Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Nom Khiew - 8.5 hours north, by river, from Luang Prabang. I met Richard and Debbie, the California couple I met on the flight from Hanoi, on the riverbank at 8:30 am. We figured out how to buy our tickets for a skinny boat upstream and found a boat. It seems the boats go upstream when they have enough people and we were lucky to fill our boat pretty quickly. Pulling away from the shore we were eight. The three of us, two young German girls, two young Finns and an older German guy. My American friends are semi-retired Hollywood film industry folks - Debbie worked, and still occasionally works, as a Director, now doing location movies, Richard, a special effects specialist. They used to live in Los Angeles but now live in Northern California. Debbie and Richard have worked on many TV series and big movies and now travel a lot of the year - we share an addiction to Travelzoo website and were still comparing deals we had been watching lately. They are very much budget travelers, preferring to do countries independently. The older German guy, Wilfred, is from Koln and is on a one year journey that is just ending. He started in South America and spent a long time in China and he really sparked my interest in doing China soon. Coincidentily, even though Wilfred is 69 years old, retired and looks 55, he has a 16 year old son who is on a student exchange in Regina. He was telling me that is what allowed him to do this travel year - his son was away for the year, the months he was not he joined Wilfred on his travels, his wife is not yet retired and will join him in Thailand in a few weeks. The Germans girls were on a round the world adventure, as are many of the young girls I have met, and the Finns were lawyers on a cheap getaway from winter.
The boat had only six tiny wooden, kindergarten sized seats and two tiny benches in the back. With all of our gear, it was pretty full and I was lucky to get a seat. One of the Finns was too big and chose to lie on the floor for the entire duration of the trip, sleeping nearly the whole way. His friend told me it was quite a remarkable skill his friend had, he had witnessed him sleeping in every position, on every mode of transport, basically missing the most of trip thus far.
What he missed was truly stunning landscapes and watching the amazing skill of our boat captain. It is the dry season here in South East Asia and the rivers are at their lowest making boat travel very difficult in some places and impossible or too dangerous in others. Our boat was two people wide at its widest and about 40 feet long. It had a full sized car motor sitting in the back section, making for a very noisy trip, and a small rudder at the very back of the boat.
We started on the Mekong and about 30 minutes in found the confluence of the Nam Ou and headed north. The river color changed from the murky brown of the Mekong to crystal clear of the Nam Ou and the path through the mountains was spectacular. I find myself using spectacular in every description, but truly, it is. The mountains: limestone Karsts, just straight out of the land and some are raw rock faces and others covered in jungle. About an hour up the river our boat captain took his pants off while steering the boat, then continued on. We were all a little perplexed as he sat there, cross-legged, steering the boat in his underpants........It wasn't long before we figured it out. The boat slowed in the very shallow water and he jumped out to push and steer it through the rocks. Another empty boat came along and was doing the same thing. The water was about ankle deep so Richard, Wilfred and the big Finn, jumped in to assist the two boats through the very shallow parts. Very functional - teamwork.
Then back into the boat and through some serious rapids. Big fun. After a few hours, we all started to wonder if the boat would stop to allow us to pee. Sure enough, Captain Underpants pulls over to an open riverside beach and tells us ten minutes and drops his drawers and has himself a well deserve red long pee. We all look at each other as there is nowhere to go, no real place for privacy so we make do and everyone has their pee. We in the west are spoiled with access to toilets and Asians do not have that access so they pretty much pee and poo in many places we would not. In fact, we were driving by on a bus the other day and saw a woman hanging her child off a high bamboo hut balcony, the kid with obvious diarrhea, just letting her go over the edge. All of us looked at each other and started laughing......It all seems to work and I know if I lived here I would always ask for the top floor.
Back to the river - the scenery was stunning as was the river activity all the way up. People live on, in and around all the rivers. This particular one is a haven for gold mining and whole villages are constructed on the river - on bamboo platforms and men, women and children mine for flecks of gold. It is really very primitive and looked dangerous for the children. They have snorkeling masks, a breathing tube that stretches to the river side and baskets strapped to their backs. They dive down, or stand and scoop, the river bottom silt and put it in their baskets and bring it to the side, dump it and the women pan for gold like in the Klondike: washing the silt in trays, looking for gold flecks. We were discussing how little you would have to find with Gold at over $900 ounce now. As with everything here, very human labor intensive. The river energy is harnessed with Bamboo waterwheels to provide power for some part of the operation. Pretty cool to see.
