247. | Adventurous trip to Luang Prabang

I’ve already given this post a title.

I figured if it wasn’t adventurous, I’d change it later.

I’m done with the trip. The title has changed…

Well, not because it wasn’t adventurous. It’s because I didn’t go to Vientiane. LOL

Planning the trip, buying tickets

The original title of this post was “Adventurous trip to Vientiane”.

This planning took place on the same day that I experienced the adventures described in the previous post “The nameless Chinese city and the motorbike”. So I can say that not only the two days of the trip were adventurous, but also the day of buying tickets.

I planned my preparations based on the preliminary information from AI. The information I obtained from there was as follows:

I need to buy 2 boat tickets: one to Pak Beng and one to Luang Prabang.
On the first day of the two-day boat trip, I will have to sleep in Pak Beng.
On both days, I will have about 6 hours of boating.
In Luang Prabang, I need to get from the port to the train station.
This may not be possible on the second day, so I will probably have to sleep there too.
And the icing on the cake: you can only buy train tickets 3 days in advance.

The last point made it doubtful that I would reach Vientiane in 2 or 2.5 days. Buying a train ticket online did not even occur to me. Booking or not booking the accommodation in Pak Beng also raised questions.

So I set out to find a travel agency where I could discuss the few questions I had with someone – preferably in English.

There were many travel agencies on the street. Based on my experience so far, English was the questionable language.

I met Phaedrus today

50 meters from my accommodation I saw Phaedrus. Of course, I didn’t know it was him at the time.

A few weeks ago I finished a very interesting book. It’s called “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. It’s Robert M. Pirsig’s only book.

The main character of the story is Phaedrus, and the theme of the story is Phaedrus’s search for his way in life.

I’ve seen the guy a few times before, we once greeted each other twice, this time I just greeted him and moved on. But after two steps I changed my mind for some reason and sat down next to him.

I think I sat down next to him because he was the only face in this passing city that I’d seen several times in the past two weeks, and it seems that the long stay in Houayxay means something.

We talked for an hour. He’s from Austria, a few years older than me and has lived in Asia for 30+ years.

He shared very interesting information and stories with me. How he started, how he has been living since. What it was like to be stuck in Asia during the Covid pandemic. How Asia has changed in the past 30 years. He told me about India. He made me feel what we Europeans bring here, what impact we have on the development of people’s daily lives.

At a certain point in the conversation, I asked him if he considered himself a philosopher. I think the question gives a sense of the depth of the conversation. By the way, I’m not sure if he considers himself one, but more likely than not.

It was nice to talk to him. We also met (by chance) in the evening for a short chat, and eventually we had dinner together. During dinner, he asked if he understood correctly that I had spent two weeks in Pai, at the Darling Viewpoint. Then he said that he had been suspicious of me from the first moment. He lives there most of the time, and his house is two hundred meters from the Darling. Where he noticed a guy who walked past his house 2x, 3x a day.

I knew exactly which house he was talking about, and in fact, afterwards I could not only nod that I was that crazy guy, but I also remembered him immediately. It was an interesting moment to say here in the heart of Asia how small the world is.

Based on the information he gave me, my plan for the day changed significantly.

First of all, I learned that if I buy the boat ticket at an office, it will be about double the price, as if I do it myself at the port. Which is about 1 km from my accommodation, I have already been there.

Then it also became clear that I don’t have to worry about how I will get accommodation in Pak Beng. When the boat docks, all the local accommodation providers will be waiting for us there. And if I don’t want to do business with them, I will find the hotel after a 200-meter walk.

The most significant change in my plans was when he mentioned Luang Prabang. He told me how beautiful the city was and encouraged me to spend at least two days there.

So I headed to the port. I bought my ticket. Then I went straight back to the port and went to the Chinese city, which is what the previous paragraph is about.

In Houayxay, all that awaited me was dinner with Phaedrus. The next morning I boarded the ship.

On the way to Pak Beng – slow boat trip day one

I bought the first ticket for that day’s boat trip. I was the first passenger to board the boat. A paper note indicated my place at the front of the boat.

For some reason, I expected that there wouldn’t be many passengers on the boat. Before 9 o’clock, only a few people had boarded. Everything was so relaxed that I meditated on the deck at the bow of the boat.

By the time I finished my meditation, the boat was full. Today’s trip was subtitled “get to know the herring can from the inside” in my mind.

The boat left the harbor 70 minutes after the official departure time. We traveled down the Mekong for nearly 6 hours.

The name of the boat is a slow boat. The nomen est omen turned out to be absolutely true. We motored along with the water nicely and slowly.

It is also part of the ship’s purpose to operate like a bus. It docked in many places, and locals got on and off. The tourists, that is, all of us, remained on the passenger list throughout.

The trip was filled with sightseeing, reading, sleeping, and getting to know each other. I was happy to see that many of my fellow travelers were hiding their books. Small groups soon formed, according to the seating arrangement that chance had written.

When I went to the back of the ship, a Laotian guy handed me a can of beer without asking any questions. I didn’t even try to figure out why. These questions are completely meaningless on this continent. After the first can, I wanted to go back to my seat. The word “first” – cleverly hidden at the beginning of the sentence – suggests what was next.

Yes, the second can. The guy was very motivated to ensure that everyone who went to the back had a beer in their hand and had the opportunity to toast every 2 minutes. He didn’t speak English, but he asked questions using Google Translate and was happy with the answers.

I wanted to return his kindness and bought two large bottles of beer. He thanked me… This really proved to me that the guy selflessly spent his money – probably quite a bit – to give beer to the people around him. When I wrote to him on the phone that I thought he was a good person (because of his selflessness, cheerfulness, and kindness, but I didn’t give him this explanation, just my opinion), he was very touched. I was happy that I could give him more than two bottles of beer today.

