Over and over, people said I shouldn't do it. "It's crowded and boring," they insisted. "Your ass will hate you. You'll get sunburned and boatsick." But I'd seen Apocalypse Now too many times to pass this up. Two days of nothing but floating down the Mekong. After almost a week in busy Chiang Mai, it sounded perfect.
And as I sat down on the hard wooden bench, so shallow it could only support half my behind, I realized what they were talking about. Ten of us had arrived three hours early, at the advice of our ornery Huay Xai guesthouse marm, who also sold us neccessary cushions and sandwiches. But she did nothing to stifle the flood of farangs who arrived right at noon.
These new crowds, young, old, couples and groups, climbed aboard with huge rucksacks and bags of beer. With each new influx, the boat sank deeper, we squeezed tighter, and boatmen ferried benches over heads, squeezing more and more seats aboard.
It was complete madness.
Shouts and cries began to emerge from the crowd, "No!" "Unsafe!" "No good!" These fused into a stomping chant: "Two boats! Two boats! Two boats!" I looked back, and realized there was no way to the toilet -- any pathway that once existed had now been swallowed up with bodies. The old lady who ran the operation watched the uprising with a humoring smile, arms folded, relaxed, knowing. Finally, having waited long enough, she climbed onto the boat, lifted her arms like a Lao Moses, and silenced the angry crowd. "Two boats!" she proclaimed, and a victorious roar came up. People squeezed off, bags were passed back, and benches were moved to the other boat.
And all of a sudden, the boat felt empty, luxurious, gourmet. Now that I could move a few inches, I didn't care about the miserable seat, the squat toilet, the lack of any safety precautions. And I realized this was all a game -- nothing more than a haggle. Pretend to gouge the customer with insulting abandon, and they'll smile when they walk away with only a rip-off-price instead.
And we pushed away from the shore.
Floating down the Mekong river, watching the banks and the water buffalo and the trees and the bamboo huts pass us by, it was glorious. Doing nothing but sitting, thinking, watching. Thailand, at first, to our right, but soon the boat was sucked deep into Laos.
The others on the boat were the same types I'd seen on the road. Two American retirees, dead ringers for James Coburn and Wildford Brimley, boarded with an older Thai transexual. An unconnected collection of Quebeqoise and Hollandaise health-care professionals surrounded me (and soon became my new friends). A dozen British ravers crowded in the bow, smoking and sleeping off hangovers. And a handful of Irish on the boat were determined to see the entire two days through drunk.
I'd met one of these guys at nine am that morning, when he stumbled up to my tuktuk, unable to stand without holding onto its bars. "Where's the fast boat? I need the fast boat. I have a very important meeting in Luang Prabang," he slurred, gesturing with his free hand which already held a can of BeerLao. "A meeting with the chief of the Lao tribes! I can't be late. I need the fast boat." But somehow he still made it onto the slow boat, and was never seen without a tall bottle of security in his hand.
Drunk Brits aside, watching the scenery move by was peaceful and gorgeous and such fun. Good company made it even moreso. A train of water buffalo, ranked in size, reminded me of the company of elephants from The Jungle Book. Women worked in the fields, while small children played in the mud, and showed off by diving from tall rocks. One boy pulled down his trunks to flash the camera-happy tourists. ("He did it facing the wrong way," an amused neighbor remarked.)
Our boat wasn't really slow -- it choked out exhaust and moved with haste, but nowhere near that of the fast boats, which flew down the Mekong, noses reached precariously high out of the water, the pilots (and not the passengers) hidden by mammoth jet-helmets. The fast boat reaches Luang Prabang in six hours. After eight hours on the river, we reached Pak Beng, a small one-road village on the banks of the river.
Pak Beng, I'm sure, is fueled by the overnight tourist industry. The one street is a squeezed glut of guesthouses, restaurants, bars, and porters who'll carry your bags up the banks for $4. (My backpack was one of several that disappeared from the boat's hold, and I gave up looking after twenty anxious minutes. And then found it in the hands of a little kid, halfway up the hill. "Carry your bag?" he eagerly offered. "You little shit," I spat back, snatching it out of his hands as he ran away and the other porters laughed. I figure they were holding the other missing bags.)
Walking in to town, I was offered grass, then opium, and the yaabaa, or meth. I didn't buy any, but evidently the drunk Irishman did, spending the rest of the night screaming and howling, crying out for water and talking to dogs as he marched up and down the street. Instead, I had a fried banana pancake for breakfast the next morning -- the best I've ever had.
And found a bottle of locally-brewed LaoLao, moonshine, the worn old tequila-worm gimmick upped with a snake and a scorpion, wrapped together in a vicious dead embrace.
The second day on the boat was just as peaceful and grand as the first. Playing Quebequois card games, slow chats perched on the edge of the boat, dipping our toes in the water, sending up a spray of muddy Mekong. Water buffalo walking by thatched bamboo huts sitting under banana trees growing in front of rolling hills foregrounding foggy mountain silhouettes. It was all gorgeous.
And then some drunk mick fell off the boat.
It wasn't the fellow who'd been howling at dogs all night, but was one of his drunk friends. We went back, and minutes later he was cradled around a fresh large bottle of beer, combating his new-found soaking sobriety. We've seen him since in Luang Prabang, stumbling down the street, fortunately not a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.
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