Day 224: Pakbeng Slow Boat

I was curious why the boatman from the slow boat to Pakbeng insisted on putting our bags on top of the boat during the rain, despite the fact the inside of boat was virtually empty. But I sat down on one of the long wooden benches that ran the length of the craft and quickly put that thought out of my mind.

The boatmen's shoes lay piled near the entrance of the boat, as they would in any home - this was their house, of course. Clean straw mats covered the floor and laundry hung from the walls near the captain. As I began to get comfortable, 30 other backpackers stomped into the captain's home with muddy shoes. So much for solitude, people filled every available space on the boat.

The Mekong River runs 4350 km down from the Tibetan Plateau through China, carves the border between Burma and Laos and parts of the Thai border with Laos, continues through Cambodia, and ends in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. It was the dry season here and with the lack of rain, the river ran low and much of the jungle displayed the rich colors of fall - the reds, yellows, and oranges of home. The river still looked mighty to me as we shot through a fast moving gorge, but high above my head I could see the waterline of the wet season, where the river rocks thinned out and the trees started to grow.

Despite the occasional speedboat hammering past us and jarring me to the present, I spent the five-hour trip looking out of the boat as if it were a window to the past. There was not a factory in sight. Thatched bamboo houses conglomerated on hilltops to form occasional villages. Fishermen strained to cast weighted circular nets over the sides of their old wooden longboats, much like they have been doing since their ancestors arrived. Naked boys played on the muddy shore while their mothers washed clothes nearby. Water buffaloes sunned themselves. Rows of green vegetables sprouted from the sandy shore of the river - farmed only during the dry season when the land is not under 10 feet of water. A team of five elephants, each chained to an enormous tree trunk, pulled lumber down to the shore to an awaiting boat.

We passed a bright aqua-blue longboat travelling in our direction. Three Lao women peered outside at us from an orange-framed doorway, staring at our boat full of nappy backpackers. I stared back at them from the shady darkness of my seat. Their expressions seemed to question what life would be like as one of us, and I couldn't help but to wonder about the reverse. Our bodies were only feet apart, but our minds and cultures seemed distanced by years.