adrift in the borderlands

All round, the transition from Thailand to Laos was pretty painless. I took a barge across the Mekong from Chiang Khong, Thailand to Huay Xai, Laos smiled at an official, got my passport stamped, changed some money and was in business, in Laos. I had hemmed and hawed a bit about the best way to tackle Laos. The romantic in me, generally repressed, and for good reason, was twittering that a two day boat trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang would be a suitably poetic entry into the country. The romantic in me did, however, take a bit of a battering after driving me to undertake twelve days of silent meditation on planks in Mandalay. Sitting on wooden planks on a boat in the sun surrounded by god only knows what companions could actually be a version of hell. Would it not be more sensible to take a one-hour flight from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang? The romantic won out and I booked a berth on the slow boat to Luang Prabang. Incidentally, I could have lived the lyrics of another vintage song by catching the slow boat to China from Chiang Saen.
Come to think of it, though, I was cruising down the river on a Sunday afternoon.

Having installed myself on the boat, there was little to do but gaze at other boats, stare at the clouds, take in a bit of scenery and read. Charming, picturesque, etc etc.

There were two boxes of goon perched on the bar of the boat and whenever we stopped, kids would jump aboard with pineapple and beer for sale. My co-passengers were, for the most part, reasonably inoffensive human beings although I did notice that a higher concentration than normal of self-help books was weighing down the boat. Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway! The Present is a Present! Ditch Unnecessary Ballast! On board, there was also a large basket full of chickens which would not have passed muster with the R.S.P.C.A. They kept pretty quiet. The night was spent in a village called Pak Beng and of course when I saw this sign, I knew where I was going to eat.
Nothing like a clear delineation of domestic duties. The food was excellent chez Sivilai and I was very happy to discover that Beer Laos deserves its reputation. When we met the wife of the very loquacious owner, she seemed pretty quiet. It wasn’t until we had ordered that the owner merrily confessed that the cooking tonight was going to be done by his sister-in-law. His wife had gone into the hills with her mates, they had taken lots of beer with them and she was now too sloshed to cook. The arrangement almost struck me as egalitarian.

Laung Prabang rolled along easily enough. Adjectives like charming and quaint attach themselves to Luang Prabang pretty readily; so much had I heard of the delights of this town, I was getting ready to be the naysaying voice of reason and hate the place. Tough job, etc. Alas, I must bray with the herd. The town is beautiful, the guesthouses are cheap and clean, the food is excellent, the pace is relaxed… I twitched with delight when I was served this dish by the Mekong.
It’s posing as tofu with ginger but this is not at all the case. What it is is a handful of garlic cloves and loads of ginger stir-fried in rice wine with a little bit of tofu and a few token greens thrown in to add colour and movement. And the margaritas are delivered pint-glasses. In sum:

Things are notoriously laidback in Laos such that it would be a violation of the national ethos to try and convince this photo to rotate. Anyway, in spite of these ready delights, tomorrow I head south to Phonsavan bear witness to the Plain of Jars (sounds exciting, I know) before looping back through more scenery and faded colonial splendour to return to the charms of Luang Prabang.