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December 18, 2005
Boat ride down to Luang Prabang (painful)
After checking out of Wan’s guesthouse at 8:15am or so Levi and I head down for the boat landing. It is a great relief to me to find a direct boat as other travelers have had problems or been pessimistic about our chances. Then again, others said ‘no problem’. We bought our 120,000 kip (~US$11) each tickets for the six-ish hour long boat ride and scrambled down to the boat terminal—a mudflat, basically. Quickly we loaded our gear onto the back of the ~18m longboat with roof and soon set off. Within an hour we had past Nong Khaiw for a brief gas stop, including the 20l plastic container that was sitting between and the engine in its wooden cage and myself.
It was a mistake for me to sit that far back on the boat…it just seemed convenient at the time. Levi was farther foreword having an almost non-stop conversation with some German woman. At first a Dutch couple and I tried to chat about our travel experiences and life in general, but the noise and vibrations from the engine provided too much interference. Soon we gave up and just sort of stared out at the scenery. At times the river became full on rapids and were a bit nerve racking to travel through. On this trip I had put all my super valuables (passport, iPod, and any other small but expensive things I could find) into the AquaPac and some was somewhat secure. But many people and their belongs did get soaked including my beloved 30,000 kip wool blanket from Sam Neua and my shoulder bag, with a few books and all of my scraps of paper with the names and email addresses of travelers we’ve met along the way in it.
Some three hours or so after departing our first stop at Nong Kwiaw we pulled over to a small island in the middle of the river to fill up the boat’s petrol tank and let everyone take a stretch and a pottie break. I discretely headed off upstream to the remotest part of the 100m sandbar to force a purge—the hours of engine noise and vibration, forgetting to take my GERT medication for the past two days, with only four hours of sleep the previous night and too much of Cas’ bottle of Rum the previous night, well, it had taken their collective toll. I felt much better for it and nobody seemed the wiser. I actually managed to find a semi-comfortable position leaning against my fellow passenger’s packs (and not the side of the boat, the source of much vibration) to catch a few winks. This should not surprise many of you…my weak willed stomach is legendary in certain circles.
At Pak Ou, which we never actually saw, the Nam Ou river we had been cruising on for the past five hours merged with the famed Mekong river. The change was noticeable and for the better. The Mekong was wider, smooth and easy going. The only disturbing point was the frequent rocks peaking out from the surface below. Fortunately, the river is fairly well posted with proper navigational markers.
An hour or so after the Nam Ou’s assimilation into the Mekong river we saw our destination, Luang Prabang. Our boat captain not-so-deftly pulled up to the long distance ferry landing at end of Th Kitsarat, point 120 on page 112 of LP’s Laos guide. (The counterfeit versions don’t seem to have it.) After unloading everyone’s rucksacks we all head up for our to be discovered guesthouse. There seemed to be touts handing about, but the Lao are so shy nobody really approached us. If this were Bangkok or Saigon we would have been eaten alive.
Dutch couple: if you read this the please send a message via the comments!
Posted by stu at December 18, 2005 10:39 AM
Comments
Stu:
I am really enjoying your blog. You're doing a fantastic job - it is like traveling in Asia with you - except more condensed. Keep it up.
Have a Merry Christmas, and see you next year. I presume they don't celebrate Xmas in Laos? Are there December holidays in Asia?
Whitey
Posted by: Whitey Hagadorn at December 20, 2005 06:03 AM
i think that weak stomach runs in the family. dad, you, me, and jojo... a new generation of barfers is soiling the earth.
Posted by: alice at December 19, 2005 08:06 PM
wow...sure wish i could see the looms and weavings in person, especially the warping meathod. looks like the looms are 2 shaft...someone should arrange to be purchasing some of these weavings for export? am excited that i might get some samples from your trip!!!
xoxoxo mom
Posted by: mom at December 19, 2005 04:38 PM