Laos – Boat to Luang Prabang

2009 December 31 —–

We got up Christmas morning and met up with our fellow travelers again.  Dirk had booked a slow boat to Luang Prabang the previous night.  We boarded the 7 meter boat and began yet another 7 hour journey down the Nam Ou River to Pak Ou, where it joins with the mighty Mekong.   We stopped for lunch at Pak Ou, right at the fork of the river. The Nam Ou is clear, almost green colour water, the Mekong is dirty and brown.  Sitting high on the bank one can see a definite line in the water where the rivers join.  One side of the river is green, the other side brown.  The boat ride was very cold.  The weather was misty again.  With no sun, misty, the occasional spray from the water and traveling along at a pretty good speed we were happy we wore our jackets and brought scarves. 

One really funny sight we saw was at the fork of the 2 rivers there is a huge sand bar.  On this sandbar were a couple with a white table and white umbrella sitting out there having lunch, being served by a butler.  It reminded me of the Jack Vittriano picture called the “Singing Butler”.

The scenery was incredible, but as is more often the case, the people along the river made it even better.  The banks are dotted with villages.  They take advantage of the fertile soil deposited after the rainy season along the river’s edge to plant gardens.  Although we were too far to specifically see what they planted, one could definitely make out corn and lettuce.  It was quite picturesque to see the bamboo huts nestled in the jungle on top the river banks, with lush green gardens with perfect rows leading down to the water’s edge surrounded by rustic bamboo fences to keep the pigs and water buffalo out.  There seemed to be someone tending every garden that we passed.  Some waved to us, most went about the watering or hoeing totally oblivious to us.  At times we would see some people along the banks, nearly obscured by jungle, with no sign of village anywhere.  Where did they come from?  What were they doing?

There were lots of canoe-type boats sharing the river with us.  They all seemed to be carrying goods and/or people.  What they carried or to where remains unknown.  There were men fishing with nets.  There were men, women and many children in waist deep water gathering seaweed. (It is dried flat with sesame seeds, tomato and garlic and is absolutely yummy.) There were water buffalo, goats and pigs. There were guys carving a canoe. There were women washing clothes.  And there were loads of children being children; playing, making sand castles, jumping off a steep bank into a pile of sand below, running after each other and running along the banks and waving at us.