Kayaking the Mekong

As our plane began its final descent from Chiang Mai (Thailand) to Luang Prabang (Laos), I immediately noticed how forested, hilly, and comparatively undeveloped Luang Prabang was compared to Chiang Mai.  I was thrilled that we had decided to spend 6 nights in Laos as I was sure we would find more adventures than we had time to do.  Being the planner that I am, I had already figured out how we might spend our time: one day kayaking, one day at the waterfalls, one day at a rice farm, etc.

After getting out of the airport, finding a taxi, and getting to our B&B,I was surprised by how small the town was.  I started to get a little worried that there might not be as much to do as we wanted.  The first few days were magical: hiking across the river in Ban Xieng Mane Village was a good reminder of “the real Laos”, and the waterfalls were beautiful.  (See Simon’s post for those adventures).

However, in our first two days we more or less exhausted the adventures that we could organize on our own.  Most of the tourism in Laos is built around hiring companies to take you places rather than planning and guiding your own trips.  My family has always been adventurous, going to a different place to vacation each year since I was 12, but we almost never pay someone to organize our adventure.  Couple that sense of independence with Simon’s desire to avoid group tours and we were starting to feel like our options in Laos might be more limited than we realized.  Plus, the tours we did see were significantly more expensive than we had planned.  Still not expensive by US standards necessarily ($50 for a day-long kayaking trip), but more than we could afford if we were planning to take a tour every day.  While trying to plan day 3 on our second night, we went to many of the tourism agencies on the main road and talked to them about what activities we might do.  We came to realize they are almost all selling the same trips: the waterfall, elephants, and Pak Se Ou cave, just in different orders.

But somewhere I saw mention of a kayaking trip and decided it would be nice to get out on the water.  The Mekong flows nearby, and I had done another trip on the Mekong in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, so it would be cool to see the river at a different point in its journey.  I talked to 5 different agencies offering kayaking trips and found the cheapest one.  (I then checked TripAdvisor to make sure it had decent reviews.)  They told us we were the only ones who had signed up so we were psyched to be on a “group” tour that was just the 2 of us.  We paid for the trip and went back to the B&B for a good night’s sleep.

The next morning we were picked up in a van with 6 other people and were disappointed our group tour had gotten more full.  We didn’t get much explanation from the driver or coordinator in the front seats but were driven away from town.  At a seemingly random point in the road, there was a truck pulled over in front of us with two kayaks on the top.  Our van pulled over and Simon and I were told to get out – everyone else was going somewhere else.  This was good news – it meant that it was in fact just the two of us plus a guide.  We crammed into the small truck, drove a little longer, and eventually stopped at the put-in.  Our kayak guide Lei had us help him carry the two kayaks down to the river and get set up.  When he found out we had some kayaking experience, he opted not to give us any type of instruction about safety, where we were going, or how long it would be.  We just hopped in the kayaks and away we went.

Our day kayaking was very nice.  It was cooler down on the river (with the air temperature nearing 100) and I was able to swim once as well.  It was nice to see local life along the river: kids as young as two or three swimming by themselves, farmland, and cows grazing near the banks.  The river is surrounded by impressive limestone cliffs on all sides. I can imagine some day rock climbing might be a new tourist activity, but for now Lei said he only knows of one foreigner who has climbed the cliffs.

We stopped for lunch at the kayak guide’s village, and we learned that the whole tour company is run by his village.  This was probably the worst part of the day, as the tour company also provides elephant rides and the elephants were right outside the lunch spot, chained up and unmoving.  Comparing those elephants to those we had seen in Thailand was depressing, but I guess there was some value in being reminded of how most elephants are treated and realizing that I can see the difference between a happy (happier?) and sad elephant.  We left the lunch spot sooner than our guide wanted us to and told him we’d meet him down by the river when he was ready to go.

After lunch, we crossed the river in our boat and went in to the Pak Ou caves, which I knew had mixed reviews on TripAdvisor.  There was a little kerfuffle about the tickets with one of the townspeople working there; our guide had paid but there were still people asking us to buy tickets.  I think some people end up paying twice when that happens, but we knew that we didn’t need to pay again.  There are upper and lower caves there, and they have thousands of Buddha statues of all shapes and sizes.  It is said that you must visit the caves before taking a trip on the river, as it will give you good luck and guarantee your safe passage.  Similar to Simon’s comment that it “felt like watching a foreign film without subtitles,” I could tell there was something special happening, but I couldn’t tell what.  I had lots of questions about what we were seeing and what it meant, but no answers.  Talking about religion can be a very sensitive topic so we didn’t feel we could ask our guide Lei to tell us about it. 

See the white stairs in the middle of the picture across the river? That's the entrance to one of the caves

Just a few of the thousands of sculptures

We did, however, end up asking Lei some questions about his village and his life near the end of the trip and it was nice to hear about it.  His family has lived in the same village for 50+ years and his whole family is involved in the tour company.  His favorite job is driving, “because it’s the easiest”, and he wears long sleeves every day so that he doesn’t get sunburned out on the water so much.  I am sure there is so much more to his world and his hopes and dreams, but this was honestly more than we learned about almost anybody else we met in Laos.

The last part of the trip was the Whisky Village. It was the low season even for this “village” which has set itself up as a tourist destination for souvenirs, but there were maybe only three stalls open when we were there.  We got a chance to sample Lao Lao, which is the local alcohol and I found mixes pretty well with fruit juice for a rum-type cocktail.  Simon checked out the bottles with reptiles (snakes, crocodiles, scorpions) inside, and Lei told us that each reptile is said to infuse the bottle with different medicinal properties.  

After the Whisky Village, we returned back to Luang Prabang satisfied with our “group tour” day.  We seem to find our way to a pizza place in every country we visit, so we figured pizza made by a Canadian living in Laos at Pizza Phan Luang would be worth a shot. We crossed the river on a bamboo bridge (which of course there was a ticket for) to get there and loved the ambience - it is basically set up in the owner's back garden.  We enjoyed our pizza and talked about options for day 4.  We thought it might be time to check out the rice village and decided we would head back into town on the bamboo bridge to talk to the tour companies about arranging a trip...