The other neat thing about this river area is the predominance of Albino Water Buffalos. There is a recessive gene in the pool here and about a third of the Water Buffalos, and there are lots of them, are baby pink and fuzzy - like newborn mice. As they age, they get sunburned and turn a little toasty but still stand out as they lay in the river, only their heads above the water. At one point on the river bank I saw an animal coming up out of the water and thought it looked too big to be a buffalo. I called out - Elephant??? and sure enough we got to see a gigantic elephant coming out of the river and amble up into the jungle. I am sure it was not a wild one as there are numerous elephant working camps ( they stack and haul teak) but nonetheless it was pretty cool to see.
Arrived in Nom Khiew to find a village out of National Geographic. Quirky, dusty dirt roads, bamboo huts and no one meeting the boat to offer accommodation. Hmmm, we collectively said and hauled our own stuff into town. Didn't take long to understand why no one met the boat - there seemed to be no room at the inn. This town has just been put on the travelers map - most people who headed upstream went one hour further so tourism started in this town only last year. We schlepped around to find most guesthouses full and eventually the German and I grabbed two bamboo huts overlooking the river and the Americans, frugal travelers they are but worrying about creepy crawlers, decided it was just too basic and found an expensive place up the path. My hut was on stilts, had a mattress on the floor, a mosquito net, a window overlooking the river, a squat toilet, cold water and many gaping holes in the walls. On the boat up I had read, in the Finns guidebook, about some place that was nice but had a rat problem. They suggested that rats don't like netting so to tighten the mosquito net quite tightly. Of course I couldn't remember the name of the rat infested place and was worried that mine might be it. My first time working a net and you can be sure that sucker was tightened down to the point it made me closterphobic.
Survived the night, got up early, cruised the town and was already bored by noon. One very interesting thing about the town is it has a high school with 1000 students and 38 teachers. As I was wandering very early, trying to catch the morning market but didn't as it had folded before 7:30, I did get to see the hoards of kids arriving every which way - walking for miles, bicycles, boats, tuk tuks. So many kids in such a small town. They also had a huge primary school and a middle school so the population exploded through the day.
In the back of my mind was the fact that my return ticket home was for March 24 and I had not attempted to extend it. I worried, with communication issues being what they are in Laos that it might take me some time and energy to get it changed. I decided not to continue up the river to near the China border but to take the two o'clock bus back to Luang Prabang and get my plans sorted out for the next forward journey.
While I was eating on the roadway ( see picture) waiting for the bus, a couple from Australia joined me. Steve, a Fireman and his wife from Queensland. We got talking and Susan? told me she had been in Calgary for the Stampede a couple of years ago. She and her best friend came because her friend's daughter had been working in Calgary for a mining company. She told me the name of the company and it struck a chord. She went on to say the girl had moved back to Australia with her American boyfriend and she mentioned her name was Kate. Small world yet again. I met Kate and her boyfriend at a travel presentation last Fall in Calgary, we were sitting next to each other and got talking, Kate gave me her card to get together for lunch and her card had sat on my computer at the City and I never did call her. I remembered the company name from the card. Susan is her mom's best friend and was taking greetings back to Australia for Kate. Plus an invite to come and stay a while.
Money in Laos is difficult to access as there are not the bank machines and infrastructure we have come to expect. While waiting for the bus I saw a young Irish guy trying to negotiate a ride with the bus ticket seller as he had run out of cash and could not access any money up here in the north. He was short a few dollars and couldn't get out of town. I made merit and gave him 50,000 kip - just under 10 bucks which opened up his possibilities greatly. I have been rescued and helped every time I have been in trouble and it was nice to be able to repay some of that and this guy was so relieved I know he will pay it forward. We had a great visit while I waited for the bus.
Minibus back to LP seemed great, we all had our own seats until the driver started stopping at stores, schools, houses, looking for more passengers. It seemed like he was actually talking people into coming to LP. It didn't take long for him to find some takers leaving us all squished for the ride back to the big town. Only 3.5 hours so no big deal.
Funny how 3.5 hours, like a trip up to Edmonton, takes on a whole thought process whether it is worth it, seems so far, yada yada and here 3.5 hours in a squished minivan seems like a really short journey......
- comments