Age of Aquarius

We arrived in Laos yesterday after 2 days of floating down the Mekong River from Thailand. This was by far my scariest, most drunken, worst heckling, frantic shit show of an experience in South East Asia yet, all combined into one 2 day journey down a river. Here is how it went down...

Our first snafu was forgetting to check out of Thailand... whoops, they don't really like when that happens so when we arrived at the Laos embassy on the other side of a river we were aggressively informed of our mistake. So we schlepped our huge backpacks with shoes and stolen bus blankets hanging precariously from strings back into the tipsy sawngthaew boat (where we almost end up in the river over the side of the boat with the weight of our bags) and head back across to Thailand to get our departure stamp. The testy embassy guy snaps for our passports then stamp stamp stamp, he takes the piece of paper with our visas and goodbye to Thailand. We cross the river again to the Laos side on the sawngthaew boat to get our new visas and arrival stamps.

The sawngthaew boat we took from Thailand to the shore of Laos

So now we are in Laos, officially this time. We decided to take the slow boat down the Mekong River to Louang Prabang, which takes two day and stops overnight in the village of Pakbeng after the first day of shenanigans. And it was utter shenanigans. Before we even get on the boat the heckle starts. We are taken to some "meeting" where a Lao guy (who we later discovered was working for the bus agency) gives us this horrific and terrifying speech about how horrible the conditions are on the slow boat, with no food, water, or bathroom and how expensive the stopover night in Pakbeng is. He then assures us we have another option, for the small price of 700 Baht we can upgrade to the nice and cushy air conditioned bus with movies and stops for food and bathrooms. We can see scenery and the local people out the huge windows and it only takes 7 hours to reach Louang Prabang instead of 2 days. In broken English and thick Lao accent he says "I only say this because you are my guest in my country. You are my guest." So once he has convinced some suckers to take the bus (without slow boat refunds, which we have already bought) he turns around and resells their seats. Very sneaky. While this is happening they have taken our passports which are laying on a huge stack on a table, all the passports of the people who are taking the boat are then supposed to be taken by people not wearing any kind of uniform just out of sight to the "police station" where they copy the numbers for records. Liz and I are totally freaked out by this passport snatch and are watching ours like hawks from this scare tactic meeting while they shuffle and reshuffle the stacks. After the heckle we demand our passports back which is a huge shit show, the argument being "You are my guest, trust me" and Liz saying "Well if you really are going to show my passport to the police shouldn't I be with it since it identifies me and a passport without the person is useless? I'll go with you to the police station and I will show them my passport if that is really what you are going to do, but I'm going to stay with it and hold it." So they throw our passports at us, with huge relief, and we follow the guys carrying the other 100 or so in the random stacks to a room with a guy behind a desk where we personally copy our own passport numbers into the books, get our tickets for the slow boat (because we are not buying his crap about the horrible conditions) and give an imaginary finger to the "trust me" guy. It was a harrowing and stressful experience to say the least. And finally we got to board the boat.

Being on this boat (which I shall now refer to as the booze cruise) was the first time we have met any fellow travelers in South East Asia. Sure I have seen them around, their white faces glowing among a sea of tan, but this was our first opportunity to chat it up with some underage drunken gap years from Australia and England. And drunken it was. Not only was the "trust me" guy full of shit, because it was a very comfortable and airy ride with cushy seats and huge open windows with little pink scalloped curtains and fringe hanging down, but there was also a BAR with sandwiches. And if you wanted to support the local economy by buying beer from a child who carried it on board in a plastic laundry basket at one of the random stops along the coastline along with some other snack munchies that was also an option. I must say that Beerlao it quite excellent. The ride was about 7ish hours down the Mekong to the village of Pakbeng down the coffee with cream colored river. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, with fluffy green forest and huge grey rocks that jutted out of the water like steel colored ice bergs.

Scenery from the Mekong River bank
You could wander around and socialize, play cards and drink, or just chill and read your book and watch the coast line float by. The ride once we are on board was all smooth sailing, literally, but once we arrived getting our bags off was another story.

Commence shit show heckle number 2 of the day. All our backpacks were stored under the floor boards, and little kids would board and just start carrying peoples bags off up this huge muddy hill and demand a tip once they got to the top, so you had to pay to get your bag back and you weren't sure exactly where it was or who had it unless you could grab your bag first, before they got up the hill. Since we were one of the first ones on the booze cruise our bags were at the bottom and we had to wait a worrisome length of time to get them out with people crowding all around and shouts of "You stay here! This good room!" and signs and pictures for guest houses being flashed in your face with the enclosing darkness of nightfall adding to the stress. I snatched my backpack off some kids shoulders before he made it up the hill and Liz got hers by pushing back through the crowd into the hold of the boat and grabbing hers. So we succumb to a guesthouse picture flash, get a room with sporadic hot water bouts and electricity until midnight. The end of this day was brought in by some much needed whiskey and coke over dinner. Since whiskey is sometimes cheaper than water I just consider this another cultural assimilation.

The village for our overnight stay, with limited electricity and hot water

A rooster crows at 5 AM right outside our window. At least we know where our eggs for breakfast are coming from. With no electricity we pack up and head down to the muddy boat landing for day 2 of booze cruise shenanigans. We knew that at the end of this ride we would finally be in Louang Prabang admiring the French influenced architecture and sipping Laos coffee in a swankey cafe, but the past day still haunted us and we couldn't wait to get out of there. Once we finally departed day 2 of the booze cruise was pretty much the same on the fellow passenger drunkenness scale as day one, except today the Australian lads decided to play drinking games, and really who am I to turn down a game of Kings Cup? Especially since these boys needed instructing as to the official Reno rules, which are still the best set of rules I have yet encountered in my vast and now worldly experinces. So after setting the record straight I mingled with/ was entertained by my fellow booze cruise/slow boat travelers and just hung out admiring the scenery for the rest of the ride to Louang Prabang.

Our arrival in Louang Prabang, FINALLY!

SHOW ME PICTURES!