The Slitherants: Laos, Boat Cruise, Pak Beng and Luang Prabang

Laos… Well, yes now, Laos indeed. After a few boring days in Chang Mai hanging around it was time for Laos, the modern day backpacker paradise or hell-hole, depending on your perspective. We crossed over from Chang Khlong in Thailand via a short boat trip across the Mekong River to Houe Xai on the Laos side. Our plan was to secure a ticket on the two-day slow boat down river to the picturesque French colonially-inspired Luang Prabang. After a little fluffing about getting the best price on a ticket we were ready to disembark in the morning from this dusty uninspiring border town in search of good times to be had on our placid journey down the Mekong. What a journey it turned out to be.

The boat was a little cramped passenger wise and after an hour waiting around at the pier we were finally off. This was to be our first introduction to ‘Lao-time’ but certainly not our last. In Lao it seems that no matter what is happening there is absolutely no reason to rush here. Really. Most people spend their work-day asleep and you almost feel bad waking them up to pay for your meal or to ask them to please start the bus or the boat so we can actually get moving. Once away from the pier and actually rolling it was pretty damn nice. The people on the boat quickly differentiated themselves along the lines of ‘those who are keen to drink and those who ain’t’. No surprises as to which category we found ourselves in.

The crew on the boat was pretty solid and we soon found some drinking partners that we were destined to meet up with again during this early part of our Laos journey. The first were five young gentlemen from Denmark who would come to be known as ‘The Great Danes’. This lot was a lot of laughs, especially as they had a penchant for singing boy band songs at the top of their lungs, much to the amusement or chagrin of our fellow passengers. Their most polished number was ‘You say it best, when you say nothing at all’ by Ronan Keating which had allegedly grabbed their attention when this particular number had been given an unexpected hearing during intermission at a Bangkok ping-pong show they had been in attendance at a couple of nights before. The first day of our two day float down river also introduced us to three girls from Guernsey who insisted they weren’t English but sounded just like Poms. The lovely three were Julia, Rachel and Ellen and we proceeded to get nicely inebriated from the comfort of our river side seats to the ‘boy band show’. The scenery was pretty cool and the beers nice and cold as we bobbed our way downstream. The rest of the day passed in somewhat of a blur as we made sure we were plenty ‘hydrated’ in order to combat any chance of encountering the debilitating effects of dehydration in the tropics. You can never be too careful. Bob on.

The first night was spent in a little mud riddled town that I’m sure only exists because the two day slow boat stops here. Pakbeng was pretty much a dive, but it was a necessary stop on our way to Luang Prabang. The guest house was fine but the restaurant in which we had dinner definitely ran on ‘Lao time’. We waited over an hour for our dinner and we watched as the tables around us, who had arrived much later than us, all had their mains before us. In Laos they will bring you your rice then wait half an hour before bringing you your main and never at the same time as the food for the other person you are with. No biggie, but goddamn, sometimes Laos time leaves your patience a little stretched especially when you’re a bit pissed and hungry!

The second day found most of the hardy crew from the previous day a little more subdued, at least initially. The scenery was really spectacular this day and it was not uncommon to look out and see locals casting fishing nets out into the shallows in the hopes of snaring some brunch. At one stage we saw two elephants just cruising by the riverbank having a bit of a shower. Pretty cool. As we spent another day yarning and admiring the countryside the drinks just seemed to flow effortlessly and before we knew it, it was time to jump off at the quaintly beautiful town of Luang Prabang. This place was really something completely out of the ordinary, as after two days floating through what seems like the middle of nowhere, Luang Prabang emerged like a colonial mirage out of the Laos wilderness.

The town is really quite pretty and proved to be a good place to chill for a few days, watch the semi-finals of the football World Cup and catch up with a few of the usual suspects from the boat trip. The town itself is situated in a spot where another smaller river meets the mighty Mekong. The result is a small peninsular-like finger of land which is home to the ‘old town’. Seriously nice place. Watching the locals fish and come and go on their various river jaunts is a really relaxing way to spend a hot, windless afternoon.

