Well it took 3 days, one of them in a van, two of them on these cool 'slow boats' down the Mekong River, into the historic and beautiful city of Luang Prabang. At least they tell me it's historic and beautiful, but I haven't had a chance yet to explore. The town is fairly thick with visitors, and there were no openings at the first three guest houses I checked with, so I was happy to find the last room in a nice and friendly place, and there's even a computer or two for the guests to use. Et voila, I get to get back online.... something I missed while on the river.
Since it's the 'high season' in this part of the world, there are many westerners interested in making the same trip I did, with the result that the boats were oversold and crowded. There were a hundred on our boat that should hold about 60, but it wasn't too bad, like those ferries that keep going down in Sri Lanka, for instance, but it was tight. And they managed to get the numbers down and not have to put another boat on the route by giving us a little talk about how there might not be electricity in the first night's stayover... and with the mosquitos and malaria and all.... if you want to take the air conditioned bus, it will only cost you an extra ten bucks. Sounded like a bit of a scam, which it likely was, but some 20 people went for it and the company managed to cram us into two boats instead of three. Ah sweet capitalism!
The Mekong is muddy, about a hundred yards wide on average during this stretch, and wends through beautiful hilly jungle into the interior of Laos. It was a relaxing ride, watching water buffalo, the occassional elephant, fishermen, gold miners panning for sparkly stuff, small villages, a fair amount of low-to-the-water flatboat traffic, kids running along the shoreline, sun shining, wind cooling.
We arrived at the stopover town, 'Pak Ben', something like that, and we disembarked to find a bunch of locals showing us pictures of the guest houses we could stay at cheaply. I got off the boat early, so I had my pick of places and was happy to find a ten dollar room with a private shower and a nice family. It's always nice to lay the pack down and know that you're covered.
Not surprisingly, a large percentage of the town's economy is geared to the 150-200 westerners who come through daily, so there were many stores where we could supply up for tomorrow, get our water and sandwiches and whatever else. Among the 'whatever else' was some contraband material. The girl who hooked me up with the room is the daughter of the owners. She's 21, cute, has a kid, and her English is pretty good. In the evening, she asked if I wanted to order some breakfast for the following morning. Do you want some beer, cigarettes, water, weed? I said, 'did you say weed'. She said, yeah, a lot of the travelers want weed. Uh, no thanks, but hey, talk about your full service guest houses. Who knew?
A few young men from the town were also trying to sell pot or opium to the westerners, which felt a little sad. Also sad was the behavior of some of the younger tourists, many of whom got roaring drunk on the boat, knocking down shots of straight vodka after a bunch of beers, and getting loud and obnoxious. One Irish girl passed out and had to be helped and cared for. Way to go, Molly Malone.
On the boat ride yesterday, I was feeling quite musical, and I first wrote a little jazz tune that I liked, and even came up with some solid lyrics, so it was a one-shot song creation, and it's a tune that fits into that 1930's type stuff that I love so well. I'll be using it for sure, and for sure I'll intro it by saying I wrote it on a boat that was floating down the Mekong River in Laos.
One little glance, a bit of a look
Was there a chance? I put down the book
That's all that it took
A little word, and after a while.....
I caught a little smile
And oh what a world would open up that night
A boy and a girl, destiny and delight
Who could have known that the rapture of romance
Would all begin with one little glance
Glauber, you are a retro dude.... But it's a good tune, you'll like it, kinda Cole Porterish (if I do say so.... and I do)
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Spent today's ride next to a 54 year old guy from Menorca (Spain) and we had some good conversation, 90 percent of it in Spanish. His best line. 'Nos ven como billetes con patas' 'they see us as dollar bills with feet' (rough translation, talking about how the Laotians see us). The younger crowd was more sedate, and undoubtedly hung over, so it was a pleasant 8 hour cruise into Luang Prabang. It's night time now so I'll go and find some dinner, get my bearings and start researching what it's gonna take to get a visa into Vietnam. I have about 6 days to get to where I'm going, north of Hanoi so it will be good to get the process going now so I have time to explore this area... Deep breath, glad to be here and located. Let's see what's up...
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