So it’s ‘scores on the doors’ time - adding up the pros and cons of taking the slow boat to Luang Prabang.
If I’m honest, personally I’d have to say ‘yes’ to the boat ride. Despite all the difficulties, It was a great adventure. It gave me the chance to see life along the Mekong river- a chance you simply don’t get if you fly or drive across Laos.
It was also a chance to ‘switch off’ from daily life because all I could do was read, nap, look at scenery, take photos on the boat and talk to other people.
Yes, the lost art of conversation and the lost art of reading. Two things I think are incredibly important and that we’re losing the knack of in modern society.
One thing that struck me no end - especially on the first day of the trip - was how, once people had settled in on the boat, they embraced the art of ‘switching off’. I saw many people, like myself, engrossed in a good book.
Two British girls I was chatting to when we embarked got out a deck of cards, sat on the floor and began playing.
I saw quite a few people plug in their headphones then lay back and enjoy music, as they watched the world drift by. One girl was actually scribbling in a notebook/diary. (Now that’s another lost art).
I heard many conversations between strangers in those seven hours - of course there were pleasantries but people often delved into some serious subjects. There was even one woman I met - Kaitlyn - who took out a sketchbook and began painting watercolors.
The fact that the second day was so tough - poor vessel, terrible heat and humidity, lack of personal space doesn’t mean I’m sorry I made the journey.
Of course, it’s easy for me to write this now.
But isn’t this always the way when you’re traveling in developing countries?
You end up making journeys that can test you, exhaust you, make you question why you set off on the road in the first place yet after you’ve completed the ‘task’ you feel a great sense of pride.
And there’s something else too…for me, the journey itself is often more important than the destination.
Now this may sound a tad cliched but that doesn’t make it less true.
The first day gave me the opportunity to let my mind drift. I thought about people close to me now gone (my grandmother, my father, my good friend Harvey) and wonder what they would have had to say, could they have made this journey with me? I let my mind wander as I thought of the lives of the people along the river - the women washing clothes, the men fishing and chopping wood, the children swimming in the Mekong.
Yes, the second day of the trip was tough, but hardly unbearable and nothing some greenbacks and a good night’s sleep didn’t cure. Watching local people sitting on the floor, for hours at a time, with heavy loads…gazing at an old man with wizened skin, smoking a cigarette (oblivious to the unwritten rule that you have to go to the back of the boat!), staring at a portly Buddhist monk (surreptitiously watching the snooker on his smartphone) and the four young novices beside him, silent and contemplative…that engaged me.
And then seeing the sun, which at 2pm was blazing, slowly sink into the horizon, turning from a fiery yellow to a mellow pink and finally a burning orange, against the brown/blue water of the Mekong. Wow.
So if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t like to rough it, is terrified at the prospect of being smooshed on a hard bench in 37 degree heat and has an aversion to squealing pigs, then play it safe and take the minivan or a flight. But if you’re the type who wants to get outside your comfort zone, then this is a trip you’ll be glad you took - from dry land of course, as you sit with a cold beer or an iced coffee, reflecting on two long days traversing the twelfth longest river in the world.
The choice is yours!