Indochina Traversal - part 2 - Down the River

In order to avoid dangerous rapids the low water had exposed we took a bus 4 hours over un-paved road.  It was no more than 60km, but low road quality and one landslide slowed us down.

In Luang Namtha, about to depart.

Noodle soup and beer before we get on the river

Our transport for the next two days

The boat is basically the shape of a dugout canoe but powered by a 4 cylinder car engine driving a prop.  This is not the same thing as the speed boats that ply the Mekong - I took one of these 20 years ago - you had to wear a crash helmet and went at high speed over rapids.  This time it's slower but well adapted for the use.

Other than our fellow travelers (the two couples) and us - my wife and I and our 3 children there was only the driver (or captain?) and a "mate" who's job was to use an oar at the front for extra maneuverability when we entered rapids.  Neither spoke any foreign languages at all.  None of us spoke any Lao.   We didn't see any other foreigners until we were well up the Mekong the following afternoon.  This was fine.

It was initially exciting - due to the experience of the boat, and then both relaxing and interesting as we meandered with the river through rain-forest interspersed with tiny villages or river-side subsistence farms.  This is a very remote place with no access by road.  The river is the highway and boats like ours the biggest of the transport due to shallow water.  Most of the population use much smaller canoes, either using a single oar or a small out-board engine.

Take your kids to work day

The village we stayed at was multi-ethnic - united by profession rather than ancestry.  Most of the villages we had visited were each populated by just one of the 40 or so ethnicities in the region.  Here they were boat workers of various types who had gathered to form the village due to its convenient position on the river.  There is no land road to the village at all - the only accessibility is the river.

Where the action is.

The village population is no more than a hundred.  Life is obviously slow.  Walking around, up the slope of the bank where it perches I felt I'd stepped into a separate existence, parallel to the one I was familiar with.  It was disorienting but fascinating.  I painfully felt like an intruder but there was no hostility from the people there only a little shyness.  Emotionally it was intense and exhausting.

Everything happens under the huts - here spinning and weaving

The village is clearly bread-line poor.  It is mostly subsistence, with a small amount of cash derived from the river trade, which is seasonal due to the water level and some weaving.  From earlier conversations back in Luang Namtha generally for villages here in northern Lao, there are only a few months per year when there is economic activity at all.  The rest of the time the people here survive at the whim of the weather, the river and the surrounding forest.

While food is cooked on hap-hazard wood fires on the bare earth, the satellite dish is correctly mounted and positioned.

However, at every small village we visitied about 1 in every 3 huts had a satellite TV dish - even while few people had shoes.

What future these little girls?  Very hard to judge.

We stayed on mattresses on the top floor of a house built with funding from a scheme to encourage eco-tourism.