The Slowboat to Luang Prabang, Laos

When first told to take the ‘slow boat’ to Luang Prabang, Laos from Thailand, I was skeptical about the value we’d get from sitting aimlessly on a boat 2 days in a row. I wasn’t about to do it. At the best of times I don’t like boats – I find the sensation of being away from land disconcerting. Maybe a part of this is because I’m not very comfortable around deep water. And my resolutions to become a stronger swimmer have still seen no action (though, when I get home, I’m COMMITTED to swimming at least twice a week and finally learning a freestyle stroke, as I’ve yet to see anyone breast-stroke their way out of a dangerous ocean situation).

So when Dave suggested we take the slow-boat, I was appalled. I alternated between protesting and pouting, but the fact of the matter was, the only other option was a 12 hour mini bus ride over horrible roads. The slow boat it was.

Where we boarded the slowboat. We still bave no idea why all the boats were crammed so tightly together.

One of our many stops

This guy gave us a ride on his speedboat from Chiang Khong, Thailand to Xuai May, Lao, the night before we got on the slowboat.

We arrived at the pier that morning and saw a host of docked boat, waiting for the latest roundup of tourists. Apparently, 15 years ago, the slow boats were used to transport locals from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang. However, over the years Luang Prabang has been named a world heritage site and the tourists now flock there, so we were surprised to see our boat was occupied by a 90% tourist majority.

We got on the boat by literally walking up a plank from the ground to the boat. Suddenly I got vertigo and barely clambered up with my backpack on my back. Once we entered, we noticed the ‘luxury’ seats were all taken. At the front of the boat were about 16 seats that looked like they once belonged in a minivan. Beyond these seats were wooden benches (with backs, thank goodness) for a capacity of about 100 people seated comfortably.

We had been pre-warned about the wooden benches and had brought cushions with us to soften the ride. Mine was a graduation pillow that said ‘congratulations!’ on it, Dave’s had a pattern with little blue bears, but the most entertaining was the pillow of one of the friends’ we made, which read ‘You fill my little world light up’ and had a little bear hugging itself. The pillow belonged to Jeff the Aussie, and perhaps it was what made Jeff seem so approachable to us!  

Within the first 20 minutes of being on the boat, we saw one Frenchman fall into the baggage hole in the floor (he ended up with a bloody shin, and immediately a swat team of moms surrounded him with bandages, cotton and lao lao – the local whisky). We also saw quite a few tourists nearly stumble off a step on the boat, and Dave bashed his head against the ceiling while trying to get in. No blood though, so no attention or Lao Lao for him, unfortunately. ‘This is a death trap’ remarked one tourist’ ‘And we haven’t even left yet’ quipped another. And that’s how we made friends with Ed, Maria and Jeff.

The 3 were travelling together and we figured if we were going to be trapped on this death ship together for such a long period of time, we should make friends. This turned out to be a wise decision and they are LOVELY people who we spent the next few days with in Luang Prabang, and later met up with, through coincidence and good fortune in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, Cambodia. Soon others joined the group as there were attracted by our little game of ‘Murder’ we had started playing as well as some card games where the loser had to eat the Blueberry-Hazelnut flavoured Pringles chips (yes..they tasted exactly as you think they do). There were Simon and Rosie who are also brilliant people (travelling for over a year !) who we went Elephant trekking with in Luang Prabang. And we rescued Christiane from the clutches of Frodo, the ship hobbit (background – we noticed one very loud American tourist who took off his shirt and had a nipple ring as well as a belly button ring. He was quickly christened ‘Lord of the Rings’ which then morphed into Frodo.)   Don’t worry – we didn’t make friends with Frodo so there is a slim to none chance he will ever read this blog.

 This poor wounded guy tripped into the luggage compartment that the Nurse mom is standing in !

During a couple of the stops, local kids would board the boat selling chips and beer.

An intense game of cards. Loser eats Hazelnut-Blueberry Pringles.

Turns out, in the company of good people the 2 day boat trip was a very fun experience. The Mekong River is absolutely beautiful, with densely forested hills rising by the water’s edge. And the boat moved smoothly enough that there was practically no sea sickness on the boat. In terms of danger, I’d say it was pretty low. While I didn’t see life jackets on the boat, in the rare event something did happen, the river is narrow enough for the average swimmer to make it safely to either bank. And I didn’t see any crocs to speak off, so I assume swimming would be pretty safe, as long as you didn’t ingest the water. Luckily, we didn’t have to find out.

My bum's saviour.

No caption required.

Just one of the many entertaining signs in SE Asia.

We’d highly recommend a visit to Luang Prabang if you ever get to Laos. It’s a beautiful little place where people go for 2 days and end up staying the week. The place is safe as there is a midnight curfew (not really enforced, but all the restaurants and bars close, so what else is there to do), which we broke only once as we tottered home after a rather fun night with the group. We were approached by a young fellow selling ‘#1 best opium’ which Dave politely declined before we picked up the pace to get home to our guest house.

 - Dal