Laos and the Mekong River

We left Chiang Mai on a 6 hr bus ride to the north and east to reach Chiang Khong, a town of 10K people and one of the 4 or so border crossings into Laos. But first we spent an extra day on the Thai side in a small guest house overlooking the Mekong river and spent an afternoon on a rented motorcyle driving along the Thai side of the river with some great views of the river and mountains on the Laos side.







The next morning it was time for the border crossing...the usual mayhem of backpackers, complicated by the process of having to ride a 'ferry' across the river to the Lao side, the 42$ US 'tax' for a Lao visa, etc.



After lots of waiting for no apparent reason, and having our passports checked for the 5th time (this time by the Laos police) we finally boarded the 'slow boat' for the 2 day trip to Luang Prabang. Call it the slow boat 'away from China' as the Chinese border in fact is not very far away from here at all.








...the border crossing to Laos on the right --->



First impressions of Laos, you find yourself asking what is it that makes it a communist country? I don't see any evidence of police or military anywhere, tho' probably it's all around in forms that I don't recognize.



Laos is a very rural and rugged (hence beautiful) country with only 6 million or so people and those are all spread out over vast amounts of small towns and villages. Hence life here seems slower, quieter, and the people are yet another level of polite and gentle than even the thais!





So the Mekong here is a dirty brown muddy colour and it is moving really fast with lots of rocks all over and boiling water that is almost rapids but not quite so. The shores are lined by large hills, some very jungle-like and others find of bare...evidence I think of strip logging of the past. Every 5-10 kms will be a small village of bamboo huts (no roads along either side of the river here) with people apparently making their living fishing from dugout canoes and small agricultural plots along the shores of the river.



The 'slow boats' are very long, holding 80 or so people (95% touristas like us of course!...we're not exactly off the beaten path). After an 8 hr day we stopover in a small town called Pakbeng that seems to exist for no other purpose other than accomodate boat travellers overnight, with guesthouses ranging from the primitive to very nice and expensive!

Here is a picture of Lori, having our b'fast overlooking the Mekong after our overnighter in Pakbeng.

The next day sees more of the same with another 8 hrs on the boat, making perhaps 6 stops along the way to drop off or pickup a few locals at villages that we pass by.

Finally towards sunset we approach the well known town of Luang Prabang, well known as a UNESCO heritage site because of it's beautiful location at the junction of 2 rivers, with hills all around, and beautiful quiet streets and myriads of guesthouses beautifully constructed in and out with tropical wood.

Once again...in the 'touristy' part of town it seems like the westerners outnumber and the locals and their are new guesthouses under construction/restoration everywhere some of which are very high end. Looks like this is becoming another one of those asian destinations that is being totally transformed by tourism....with good reason...the beauty and relaxing atmosphere make you just want to hang out and take it easy.