By the time I went back to my seat, a local lady was sitting in my chair. She put my laptop bag on the floor and sat comfortably. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I found another chair for myself.

So I immediately became a member of a group. Something for something.

The following is worth knowing about the ship.

The vehicle was open on both sides, so it was relatively warm. This did not increase the comfort of the trip.

It was about 30 meters long. At the bow there is a bow section of about 1 m2, which you cannot go out there during the trip. Immediately after that, in the ship’s space, there is the helmsman’s seat.

At the very back there is a kitchen-smoking-socializing area. Before that, there is a toilet. And beyond that is the passenger compartment. So everyone sits in one space.

The front seats – including mine – are placed opposite each other on both sides of the ship, facing inward.

This section is about 5 meters long, and from there towards the back there are several rows, facing forward, many seats are placed next to each other, and you can move between them in a central column. There was also a buffet behind the rows. Beer, soft drinks, chips and bagged soup were on offer.

Between the first rows facing each other, you can pick up the floorboards. There is a large loading area here. The large backpacks of the long-distance travelers (=tourists) were crammed into this. Since I was the first on the ship, mine was at the bottom of the big pile. Which also meant that I would not be among the first to get off.

In the hour before the docking, many people had already indicated how much they were looking forward to this disembarkation. By the end, I had already thought about it. Despite all the good company and beer, and the beautiful scenery that was leaving, the ship was tiring, hot and noisy.

Pak Beng

The disembarkation was surprisingly quick, after 5pm.

Phaedrus said it well: There were indeed many people waiting for our arrival. I could take two steps on land when I received the first offer of accommodation. The price was good. I sleep alone in the room (this is an important question, because I may think I rented a room, but it turns out that it is a shared room), the price was good, so I didn’t even carry my backpack for those two steps. I threw it on the back of a truck.

I also asked how far the accommodation was. 5 minutes! You have to be careful with these 5 minutes here in Asia. There have been cases where 5 is actually 20.

The woman wasn’t telling the truth this time either. We traveled by car for one minute. It took 2 minutes to cover the distance on foot.

The road was being built on the street where the house was. So everything was extremely dusty. Inside the house too. They washed the staircase in vain. I think they forgot to change the water while mopping, so I immediately realized that the usual tap at the door didn’t make much sense here. My feet were just dirty.

My room was clean, though. A huge bed, a small table and a shower room.

Which I immediately took possession of. On the one hand, it was nice to shower, and on the other hand, to shave. Because I couldn’t do that in Huayxay, since my shower in the room didn’t have a mirror.

There was a knock on my door while I was showering. This kind of thing doesn’t happen very often. No, not the shower, but the knock while I was showering. I wasn’t prepared with anything fancy that would have been a solution, so I said I was in the bath.

OK, the answer came. I calmed down in a moment, knowing that the opportunity to receive guests with soap was over. But after half a minute, another knock jolted me out of my fresh joy. This time, all I could say was what I had just said. This time, I got a confirmation. Then a female voice asked me if I wanted to pay.

Here I lost the direction of the conversation and tried to steer life back into an acceptable direction by saying yes, then in 10 minutes. After that, I wondered for a while whether this was a sign of distrust or whether the lady simply didn’t understand what I was saying.

I paid. By then I was already dressed, so the financial transaction seemed safe.

Then we headed to the city. Which means a street about 1 km long.

The city – we can say – is not big. So the many people who arrived there for this one night kept bumping into each other in all sorts of places. It was here that the acquaintances I still spend my time with now, almost a week later, were formed. Only much further away…

There are many restaurants in the city, and the entertainment was provided by a bouncy castle and a bar on top of the hill. Understandably, the group did not gather at the bouncy castle.

We talked late into the night, played pool, drank beers, and enjoyed each other’s company.

Then the street became quiet, and everyone set off for the second round of slow sailing.

Luang Brabang and the second day on the Mekong

The first interesting thing about the second day was that we continued our journey on a much smaller ship. So I would call this day “herring box advanced level”.

It was definitely a tougher day.

There was a group of young English people on the ship. Their presence could be considered a nuisance on the first day, but on the second day there was some intensification. They made us drink loud, non-musical fost – whether we wanted it or not – while they drank cold beer. This is definitely not just my opinion, they came up in conversations even days later.

On this day, there seemed to be more locals. And the number of mooring places seemed to have increased. Mooring a ship always means that the ship leaves the destination (harbor), turns back and approaches the pier “from below”. Which of course does not actually mean a pier here, but a stretch of shore.

Thanks to this, we were spinning on the water all day today, as if the slow Mekong was full of whirlpools.

The locals were not subtle either. At one of the berths, I went forward to the bow of the boat to go out to the front, but I couldn’t reach my goal because a motor was being pushed through the door. This is reality. We travel with backpacks, some with a motor.

There came a point when I became a victim of my upbringing. When two elderly Laotian women sat down next to us on the stairs and on the floor, the guy sitting next to me and I gave them our seats. From then on, we became stateless on the boat. The inconvenience was compensated by the fact that not only the ladies smiled, but also several locals, one of whom even expressed his appreciation to us.

For the above reasons, we waited for the end of the trip more today than we did yesterday.

Every journey comes to an end, and I will say now that fortunately this journey also had a happy ending.

Overall, this two-day boat trip was an experience that I had to go through. To experience a little, to prepare a little for, say, India, because I would like to go there too. There were a lot of good conversations during the 12 hours spent on the river. The two banks of the Mekong are very beautiful, but the landscape is not at all diverse, but it would have been a shame to miss it.

The next trip like this will be familiar. But I may not choose this form of transport again for a while, if there is an alternative.

We arrived in Luang Prabang.

But that is another post.