I think the main attraction around Luang Prabang has to be the Kuang Si waterfall. Holy s**t this place is rad! We had arranged to meet the Great Danes and travel via tuk-tuk out to the waterfall but I really didn’t know what to expect. Once we got there and I saw the car park full of empty tuk-tuks awaiting the return of their foreign fares I realised just how popular this place must be, and with good reason. The first stop on the walk up to the waterfall was the ‘Bear Cage’. This place had the coolest bears I have ever encountered. I’m sure they were there for reasons of infirmary or other Bearish hard luck stories but I bet they don’t regret it as they appeared to be in the Bear version of a five star resort. These bears had a spa-pool and hammocks and seemed to be living the life of Reilly. One bear lounged in the Bear spa and had the look of ‘you wish you were me right now’ written all over his face. I was actually pretty damn envious of these bears as I watched them cavorting in the spa, climbing the bear-poles and chillaxing in the bear-hammocks. Damn bears. I was actually jealous until we reached the lower pool of the waterfall and realised that we were at a spot where the bears, for all their luxury living could not reach.

Hell. This place was nice. Water cascaded down perfectly formed terraces to pool itself in the kind of swimming hole you can only normally dream about. It even had a log that you could muck about with and practice your log-running on just for shits and giggles. From here we hiked up the near vertical right hand side of the water fall to the very top which required so much exertion that even the Great Danes were struggling to raise a song.

The view from the top however made it all worth it and as we peered over the edge of the falls we spied the ‘Infinity pool’ which looked like just about the best swimming hole ever complete with rock jumps and even a few orange-robe clad monks. Man this place was awesome! We trekked back down the other side of this incredibly tall waterfall to the infinity pool and had to actually climb up through the water over the rocks in order to reach the pool. Once there I quickly sussed the rock jumps of about five metres or so and proceeded to have a ball bombing and diving until I had enough. When you leaned over the edge of the pool you had about a fifty metre view straight down the falls to yet another pool below. This place was simply impressive.

The kicker came when I discovered that a tree that grows over the pool could be climbed and looked pretty damn jump worthy. At about eight or nine metres or so above the pool this looked like being a hell jump but as the tree had notches carved into the side of the trunk it was obvious that it had been done before. As I walked along the skinny branch overhanging the pool the only thing that concerned me was the depth of the pool below. As I had brushed the bottom of the pool with my feet jumping from five metres I had a few misgivings about jumping from this new height. The thought of walking out of this place with a broken leg was not something I wanted to contemplate so I gave into discretion and walked back along the bough to the main trunk still in one piece. The problem was I had unwittingly inspired a few other adventurous souls to give the tree climb a bit of a go.

The first bloke climbed up the trunk and showed that you could jump from where the trunk met the main bough and walk away unscathed. Good to know. The second bloke however, was extremely sketchy and edged his way along the highest bough where I had been in several nerve-inducing hops. I thought if this bloke falls from here then I’m actually going to feel guilty as he might not be up there if I hadn’t of shown him how to get up to this point. After several anxious moments he finally saw sense and decided it wasn’t worth the almost certain beating he would have suffered as he fell like a rag-doll into the shallow pool below. As we were about to bail I had to get back up the tree and jump from the spot just at the intersection of the main trunk and bough where I had seen the other bloke go from earlier. I still brushed my feet on the bottom but it was worth it and I walked away unscathed. Sucked in comeuppance, I still haven’t got mine and hopefully never will!

NB Author’s note; there might have been pictures of the aforementioned jump but the ‘chief photographer’ for our journey was too busy yelling at your dear author something along the lines of ‘Tim, get out of the tree you dick! Don’t f**ken’ jump you idiot! I swear if that drop doesn’t kill you I will’!! And so on, hence no photos, but thank you Kate for your advice-your concern for my wellbeing is truly touching.

Alright alright. So that’s the end of our first few days in Laos. So far so good. I must say that Laos must be one of the most laid back countries on earth and even my usual impatient, raging self was beginning to slow down. Our next destination was to be the backpacker holy grail of this part of the world, Vang Vieng. ‘In the tubing’ is what every second person’s singlet in this region sports on the back and we had heard that this place could be described as either Heaven or Hell depending on which way you looked at it. The reality, as usual, lived up to the hype in the most unexpected ways. This is the town where you can tube down a river, swing from giant trapeze’s into the river and drink like there’s no-one paying the bill. It turned out to be all this and more. But more about that next time.

Two day river cruise from Houei Xay to Luang Prabrang