Cruisin' the Mekong, part 1

When planning the specifics for this trip through Southeast Asia, there were 2 things that I did not want to skimp on, to make the experience that much enjoyable. One was the cruise through Halong Bay, and I didn't regret that decision for a second. The second was our two-day cruise down the Mekong river, from the Thai border to Luang Prabang. There were several options, the least desirable being the public transportation style, where they cram as many people in as possible, on bucket seats or benches, with questionable washrooms(or none at all) and you provide your own food. Now, that may be the cheapest option, but it's not the way I want to spend 6-8 hours on the Mekong. On the other end of the spectrum, you have luxury Mekong cruise, where you have the nicest boat possible, with all meals included, and your 1-night stay in Pak Beng is at a posh villa on top of the hill, where you overlook the elephants from the nearby sanctuary bathing in the river with you eat your breakfast...it's all just a little TOO much for me.

I ended up choosing Shompoo Cruises, a company somewhere near the middle, perhaps just slightly on the nicer side than not: Big, beautiful, comfortable boat, with lots of room to stretch out and relax, tea, coffee and fruit all day, buffet lunches included, and some stops along the way for educational purposes. We had to find our own hotels and arrange all other meals, but it seemed like a nice compromise between living in the lap of luxury or going it on our own.

Lucky for us, it included a guide on BOTH sides of the Thai-Laos border, to help us with the visa application formalities and payments(including $1 US overtime fee because it's a Saturday!), and when we finally emerge from all that run-around, our guide Vong corrals our entire group into mini-buses, and away we go to the boat!
Shompoo runs a very good service. They have made contracts with all of their professional and experienced captains to retain their services and fidelity. Shompoo owns the long-boats that we ride on, and hires the captains on contract to operate the boat, In return, the captain and his family can live on the boat during their service and are VERY well-paid comparatively to other companies. The captains also agree not to work for any other company during their contract, but none of them want to, anyway. And believe me, it shows. The family that operates this boat, the captain, his wife and their daughter, do such a good job of keep the boat spotless, making amazing food, and caring for us as if we were family, you can tell they are happy to be employed by Shompoo.
And the FOOD! Oh my, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear we were in a restaurant! Shortly after boarding, and getting our itinerary briefing, we are presented with the most amazing lunch buffet - 5 dishes, including vegetarian options, steamed rice, fresh fruit, and all cooked in the galley of a long-boat. We sit at long tables, devouring the tasty meal, watching the riverbanks roll by, the water churning as we pass, sometimes smooth as ice. Everything is delicious, we all go back for seconds, and are absolutely stuffed by the time we reach our one and only stop for the day, at a local Khmou village to experience daily life along the Mekong.

Daily life in the villages along the Mekong is hard. Most cannot read or write, and only speak their native dialect. The children are better off, but not buy much. There is a primary school in the village, slightly worse for wear, with two well-worn chalkboards, but today is Saturday, so the desks are empty. The children head to neighbouring Pak Beng for secondary, the equivalent of grade 4-6(I think). If they continue, which is not always possible because here you have to pay for your education, the teens will head to Luang Prabang, living with family or friends while they study. More often than not, once they leave the villages for school, they don't want to come back, as the opportunities in Luang Prabang are so much better. It was clear to us, as we walked through the little hill-side village, the demographic of people that were left.

We passed by huts and rice sheds, recognizable by their anti-mouse guard on their stilts. We passed a large hall where everyone was gather in celebration for a recent wedding. The couple wed in the village of the groom, where they will ultimately live, but had returned here to celebrate with the wife's family. Everyone was toasting the happy union with rice whisky. We left them to their celebrations and returned to the boat.

A little bit further down the river and we arrive at Pak Beng, the halfway point to our trip. Here we disembark and all part ways to stay in our booked hotel rooms. Turns out, Mario and I have booked in the furthest place possible, which is still only a 7-minute walk from the dock, but up the steep incline of the river bank, and with no porters, like some of the swankier places in town, so we are completely exhausted by the time we arrive at Phonemany Guesthouse(pronounced PONE-MANY). But we turn around and head back out as soon as we drop our bags, since we want to experience the biggest little town in the region before it goes to sleep for the night.

We climb even further up the hill, and into the living town, away from the tourist central around the dock, to visit the TWO Wats, both with prime viewing on the gorgeous sunset happening upstream. Along the way, we stop to shop at the local market, where women have their small vegetable harvest laid out in piles on blue tarps, selling to each other, basically, for their nightly dinner. Mario buys a bag of tamarind for us to suck on while we walk. We head back for the dock, noting the general emptiness of the street. This place should be full of transients, all stopping here from their trips up and down the Mekong. All the long-boats, from the cheap public transports to the most luxurious cruisers, stop in Pak Beng. It's true that the classier outfits include dinner at the hotel they partner with, and so some people won't leave their rooms tonight, but we have seen no one out here, not even in the sit-down restaurants.

We are ultimately drawn in by the smell of meat grilling on an open fire, and sit down to a meal in the "dining room" of the place closest to the pier. I say dining room, but we were at a plastic table just outside the living room of the guys' house, where his kids were running around playing, and his father, fresh out of the shower and still wrapped in a pink bath towel, was watching Muay Thai boxing. We share a box of sticky rice, the kind you mold into a ball with your fingers to eat, with a tender grilled chicken leg and 2 Pak Beng sausages, spicy and aromatic with kaffir lime and lemongrass. We wash the simple, yet delicious, meal down with a big bottle of Beer Lao.

On a strange, the-world-is-a-small-place side note, we run into Blue Jays from our bus ride to the Thai-Laos border, IN Pak Beng town, heading to the dock for dinner as we are heading away. We chat for a bit about the adventures of the previous day, and find out that his name is Jason, so now Mario and I are calling him Blue Jayson. As he is looking for a place to stay when HE gets to Luang Prabang, we suggest to him the guesthouse we've booked at. Perhaps our paths will cross again.