Laos: banana Boat, 800 Monks, and Magical Realism

So, it's been a while since I've been able to post. The reason? Let's just say that internet in Laos is a might bit unpredictable. The shops all seem to close early, when they are open the connection doesn't work half the time, and even when the stars and moons align and you finally manage to get online, for some reason all the tabs at the Blogger website are suddenly in Japanese. Long story short: This will probably be a long post.

I finally left Pai on the 27th and headed east towards Chiang Khong, a small border town right across the river from Laos. My plan was to meet up with two Canadian girls I met in Pai (Ruby and Rumi) so that we could all take the two day slow boat down the Mekong together. I'd been out pretty late (or pretty early depending on how you look at it) and so the ten hour ride from Pai to the border was especially brutal. I had lunch with a couple of guys from South Africa who couldn't seem to grasp that my name wasn't Jack. I dozed off a few times, but for the most part couldn't sleep.

When I finally reached the border around 6:30 I checked my e-mail to see if Ruby and Rumi had gotten into town yet. They had, but they'd gotten in so early that they'd decided to cross the border without me. Since the border crossing had just closed I decided to get a room and sack out early.

The next morning I woke up at the crack of dawn ready to deal with the stress of the border crossing. I got there an hour early so that I could be first in line. I still hadn't booked tickets on the slow boat, and was hoping to swindle my way onto one that day.

My fears about the border crossing were completely unfounded. As it turned out the whole process (including a ten minute boat ride across the river), took about twenty minutes.

Exchanging currency in Laos is a funny thing. One 1$ US is worth about 10,400 kip. I exchanged $100 US in travelers checks and was pleasantly surprised to find myself a millionaire. The stack of bills they handed me was so large that it made me look like I'd gained a few pounds overnight. The guy in line in front of me exchanged $500 US and was brought his currency in a grocery bag. Seriously.

I grabbed breakfast and wandered around town to see if I could find my Canadian friends anywhere on the street. When I couldn't find them I went ahead and bought a boat ticket and headed down to the dock.

Thankfully when I reached the dock I was able to locate Ruby and Rumi and we were able to work it out so we'd be on the same boat. The boat was supposed to leave at 10:30 and didn't leave until about noon. It was cramped. I couldn't stand up properly, and the only stops it made were at small villages where children mobbed the boats trying to sell us banana's, Pringles, and Beer Laos at overly inflated prices. I was beginning to wonder why I left Thailand.

The first night of the boat trip they dropped us off at a "dock" at a small town where I got a no frills room for around $2 US. My Canadian friends and I went out to dinner where I had a traditional(?) Laos dinner of pumpkin, buffalo, and vegetable stir-fry. It was quite good, and the owner of the restaurant sat at our table and spoke to us for quite a while. He apparently used to be a monk from ages ten to twenty-one, but left because he was in college and felt socially restricted by his duty. He'd recently gotten married and had opened his establishment only three weeks previous to our arrival. The restaurant didn't even have electricity yet. He answered many of our questions about Buddhism and monkhood until the restaurant got quite busy at which time his other duties called.

The next day on the boat was quite a bit better. They combined both of the boats from the previous day onto one larger boat. The seats were more comfortable, you could stand up on the boat, and they served food and drinks in the back. On the boat as well were the guys I'd met from South Africa (Hello Jack!) one of whom was celebrating his birthday. They made quite a party of it, and it was a much more upbeat atmosphere than the day before. Once again the scenery was amazing with mountains, rock formations, fisherman, children playing and lots of water buffalo.

We arrived around Luang Prabang around 6 pm with just enough time to find a guesthouse and grab some street food before going to sleep.

I'm out of time. I guess this will have to be a two parter. Look tomorrow for more.