Monday, February 24, 2003

Boat Trip - Day 1

Up at about 7:00 AM. I was cold last night for the first time, perhaps because of the proximity to the river, it was damp in the air. We had breakfast and got takeout for the boat ride. We took a pick-up to the dock and had to go thru Thai immigration, and because our visa's expired on Feb 23 (yesterday), we had to pay 200 baht for our overstay. Oh well, only $7.00. We'll know for next time.

We took a small boat across the Mekong to Houie Xay, Laos, and went through Laos immigration, got some baht converted to their money (the kip), then took a tuk-tuk to the boat dock. At the boat dock, they tried to fit too many people on one boat, and some of the tourists mutinied, and refused to get on, they insisted a 2nd boat be used. After an hour or so, the guy who helps run the boats got a 2nd boat, and the remaining tourists, including Court and I, got on it. We finally left the docks at about 11:30, I think. When Courtney got our money converted, we converted 2000 baht (about $66CDN) to kip, just in case we needed it. She got more than 500,000 kip, in bills (they have no coins). This makes the wallet or money belt very, very fat, because the bills are all 5000 kip bills, there were more than 100 of them!

The Mekong River is absolutely beautiful. The seats in the boat are nothing more than a thin piece of wood running along the side of the boat. Near the back, there is a platform, with a mat on it, where a bunch of Laos women are playing cards and drinking Laos beer and gambling and laughing. A couple of tourists eventually join in, and they all share beer, and joke around and laugh (obviously, they can't understand each other, but somehow they got their humor across).

As we go down the Mekong as it winds its way through the mountains, we see locals fishing the river with nets strung up to rocks or trees with bamboo and string. We also wee locals fishing with bamboo fishing rods from the shore, their hooks dangling in the river. Every once in a while, we see a fisherman in his boat out checking his nets. Some of the fishermen actually try to manually net fish, by swinging a net in the water.

After a couple of hours, the boat stops at a "market" along the sandy banks of the Mekong. When we all get off, excited children run up to greet us, and shake our hands, giggling and laughing. One of the merchants had a little pet monkey in his tent.

The Mekong has lots and lots of rocks jutting out all over the river, not unlike rivers and lakes in northern Saskatchewan. We just hope the captain knows the waters well enough to not run into any shallow submerged rocks.

There are at least 8 Canadians aboard our boat, out of about 20 tourists.

Every once in a while, a speedboat (this is the fast boat I remarked about in yesterdays journal) screams by, deafening if it's close to our boat. These fast boats ferry people (tourists and locals) up and down the river. The occupants usually wear crash helmets and life jackets. I read in my Rough Guide that a few years ago, two of these speedboats had a head on collision. Everyone died as a result of the crash. You have to see these little speedboats to believe them. They can hold only 8 passengers, they are fairly long, and not very wide. The occupants look hilarious with their crash helmets and lifejackets, sometimes huddled to help ease either the deafening noise of the motor, or perhaps the fierce wind they must be getting from going so fast. The engines on these things is a Toyota 1200cc car engine. And do they go! WOW!

Boat travel is one of the most commong forms of transportation in Laos. Laos is one of the poorest nations in the world, and they have a very bad road system. Apparently the gov't has started to improve the road system, within the past few years, but Laos has more than 4600km of navigatable waterways, so boat travel will continue to be a staple of the Laos culture for a long time to come. The Mekong is especially busy.

The slow boat trip is a must! It's beautiful scenery and mountains. ON shore, you can see small streams emptying from the mountains into the Mekong. Every once in a while, you see what I would assume would be a hill tribe community, with some buildings, and a bunch of small fishing boats on the shore, sometimes kids playing near the water, or women doing laundry. Lots of water buffalo to be seen near the shore as well. Whether they're tame or wild, I do not know.

At many points along the river, the current is very fast, and with all the rocks, it creates lots and lots of whirlpools, some of them very big. When the boat goes through or near them, you can hear the boat creak and groan and rock back and forth as the currents push and pull on it.

We arrived in Pakbeng about 5:30, and a bunch of locals, adults and kids, were at the shore to greet us. They are all looking for help carry our bags for us, for a tip. Another woman offers us a room at her guest house for 100 baht for a double (baht and US dollars are both widely used in Laos, along with the kip). In the meantime, one of the locals has put Courtney's backpack on, and insists on carrying it for her, he won't take it off (and doesn't understand much english, or at least pretends he doesn't), so Court just lets him take it. We walk with the lady up to the guest house, a fair walk up, and Courtney is glad that she isn't carrying her pack. We ask the guest house lady how much we should tip this guy for carrying the pack, she says probably 50 baht, sometimes 100 baht. We get to the guest house, and it isn't much of a place, in fact, it's a huge dive, but at least the bed linens look clean. I have to keep reminding myself that these people are very, very poor, and they are doing the best they can with what they have. I suspect many of the guesthouses are of similar quality. BTW, on the slow boat, a night stopover is a requirement, as the slow boats do not run after the sun goes down. I can just imagine my mother at this guest house, she wouldn't sleep at all, she would be so convinced there was all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures crawling all over the room and bed!

When we were checking out the room (which was the 2nd floor of this lady's house and business), one of the locals kept saying ganja or something to me, and I didn't understand. He was being very secretive about it too, finally he pulled me around a corner, and stuck his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a small bag of marijuana, he was trying to sell me "ganja". I declined.

Court and I walked around, the town is obviously very poor. We had supper, then went to the Khok Khor Cafe, a used bookstore and hangout joint run bu an Aussie woman. Why an Australian women would want to open a shop in this town is beyond me, but whatever. We started talking to Jason, a guy from Kentucky, and he is going to line us up for some english teaching in a Karen village in Thailand when we return to Thailand in a couple of months.

We met up with a few other tourists after the cafe, including a guy originally from Regina (now in Vancouver), and we all went down to the riverside and started a fire and sang campfire songs. One guy was very good at the guitar, another was an excellent singer.

We got to bed about 11:30.

This is one of the coolest experiences we've had so far. Really enjoying it!

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