Back to civilization!

9 February 2013

What a relief it was to cross over the river from Chiang Khong in Thailand back to Hok Say in Laos. Just 3 minutes on the ferry but a couple of decades in “development”. On the one side of the river you have western-style shops, cars, clothes, wifi, tv, hustle and bustle. On the other side it’s chaotic, dusty and low-tech but oh so much friendlier. I love the Laos immigration office – hundreds of visitors trying to get their visas stamped stand and wait around outside the passport control window. As each passport gets completed and handed out, the people nearest the window call out the name so that the passport can be collected. All very good humoured and relaxed.

Hok Say passport control.

A major prospect on the horizon is the second new bridge across the Mekong just east of Chiang Khong/Hok Say. The bridge itself has just been completed, and once the immigration offices have been built in the next year, the Laos-Thai border crossing will open. Of course all the guest houses and ferries at the current crossing point will lose their custom and the towns will basically have to move a few kilometres downstream to the new bridge. Personally I worry about anything that will make it easier for Thai/Western culture to seep across the river and infect Laos!

Earlier, in Phayao, Thailand, we visited a curious "Garden of Heaven and Hell", populated with bizarre Hieronymous Bosch-style sculptures

Dinosaurs, unicorns, deities and the Buddha!?

Trevann at the entrance to Hell!

We wave goodbye to our River House guesthouse from the river.

Our downstream journey in the slowboat was as beautiful as the upstream one, but the weather was better. And of course it’s much faster so we didn’t need to set off so early in the mornings. We were collected from our guesthouse in Chiang Khong at 7.50, giving us time to enjoy the early morning views from our balcony.

Dawn from the balcony.

A bit of gentle exercise overlooking the Mekong.

The last two slow boats to arrive in the evening race to port.

There were 15 of us on the boat this time, plus our guide, Kae. After a few hours, drifting serenely past stunning landscapes – more pix of river, forest, mountains, river, ... – we stopped off at a Khmu village. There’s very little evidence here of any way of making a livelihood. In contrast, on the second day we stopped off at a Lao tribe village, where all the women came out with woven cotton scarves for us to buy at 50,000 kip each, and there were well-tended gardens plus pigs and chickens. Much wealthier.

Kae at the Khmu village.

Khmu villagers.

Much more prosperous Lao village.

Well-tended veg plot on fertile river silt.

The stopover at Pak Beng was much easier than last time. Although we still slept in a hotel room designed by morons, the evening meal was good. We all ate together and Kae tried, unsuccessfully, to enrol us all in a Lao whisky drinking game involving a decapitated chicken. Most of us being mature travellers well past the age of such hilarity it was perhaps ambitious of him to try.

Kae tries to start up a drinking game.

This woman in Pak Beng market was teaching her daughter how to make a net bag.

It was nine hours on the boat on the second day which sounds like a long time, but it’s such a relaxed way to travel it is not arduous at all. You can move around, help yourself to tea and coffee, talk to fellow passengers, or just gaze at the view as new landscapes gently pass by in front of your eyes.

Red silk cotton trees lose their leaves then suddenly produce bright red blossom at this time of year. The villagers dry the flowers and make soup from them.

Every now and again a cargo ship rumbles by.

Uta - German co-passenger.

We reached Luang Prabang at about 4 o’clock, rang Khone, got picked up in the jeep and were back in our own bungalow within the hour! How wonderful to be home!

Ripples on the water reflect the ripples on the land. 

It really is stunningly beautiful.

There have been changes since we left just over a week ago. In that time, piped water arrived and a new wifi system has been installed, which will (eventually) allow wifi in the bungalows instead of the current arrangement where you have to go to the communal area to get a signal. It’s good to see “improvements”, but I can’t help worrying that rapid development will lead to the loss of everything that makes Laos such a delight to live in.