The Slow Boat, Indeed

This one time in Madagascar an older Aussie told me that the one thing I had to do in my travels was journey down the Mekong River, from the Thai border to the old Lao capital of Luang Prabang. It's recommended in the guide book, advertised by travel agencies, and talked about by freshly arrived tourists. Once upon a time the river was the main artery for commerce and transport in Laos, and a lot of the villages we saw are still only accessible by water. However, with the advent of paved roads going from point A to point B, the slow boat has gone the way of the toy train of Darjeeling and become a tourist cattle barge.

Somehow, no matter where or when we bought our tickets, all the tourists looking to make the journey ended up on the same long, low wooden boat waiting on the Lao side of the river. Granted, there were a couple locals who made abbreviated journeys, jumping off onto the thickly forested river bank, or jumping on at similar spots, but by and large we were a bunch of white kids watching the scenery go by. Which was beautiful, by the way: green jungled hills sliding by the brown water under a gray sky. There was the occasional cluster of thatched huts up on stilts, or boarding parties of children bearing plastic laundry baskets of Pringles and Oreos and Beer Lao, charging outrageously inflated prices, or water buffalo wallowing by the river.

My ipod and Love in the Time of Cholera were my best friends for the duration of this trip. The boat stops at the village of Pak Beng for the night, a single street along the river made up of guest houses, restaurants advertising English menus and blaring Backstreet Boys, and little shops selling identical stale snack foods. The tourists hop off the boat, double the town's population, hop back on in the morning and life goes on as usual. It brings to mind some of the cruise ship stops up in Alaska, only with palm trees. All in all, despite the wooden benches and long hours, it was totally worth it.