The Mighty Mekong

The VIP boat

Collected from our guest house at crack of sparrow fart, 0630 ,our guide took us by tuk-tuk to pick up the 3 Swiss ladies with whom we were to share our jouney upstream on the Mekong, or Nam Khong as it is known in Laos, on the Nagi of the Mekong slow boat.  This is VIP in that we have soft seats, taken from a coach, lunches and overnight stay in one of the better hotels in Pak Beng included.  Well we were under way by 0650.

Images in the upper cave at Pak Ou

Initially the route is as we took on the book boat.  Shortly after Ban San Souk we reach Pak Ou  caves.  There are two of these, with over 4000 Buddha figures.  Very good exercise climbing the hill. Before 1975 the caves received royal protection, with the village of Pak Ou on the other side of the Nam Khong at the confluence of the Nam Ou and the Nam Khong, responsible for looking after the caves.  Maintenance appears to have reduced with the loss of royal patronage.





In many places the Nam Khong is narrower than we expected but, even when  fairly low, runs fast - we estimated about 4-5 knots of stream against us.  The boat was making about 10 knots over the ground which means the downstream trip takes about half as long.

One of the larger riverside villages

We passed numerous small villages perched above the flood level.  As the water level drops the newly exposed river banks and sandbanks are planted with crops and in some cases small buildings are constructed on sandbanks.

While the scenery is undoubatbly impressive we were surprised by the lack of undomesticated animal life.  We saw maybe 20 birds on the whole trip - no waders or even egrets with the cattle. Allthe animals seen were domesticated -buffalo and other cattle, goats, pigs, dogs and even elephants.

Sticky rice field

Another surprise was how much of the primary forest had obviously been cleared.  In some places, especially on the second day, there was extensive cultivation of sticky rice but in many places the forest had been cleared and the land left to regenerate.  Apparently, after a crop of sticky rice the land is best left fallow for 10 years or yields reduce, although recent adoption of crop rotation may have improved this.  This leaves vast areas of scrub with a few clumps of original forest.  In some places, especially along the river, there were patches of clearly replanted timber - we think teak, but these were few.   We couldn't ascertain whether the timber had been commercially logged.

A planned visit to a Hmoung village on the second day had to be abandoned to ensure that we arrived in Hual Xia in time to check out of Laos and cross the river into Thailand before the border shut at 1800.  As it was we had to pay 10,000 kip (or $1) per person overtime charge as we were after 1600. What a lazy way to spend two days - well recommended.