even in the war. Laos is sadly the most heavily bombed country in the world per capita. The targets would have been the Communist Vietnamese, but as you can guess there is always collateral damage. Many innocent Laotians were killed or lost everything they had when their homes were destroyed. Horrible as that is, it gets worse. A lot of these bombs being dropped were cluster bombs, which are big bombs that open up in mid-air and release lots of little bombs (called “bombies” here) that scatter over a larger range. The problem with cluster bombs (or, one of the problems) is that they don’t always go off. Of the 270 million bombies dropped on Laos, 30% failed to detonate. That means 80 million of these things are sitting on the ground waiting for some unsuspecting person to eventually stumble across it. Even now, 40 years later, 100 people still die every year because of these. 40% of those are children. So now the good news, if you can call it that. The positive news maybe. Luckily there are good people in this world that are trying to help, cue COPE. One problem that COPE is helping with is supporting the people who are injured by unexploded ordinance (UXO). About two thirds of people in UXO accidents don’t die, but they will amost surely lose at least one limb. So, COPE makes prosthetic limbs for these people and also helps modify their homes for their new handicaps. The BIG problem facing Laos is removing all the UXO from the country. As you can guess, this is a very slow and extremely dangerous process. Pretty amazing people that sign up for a job like that. Our visit was a sobering one, to say the least. If you want to help out, check out the COPE webpage (www.copelaos.org) and consider making a donation. If any of you were planning to give me a gift in the future, feel free to donate to COPE instead.

Okay, sometimes we do take a tuik tuik, or "jumbo" as the big ones are called here

It sometimes feels strange or out-of-place to have such a somber experience while traveling. Traveling is supposed to be fun! As much as I’d like to bury my head in the sand and skip visits like we had at COPE, or had in Cambodia years ago, I’m very glad we got to experience it. If for nothing else, it’s important to see the real effects of war, still very real 40 years later. And again, I’m just thankful I don’t have to experience it first hand.

Sapa

We’ve been in Vietnam for nearly 3 weeks at this point and it’s been nothing but hot. Maybe a little sprinkle here or there, but no real rain, which would be more than welcome to cool everything down a bit. Steph, self-proclaimed lover of the heat, was over it. So you can imagine our delight when we looked up the weather forecast in Sapa, in the northeast of Vietnam, and found that the daily highs were under 90°F. We couldn't wait, so we hopped on a morning bus (no overnight train or bus for us) and got up to the highlands asap. Most people go to Sapa for the scenery, as it’s located right at the top of the beautiful Muong Hoa Valley, or for trekking to remote mountain villages of the “ethnic minorities,” but we were mostly there for the weather. The other stuff sounded okay, too.

Sapa as a town reminded me very much of Cuzco in Peru. Mountain scenery, lots of local people walking around in their colorful clothing, and LOTS of tourists. Actually the number of tourists has apparently skyrocketed with the opening of a new highway from Hanoi – what used to be a 12+ hour bus or train ride is now under 5 hours, and the locals are coming in droves. I can’t say we really liked the town of Sapa. The local ladies are very pushy trying to sell their handicrafts, plus they outnumber the tourists, so it can get a bit overwhelming at times. The town is certainly not ready for the new influx of visitors – streets are narrow and traffic gridlocks are common, with the symphony of blaring horns that follows. All the tour operators in town were pushing the same packaged 1- or 2-night trekking trips to some of the ethinic minority villages. For whatever reason that didn't really interest us, at least the packaged tour part. We did visit an ethnic village of the Black H’mong people right near Sapa, which was basically just a bunch of shops selling the same handicrafts the ladies are peddling on the street, but at much better prices. Actually the stuff is pretty cool, we just couldn't think of a need for any of it. I did buy a traditional hat that the men sometimes wear – some of the fabric is hand-dyed using locally-grown indigo leaves, and most of the stitching is done by hand. One lady we talked to later said it takes them a week to make one of these hats. I find that a bit of a stretch, but no doubt it would take a long time. 5 bucks. That’s all it was. I didn't even have to negotiate. Makes you feel almost guilty, but the lady seemed very happy to get my business and even gave Steph a free bracelet as a thank you. Now I just gotta figure out something to do with this hat.

Heading down to Cat Cat village

Lots of textiles for sale

A boy on his water buffalo. The water buffalo seem amazingly passive to allow these kids to jump, climb and play on them

We stayed one night in Sapa town, then got out of there for the quieter areas surrounding it, choosing to stay at a homestay about 6 miles down the road in the town of Ta Van. The homestay was great – set right in the middle of the terraced rice paddies, it was a wonderful place to relax and enjoy the view and cool mountain air.

Maybe the best part of our homestay was the food. Free breakfast in the morning – Vietnamese coffee with your choice of banana pancake, eggs and toast, or noodle soup – pretty standard so far in Vietnam. That was fine, but dinner was a different story. For $6 each we all sat around a table with the family and were served a huge meal of chicken, pork, beef and vegetarian dishes, plus all the apple wine we could drink. It was more like whiskey, so we weren't exactly asking for seconds of that. But when your host pours you a small drink, you all drink it and then shake each other’s hands, as is local custom. Actually it was just nice to get a break from the typical Vietnamese dishes and try something new.

Of course we spend all this time in Vietnam with no rain and we finally get to somewhere cool…and it rains. Actually we didn't mind it much, as it gave us an excuse to just sit under a gazebo and read our books. Steph’s been carrying a book this whole time without even opening it, then read it all in one afternoon. It never rained for more than a couple hours at a time, and there were always long breaks in between, so we could get out and do some little hikes when we wanted. The best thing we did was hire one of their motorbikes for the morning to go explore the valley a bit. I had chatted a bit with one of those pushy local ladies in Sapa that I mentioned, and she told me she was from a town called Thahn Kim. With nothing else that we really wanted to see, we made that our destination and set off. A word to the wise – if you ever visit Sapa, do NOT stay in Sapa itself – get as far down the valley as you can. Ta Van was nice, but it only got more and more beautiful as we travelled further away from Sapa.

Steph and I have the opposite problem with one-size-fits-all helmets. They're too small on me...

...and too big on her

No, not a drink stop, but it is a gas station. This is how you buy petrol here!

It turns out Thahn Kim was a bit of a dump, but as they say, “the adventure is in the journey, not the destination,” or something like that. Sapa was great, or at least Ta Van and the Muong Hoa Valley was, but our time in Vietnam was coming to a close. For independent travellers like us, the best way to get to neighbouring Laos consists of about 30-hours on a rickety old bus snaking through the mountains. Unfortunately Steph gets motion sickness, so we used that as a good excuse to fly instead. We hopped another bus back to Hanoi and took a short hop to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Goodbye Vietnam, hello Laos!