Laos Day 8 & 9 – Boat trip up the Mekong

Fortunately we drunkenly packed the night before, so didn’t have too much pain in the morning before checking out – other than having to run to an ATM to pay for the hotel, who’s card machine wasn’t working. I enlisted the services of a sleeping tuk tuk driver from just outside and soon we were on our way – a full 45 minutes ahead of the boat leaving, and only a ten minute drive away… what could go wrong?

Our boat (looked like this one).

Well, he could decide to mistakenly drive us towards the bus station instead of the boat pier – that’s what. Since when does “boat jetty” sound like “bus station”?!? By the time we realised he wasn’t just taking us the back way there we’d lost 20 minutes – then, on arrival there was no sign of any other tourists and about 40 empty boats that all looked the same. After wandering about for another ten minutes in a mild panic, finding no one that spoke English we eventually stumbled across our boat – we scrabbled over a load of slippery muddy river bank, almost falling over a couple of times before we realised that we had walked directly past the convenient steps at the top of the jetty, which lead directly to the boat.

Getting on was another challenge – there was just one narrow plank of wood about 2 metres long and 12 inches wide bridging the gap, and we were carrying over 20kg of bags each. I went first and it bounced as I stepped on, but I managed to not drop all the bags. I didn’t trust Lisa – so took all of her stuff over for her, but she proved me wrong and scamped across like a gazelle.

Once we were settled, we had about 8 minutes to go and secure some snacks for the 9 hours ahead. Unfortunately, this was probably the ONLY transport we’ve caught so far that didn’t have a dozen stalls selling all manor of treats to the tourists. All I could find was an old lady selling stale baguettes – but nothing to go in them. We’d had no breakfast, and wouldn’t be in Pak Beng until 6pm – and all they had on the boat was instant noodles, crisps and drinks. Fuck.

The boat itself was relatively comfortable – there were enough seats to have two each at the back, whilst all the locals rode up front on benches (it did feel like a weird racial divide had instantly formed, although as tourists our tickets were more expensive so I didn’t feel all that bad). The seats themselves were old train or bus seats that had been ripped out, bolted to wooden planks and just placed in the boat – not even nailed down, so every time you reclined they slid about.

We modified our seats into a bed.

At least they did recline though – the prospect of 9 hours bolt upright in a 30 year old bus seat would be enough to throw myself overboard. After an hour or so of cruising we bought some instant noodles – they looked like a pot noodle, but tasted like what I imagine freeze dried rhino balls would. The only advantage of eating half a pot of them each was that it put you off eating again for a couple of hours.

The scenery going upriver was enough to keep our spirits up, along with the occasional cup of tea and packet of crisps. We’d wanted to take a cruise on the Mekong since arriving in SE Asia – so at least we were getting to combine that with actually getting from A to B, albeit VERY SLOWLY.

Not much else happened that day – aside from the batteries running out on everything that would possibly entertain us by about 4pm, but as it happened a storm hit just then anyway and we were forced to batten down the hatches. It hammered it down for a good hour, then cleared right up again in time for us docking at Pak Beng.

River bank allotments 

As you can imagine – the town was a fair trek back up away from the riverbank, and as we hadn’t been able to book anywhere in advance we had to trudge about enquiring at each place we came across. Usually this is standard behaviour for backpackers, but neither of us have got the patience for it and thus far have booked in advance everywhere – you might end up paying a couple of extra dollars a night, but at least you can go straight there and dump your bags!

View from our Pak Beng guesthouse

We eventually found a place that was actually fairly nice, really cheap and close to the jetty – well, not that close but at least it would be downhill the next morning. We were famished by this point, so quickly ventured next door to the Indian Restaurant and I ate more food in a single meal than I have in 3 months – but it was pretty tasty and I didn’t mind feeling sick. We vowed to not make the mistake of being so hungry the next day and overcompensated by buying breakfast muffins that night, and pre-booking a couple of baguettes and some fruit with the nearest stall to our hotel.

The next morning we were up bright and early – and had nothing to pack as we’d not touched our bags. We picked up our food (we had far too much, and spent almost all of our local Kip) – but wouldn’t be going hungry again. We got a different boat, that looked the same and set off an hour later than advised.

The trip was much the same – apart from us grazing at regular intervals. Same western folk, same captain – although annoyingly they had a much better selection of food on this one.

It seemed to take an age to reach Huay Xai – we’d been hopeful that it would arrive by 5:30pm so that we could quickly take a boat over to Chiang Khong on the Thai side of the border, get into Thailand before 6pm and stay there as they had a much better selection of accommodation. As it was – they seem to make sure you don’t get there in time for that, so you have to spend one more night in Laos – one more night spending money on their side of the border.

Sunset looking towards Thailand

As we got off the boat, we were the last ones and walked straight past the first place which looked a bit crappy and we thought would be the most expensive. We thought the town was an easy walk away again – but it turned out to be over 2km, so we had to double back and stay there anyway. As we arrived – we saw all of our boat-mates talking to a guy about a minivan transfer to Chiang Mai the next day, as luck would have it he only had 6 seats remaining on his express minivans (which took 4 hours rather than 7 to reach Chiang Mai) – luck that is, for the first six people off the boat. We were 9^th and 10^th – so we got landed with the more expensive room, and the slow bus into Thailand. Perfect – after spending 2 days on a boat covering as much ground as you could do in 4 hours on a straight highway, we’d now have to wait until 11am to catch another dreaded bus.

Lanterns over the Mekong.

We checked into our room – shown to us by the grumpiest woman in Laos, who actually uttered the phrase “YOU PAY NOW” the second I took off my backpack, and swiftly went somewhere else to eat. Along the way we asked another agent about a minivan transfer, but it turns out the guy at our hotel seems to control ALL the minivans in town so we were stuck with out slow bus. The only thing that rescued the night was finding another Laos BBQ restaurant which had cheap beer. On the way back, we could see and hear celebrations going on across the river in Chiang Khong – there is an annual festival (Loi Krathong) that happens in November and involves the lighting of paper lanterns which then float off into the night, along with fireworks and music. It was pretty cool watching it from the hotel as it had a pretty good vantage point, although we couldn’t help being a bit sad we weren’t already in Chiang Mai seeing it up close.