Day 80: Up the Mekong to Pakbeng

Up and out very early this morning in time for our cruise! We were leaving Luang Prabang and heading up the Mekong River on a two day cruise to the Thai border, at which point we'd cross back into Thailand. The tuk-tuk arrived for us at about 6:45, and was already crowded with a group of 4 French people. A few minutes later we arrived at the dock where the boat was waiting.

The boat itself is fairly long though not wide - probably about 30 metres long and maybe 3 metres wide. Not especially tall either, it sits low in the water as I guess most river boats do. With enough couches to seat 35 people we were expecting a crowd, but we learned to our surprise that the only passengers on the cruise were us, the four French people (who weren't actually in a group, just an older couple and a younger couple), and an older German lady. We also had two guides - one speaking English, the other French, along with a crew of 6 or so and a few Lao company employees hitching a ride up the river for the day.

We set off around 7am and immediately were served breakfast - buffet style with sliced baguette, croissants, boiled eggs and bananas. Very French. The boat moved up the river at what feels like a reasonable speed, but is actually quite slow, and the scenery only crawled past.

After an hour or so on the water we had our first stop, at Thousand Buddha Cave. This is a large limestone cave in a cliff directly against the water, filled with thousands of images of Buddha. Some very large (3-4m tall), others only a couple of inches high. Some of them were very old, but they were all put in there recently to protect them from American bombing during the war. As mentioned, parts of Laos were very heavily bombed, and everyone over the age of 45 remembers it.

We didn't spend long here, maybe 15 minutes, before hopping back on the boat. The boat slowly made its way upriver, and we spent our time listening to podcasts, reading and just watching the scenery go by. It was mostly jungle here, mountainous in some places but not in others. Constantly rolling hills though, and overall not very populated.

We had a buffet lunch on board the boat at about 11:30, with two different stir fry dishes and some fried fish - all very tasty, though some of the fish pieces had a couple of bones in it which always puts me off.

Not long after lunch we arrived at a small village where we hopped off to take a look. I wouldn't necessarily say it was squalid, but it was very poor and the children selling bracelets (and some of the women selling silk scarves) looked quite desperate. But I just can't bring myself to buy in these situations, though mainly because I'm not particularly interested in silk scarves! Our guide La took us around the village pointing out various items of interest, including a gong at the Buddhist temple made from an old American bomb. These people were "lowlanders", ie they lived just near the river in houses on stilts, as opposed to the uplander tribes which live further up the mountains and only use small stilts.

Back on to the boat, and that was out sight-seeing for the day. We spent the next 5 or so hours just cruising along, watching the scenery and enjoying the relaxed pace of life on the water. The current was very strong (we were going against it), and it seemed like it was quite a shallow river as there were lots of whirlpools, eddies and so on. And of course huge rocks sticking out of the water.

We also saw several speedboats bouncing along the water - they can take you from Luang Prabang to the Thai border in about 4 hours (we were going to take about 16 hours over 2 days to do the same). We had briefly considered a speedboat but they have a very dubious safety record, and are extremely uncomfortable. Imagine sitting in a wooden canoe with no leg room in the sun for four hours while you get jolted by waves, blinded by spray and deafened by the engine - not our idea of fun.

Approaching sunset we finally made it to the town of Pak Beng, probably the largest settlement we'd seen since leaving Luang Prabang. The cruise company have a small lodge here for about 40 people, and each pair on the cruise were allocated a separate bungalow. They were quite nice - not luxurious, but definitely comfortable enough for one night, and to be honest we could have even stayed longer.

Dinner at the hotel restaurant was provided - three courses of Lao cuisine including beef soup, spring rolls, pork mince salad, stir fried vegetables, red curry, and coconut & banana sticky rice balls for dessert. We were very impressed with the food - although we'd had a fancy dinner the previous night, this was almost as good! Topped it off with a cocktail of Lao whisky and curacao, very strong but an interesting mix.

Off to bed very early (9pm) as no wifi and no TV meant we had to talk to each other!Read more