Rollin’ on the river - Thailand and Laos - Part 6

Our New Year’s Eve celebrations was a large buffet style dinner at a hotel resort in Chiang Rai, a few hours north of Chiang Mai near the border with Laos. We had been watching traditional performances of dancing and drumming by local youth troops who were quite compelling. An ongoing raffle doled out free nights to the resort that we would almost certainly never return to. The night mostly consisted of a steady stream of jokes about the house band, Dang Fantastic, a dad band dream team that struggled to play in time to an awkwardly arranged set list that killed the New Year’s Eve vibe with numbers like “Yesterday” and “I Did it My Way.”

At some point during dinner, someone tossed out a question.

“What are we going to do for sixteen hours on a boat?”

I realized I hadn’t asked myself this question either, and began to wonder why. The trip was advertised as an off grid experience that included a two-day boat ride down the Mekong River. I was hooked on the idea, and it helped tip the scales away from the trip to southern Thailand that seemed much more beach focused. I hadn’t thought about what this boat ride would mean. I thought back to the cramped seat on my Turkish Airlines flight that got me to Istanbul and felt the specter of diesel fumes and motion sickness. I wondered how I could have believed this would be a defining experience of this trip. (Spoiler alert - it was).

This was the Golden Triangle area, the border region of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar that was given this name in 1971 by a State Department official describing the rampant opium and heroin trafficking of the region. The day before, we'd stood at a lookout point where you can see the three countries.

On the Myanmar side, the government was building a retaining wall. On the Laos side, a Chinese property developer had put up a casino called Kings Roman that served as a Southeast Asian Las Vegas for Chinese tourists and has been described as a front for the Chinese mafia. On the Thailand side, placards commemorated a summit of foreign dignitaries celebrated having successfully stamped out the opium and heroin trade (these days it’s all meth). The Flashpack team scanned the river, uninterested in which vessels might be carrying drugs but nervously trying to assess what type of boat we’d be on.

The next morning at the pier we could see people piling onto a long riverboat, squeezing in like a budget airline, probably at least 100 passengers mixed between local travelers and foreign tourists. We were on a similar boat - only it was entirely for our group. 

The bow had an open area for chairs, while the rest was a restaurant and lounge style area with room to walk around and take naps. Meals were prepared on board.

This was the start of the two-day journey down the Mekong. For the first few hours, the river was the border of Thailand and Laos, while afterward it was fully inside Laos. The breeze coming off the river was cold, so most of us were wrapped in blankets for the first few hours.

We passed through rural countryside dotted with villages and fishing boats, with the occasional Chinese real estate development sticking out on the skyline.

One mega hotel construction project towered over a strip of land adjoining the river where villagers were manually irrigating a small patch of corn. The property developers would undoubtedly take over that land, though it was less obvious that they’d compensate the villagers for it.

The boat trip was a good chance to unplug and just watch the river roll by.

We stopped at a Hmong village where we were greeted by children still wearing their elegant New Year’s costumes.

They insisted on holding everyone’s hands as we walked through the village. Khamfahn translated for us and served as an ersatz currency exchange house for kids looking to swap dollar bills they’d picked up from other tourists for Laotian kip.

Hmong are a tribal people who populate a number of Southeast Asian countries and also have a significant population in Minnesota, where I went to college. In most cases they lived in mountain villages, but this group had been relocated to the river’s edge because the government had not been able to build enough roads into the mountains to provide them with services.

Other these villages will be relocated as well. The river valley faces imminent flooding - not just from the torrential rains that have become increasingly frequent but also from the huge dam being built.

The hydro power project will also put an end to this particular brand of boat travel, at least in the way we did it. Boat travelers leaving the Golden Triangle would have to stop at the entrance to the dam and then make their way by road to the next spot safe enough to get on river transport. Flashpack has already pulled the plug on this trip - though that appears to be for lack of interest.

We spent the first night in a hotel in the hills with a gorgeous view of the river and a breathtaking sunset.

The next morning, we were once again rollin’ on the river. People read books, napped, and chatted over beers. I plowed slowly through another chapter (OK, part of a chapter) of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom, which had been a book club assignment from months back that resulted in a popular mutiny by an overwhelming majority of club members who refused to read it (I didn’t join the mutiny but still haven’t finished the book).

On our second day, we stopped at a cave that has served as a Buddhist temple since the 16th century. Worshippers take their own small Buddha statue and leave it as an offering, which means tens of thousands of Buddhas now decorate various different parts of the cave.

By the end of the 16 hours, I was sad to say goodbye to our boat. We’d traversed nearly half of Laos on a journey that would have made for a miserable drive over miserable roads. The boat pulled up to the town that would be the last stop on our trip, a fascinating place that brings tourists from all over the world - Luang Prabang.

 

Part 7 - Luang Prabang - Thailand and Laos