This is a long one, because I don’t want to miss sharing one bit…
The title of this post might as well read “Hello from Laos, or I’m just happy to be alive!” Seriously, Jen and I unknowingly took our lives into our own hands (or rather some non-English speaking boat driver’s hands) yesterday in order to get into Laos. All because it’s a big Buddhist holiday right now and flights to Luang Prabang were sold out until Saturday (in retrospect, not such a bad option).
But, to back up a bit, our time in Chiang Mai was pleasant. It rained a lot and we wandered the city aimlessly for hours at a time with umbrellas and slippery flip flops. We tried to plan ahead this time and purchase airplane tickets to Laos two whole days in advance, only to find out (as mentioned above) about the holiday and lack of free seats. Flying into Laos is the easiest way to get here, as the notoriously particular immigration authorities will approve visas immediately for air passengers. (The country itself has only been open to tourists for ten years.) Other options include driving to the Thai/Laos border closest to Chiang Mai, but at a crossing that requires a visa prepared four business days in advance, or driving overnight to a farther border crossing that can get visas within a few hours and then taking either a 2 day slow boat up the Mekong River or a 6 hour speedboat up the Mekong. Being somewhat strapped for time, since Jen is due to fly home on Tuesday (we already bought that connecting flight, thank goodness!), we opted for the fastest visa time and the fastest boat trip. Stupid, stupid us.
We booked our trip, then spent our last day in Thailand doing a little shopping and then attending a cooking class for dinner. (Even with help, our food didn’t compare to the street vendors’!) We were picked up from our guest house for the “bus” (i.e. van) trip at 8:30 pm and were told that we’d arrive at the border at 5am, the immigration office would open for us and we’d be on a speedboat by 9am, landing in Luang Prabang at 3pm. Ha ha. Our van tooled around Chiang Mai for a bit, picking more and more passengers, then to their company headquarters where we put in our visa requests. We left Chiang Mai at 10pm and drove on the windiest, pot-hole ridden “highway” I’ve ever been on. One lane in either direction in many spots, with craters that looked leftover from land mines.
(By the way, American gas station bathrooms will be no problem now. You haven’t seen a roadside restroom until you’ve had to squat over a hole in the middle of the night, swatting away bugs.)
We arrived, without sleep, at the Thai border at 3am. Conveniently enough, at a guest house that offered to sell us rooms until 7am wake up to go get our visas. After a couple of the grungiest boys in the van came rushing back from being shown the rooms with looks of horror on their faces, we opted, like them, to try napping on the wooden tables out front. Not so restful, yet only marginally harder than the Thai mattresses! :)
The included breakfast was in an area crawling with red ants and swarming with bees, so Jen and I grabbed our toast and opted to wait by the driveway until it was time to go. Finally, at 8am, we were driven to the border crossing, where we stood in the rain to have our passports stamped by Thai officials. We were then ferried (what dock?) across the river to the Lao side, where the immigration waiting room was an open air restaurant. With all our Lao papers in order, we were taken by bus to the speedboat landing upriver, where we had to wait for another hour.
Our speedboats finally prepped, we climbed down the mud-soaked mountainside to the landing, where we were handed crash helmets (with small visors, fortunately) and life vests. The “speedboats” were glorified wooden canoes with Toyota automobile engines strapped to the back of them. Our seats were two per row, in a little wooden box that was maybe three feet across by two feet deep and had a tiny little cushion for our butts, which in reality, along with our legs, just sat in puddles of muddy water at the bottom of the boat. We crammed six to a boat and had our packs strapped to the front. We also wore rain ponchos, which at the time I figured would keep us dry, but ended up realizing they just helped to minimize the stinging of the driving rain and river water.
For six hours (six!!!), we hurtled down (or was it up? hard to tell when the current is coming from all directions) the Mekong. We were soaking wet from the splashing waves and the pouring rain, freezing from the wind, hungry, tired, forced into a cross-legged position, no more than four inches above the water line (I accidentally stuck my hand in it when adjusting my poncho, that’s how shallow our boat was). Miserable is a generous term. I alternated between trying to gauge which bank was closer for when our boat inevitably capsized and/or hit something and splintered into a million pieces and i would need to brave the swirling whirlpools and rushing current to swim to shore, and trying to distract myself from the likelihood of sudden death by making mental lists of things and pretending that we weren’t actually about to die. You may think I’m exaggerating, but you would be wrong. I wouldn’t wish a speedboat down the Mekong on my worst enemy.
Finally in Luang Prabang, we found a guest house with a spare room and a hot shower and agreed without even asking the price (which, turns out is just over $9 per night). We indulged in pizza and soda for dinner, with slices of cake for dessert….we earned it.
This is long, so I’ll write more later about Luang Prabang, which is a neat little city.
