Slow Boat down the Mekong

the Mekong river

In Thailand, we organized a three day trip to Luang Prabang: a five hour bus ride to the Lao border followed by two days of travel by boat. Cruising down the Mekong river by slow boat is probably the best way to get into Laos, with the other options being much less appealing. Lao Airlines has pretty close to a monopoly on flights (read: expensive) and overland travel is usually quite the ordeal because of both undeveloped infrastructure (bumpy & dusty) and  lackadaisical time schedules.  Speed boats can get you there in a matter of hours but aren't very safe with a staggering number of fatalities.  So why not take a slow boat and enjoy the scenery?  Make sure to bring a cushion to sit on; they're helpful if you end up with wooden seats.
From Chiang Mai, we headed to the Thai border town of Chiang Khong, where we would spend a night at a lodge.  There, our tour operator had us fill out the requisite forms and they brought our passports to the immigration office.  We were impressed - this would definitely streamline things the next day!  In the morning, we crossed the Mekong to Houayxai, Laos and joined the masses waiting to go through Lao immigration.  

If the rest of the tour operators had had the same idea as ours, the system might have worked, but unfortunately it was a bit of a free-for-all.  Envision a large crowd of people, most of whom were feverishly filling out paperwork at the last-minute.  There were no line-ups; people were simply milling around in the confusion or butting in front of others.  An elderly man with a pot of hot tea was trying to get to the office where immigration was processing a hundred applications at once.  Disorganized people were lamenting "...they only take American dollars!  Where can I change money?"  Finally ready, officials started holding up passports from behind the window.  The people closest to them were calling out names and nationalities ("we've got a Canadian one!")  Then you just had to muscle your way to the front, pay the visa fee and collect your passport. 
  

watching the boats in Pak Beng

The journey itself down the Mekong was pleasant with sunny skies.  Tiny villages dotted the mountainous landscape, otherwise an undisturbed oasis of green.  Here and there you'd see a handful of cattle grazing, men tossing nets into the water and women scrubbing laundry or washing rice at the river bank.  Hearing our boat approaching, children would run down to the shore, turning cartwheels, enthusiastically waving and shouting.  


The evening of the second day we arrived in Pak Beng just before dinnertime.  Two boatloads of people descended upon this one-street town, and we all needed to find rooms as the second night was not included in any tours booked from Thailand.  Aron & I disembarked, bypassed the touts on the dock heading up the hill quickly.  We walked to one of the furthest guest houses where we found a room for 80,000 kip or $9.50.  (Curious as to what can you get for under $10?  Well, there was no tv or internet, of course, but we had our own private bathroom.  It was spacious, clean and quiet, aside from the confused rooster making noise at 2 am.)  As we were settling in, there was a knock at the door and the owner of the guest house was whispering something about one of the other rooms.  It turned out she was hoping we would be discreet about the price we were given.  She had to charge more to the other people as they used a tout and she needed to pay his commission fee.