3.
The Situation on the Slowboat
The tourist boats from Huayxai to Luang Prabang and vice versa are normally the only overcrowded boats I see on the Mekong. All the other boats of the same kindare never filled up or even crammed with people.
So, the situation on board is that the most of the passengers are Westerners, normally younger ones in their twenties or thirties. A certain part of the passengers are Laotions, but they don't go all the way on the boat - they are taken or dropped at certain points, say hamlets on the way.
A part of the passengers starts drinking from an early point on, short after departure. From the beginning on frequently cigarettes are smoked, so that all over the drive there is cigarette smoke in the air. In the past many Westerners liked to climb up onto the roof of the boat. But since they are overestimating their skills, particularly when being drunk, many fell into the river. Now it's no more allowed to sit on the roof - what is a pity. From there one would have the best view around and could escape the crowded atmosphere downstairs. As more passengers climb the roof, as relaxter remains the situation downstairs.
The engine is as strong as noisy. Besides it produces the usual, unhealthy and avoidable clouds of black smoke. Since the Laotians have little to no skills in maintaining technical devices, the engines are generally in a bad state. Sitting in the back of the boat means being exposed to the heavy noise of the engine, the sometimes incredible smog, the people who go to the back of the boat for smoking cigarettes (the more addicted appear every twenty minutes or so); additionally are the toilets in the back of the boat, so that there are frequently passengers passing by, being on the toilet run.
Unsatisfying as always in Laos is also the way how the baggages are dealt with. Either they put them all in a chamber under deck - then it get pilled up and one has no control anymore over one's bag. Fragile content might be squeezed and damaged and it could be that there comes water inside the chamber.
If there is no space under deck (the boats are different), it all is collected at the back of the boat. There should actually be some space for people who want to stand up and stretch their legs. But no, it's all blocked with bags. Also the way to the toilet is usually blocked or at least half-blocked. The Westerners now, who want to smoke or to leave their seats are going to the back and start squatting in the piles of bags. I saw Westerners sleeping on top of some twenty bags. If one has a computer or other fragile stuff inside one's bag - goodbye! I don't understand this mentality, but nobody cares for anything. The Laotions, of course, are not any better. If they handle bags, they treat them as they were their usual rice bags or other rough peasant stuff.
Nevertheless is the boattrip really worth being done. It gives still unique glances into a river biology and surrounding which will be soon destroyed.
Everywhere on the upper and middle part of the Mekong River appears a variety of stone formations. In rainy season they are under water, in dry season they appear more and more until the water level rises again. Here: between Chiang Khong/Huayxai and Ban Pak Beng. Image by Asienreisender, 2013
Published on April 1st, 2013