From Northern Thailand, one of the most popular ways of getting to the Laotian city and UNESCO world heritage site of Luang Prabang is on a 2-day slow boat journey along the Mekong River. The journey begins at Huay Xai on the Laotian side of the Mekong River across from the Northern Thai town of Chiang Khong. The Slow boat allows you to get a glimpse of village life along the Mekong River - navigating down the river to Luang Prabang, we passed by small herds of water buffalo, scantily clad children bathing in the river and fishermen in small boats. Framing the river on both sides were lush green forests with dramatic mountain landscapes looming in the distance.

While I enjoyed the vistas and the local color, the journey was somewhat of an ordeal as the boat was somewhat old and dilapidated and the accommodations - small narrow wooden seats - were fairly uncomfortable. In addition, I had to put up with bales of cigarette smoke from some chain-smoking European Farangs who were sitting in front of me. Although the listed maximum occupancy of these boats are about 70 passengers, typically the boat will not disembark until as many passengers as possible are loaded on board. On the 2nd day of the journey, I swear they crammed in more than 100 passengers aboard the vessel with many of the late arriving passengers-both farangs and locals- sitting on the floor in the baggage compartment towards the front of the boat. Talk about packing them in like sardines! In any case, this was akin to going on a 3rd class bus, and like a typical country bus, the boat made impromptu stops along the river picking up and letting off villagers as well as loading (and unloading) cargo. This was definitely not a luxury cruise, but there are alternatives.

On the 2nd leg of the journey (from Pakbeng to Luang Prabang), I had a freak accident but I survived - while I was walking to my seat, the wooden floor gave in and my right leg went through the crack. Startled, I immediately pulled my leg out of the hole and avoided serious injury. For a moment, my mind flashed back to a similar incident which happened during a bamboo rafting expedition in rural Thailand - my right leg slipped between two of the bamboo slat when my oarsman slammed into a riverbank.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 10:03 am and is filed under laos, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.