The River

It was three hours of bad roads in the pouring rain from Chiang Rai to Chiang Kong. We were the only foreigners on the bus. We rarely passed another vehicle. The little towns quickly gave way to mountain jungle.
"Do you feel like you are getting farther and farther away from civilization?" I said to Sasha.
"Yeah."
"You are." I teased.
Later in the day as we got closer to our destination the driver began letting passengers off in front of any place they seemed to want. People jumped off with sacks of rice at little primitive villages of straw huts and dirt floors. By the time we got to Chiang Kong the bus was half empty and it was coming down in buckets.

We found a tuk tuk to take us to a guest house. We hadn't prepared much so we took whatever place he offered us. Typically they work with a family member or friend bringing them customers. It was a sad little place but ok for a night. Red ants were massing just outside our door. We scoured the town looking for bug repellent and a place to make us a bag lunch for tomorrows journey across the river into Laos.

That night we met Michael. He is a little German man from the former east with belly that expressed his love for beer. He was sitting in the open dining area of the guest house. The jungle was all around us. I noticed him reading a copy of Hitler's Volksstaat. A book that is always a conversation starter. He had grown up in the former east of Berlin. I got to quiz him about communism to which he gave elusive answers always punctuated by a smile. He is a school teacher and is wise about what he says to whom. There was an open deck near the row of rooms and tiny kittens wandered everywhere. Later he and Sasha and I watched American Beauty with the house dog curled up against me. It was nice to watch Kevin Spacy perform to a background of Cicada and Geko's.

In the morning we loaded our luggage onto the tuk tuk and headed for the boarder. The guesthouse manager, who had booked our passage had put a big sticker on each of us that read: Slow Boat. We got to the landing and had our passport stamped by one of the few unsmiling Thai people in the entire country. There was no dock to speak of. We had to hold our bags over our head and walk in the mud to get on. We boarded a longtail boat and crossed the river into Laos.

On the other side of the river we had to get our visas stamped again. Everyone was changing their denominations into kip and then stuffing large wads of money into their wallets. A man approached our group and asked for our passports.
"Don't worry, don't worry." He assured us. I was worried.

We were then led up the street into the dirty little boarder town of Houexai. We were told to wait again while something happened. Nobody seemed to know what. Then they came back and took us in small groups away and back down to the waters edge. They came for us and we did as we were told.

We boarded a long mahogany boat. It was covered and somebody had made pink curtains for the open spaces on either side. We waited there for two hours. They led group after group to the boat. Soon it was overloaded with Farang, foreigners.
"If the boat breaks up." I said to Sasha. "Leave everything behind. Kick off your shoes and as much clothing as possible. Don't fight the current. Let it take you down stream and deposit you on one of the sand bars." I could tell by looking at her eyes that this did little to reassure her.

The last to enter were two Americans. An older man with grey hair in a floral shirt carrying a video camera and his wife. Her hair was cut short and dyed red. Her pink pants were the only thing louder than their voices as they complained endlessly.

The boat pushed off two hours late. We traveled down the muddy Mekong river. The water swirled and eddied around barely submerged rocks. It had rained hard the night before and the banks were full. Sasha was pale.
"Are there any life jackets on board at all?" She asked, deeply pained.

The valley was green with large coconut trees on either bank. We rarely passed anywhere and when we did it was a tiny collection of grass huts. After seven hours we reached Pak Bang.

Pak Bang was a little hamlet with a few new luxury hotels miraculously sprouting up and a score of backpacker guesthouses. The children ran barefoot on the dirty main road down the muddy embankment to greet the boat. They hoped to grab our bags and carry them for us in exchange for tips. They swarmed over the boat and one had to fight with them to regain ones luggage. Sasha stepped onto the narrow gang plank and plunged into the river. She crawled up out of the milky water onto the shore her determination intact.

I guarded our belongings as Sasha ran ahead of the crowd to get a hotel. She secured us a room in the best of the lot. It was a concrete building with a big veranda and a panoramic view of the river. We stashed our things and then decided to go for a swim. We had seen a group of boys playing in the water on the opposite embankment. We made our way through a Wat where Buddhist monks prayed. Then we went down a steep bank and Sasha got her first close up view of the grass huts with mud floors where most of the world lived. Women held dirty babies in their arms as they swatted away flies. A soiled towel with Bugs Bunny and the Tazmanian Devil hung from a window. The little boys hid while we bathed in the river. The coffee light water was warm and soothing on our limbs cramped by the long journey.

That night we had one of the best Indian meals I have ever had anywhere, including New York. The meal was prepared with fresh homemade yoghurt, garden vegetables and juicy bits of chicken. As we sat at the table Boz appeared. I had met him on the boat, just outside the engine room. He is Dutch and has classic good looks. He smiled a wide smile like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. A pair of sunglasses pinned back his red hair. His pants were four alarm yellow. He inquired about our wet hair and we told him that we had gone for a swim.
"In the Mekong?" He scowled. "That's brave."
He went on to describe a mysterious parasite found only in those muddy waters. It swam up ones urethra then extended large hooks into the walls. Incurable, it slowly ate up your insides.
"I saw it on the Discovery channel." He said. Sasha stared slack jawed.
"Well, that's the last time we do that." I said.

After dining we headed home as the generators were cut and the town went dark. There was no electricity in Pak Bang and by mutual consent generators were cut off at 10pm. Several restaurants and shops on our way back were lit exclusively by candle light. The stars above provided the only illumination for the street.

The next day we boarded the boat early. We were determined to get the best seat possible. We were lucky. We grabbed the last "first class" seat on the forward deck and a plastic chair in the bow next to the captain. Our plan was to switch places every two hours to give each other a break. Then they proceeded to cram even more passengers on board than the day before. They had come down from the jungles looking for the only way out of Laos. The river. Passengers were crowded into the engine room in front of the huge diesel engine that powered the craft. There was little ventilation. The noise was deafening. We headed down river for another seven hours of rock dodging by our fearless captain.

I traded places with Sasha and sat next to the loud Americans we had seen the day before. The floral shirt guy video-ed everything yelling out descriptions for the sound track. I did my best to avoid looking at him but eventually I relented and let him lead me into conversation.

He blew my mind. His name was Ted. He mentioned that he had lived in upstate New York when he was younger. I asked him where.
"Millbrook." My eyes grew wide. I prodded him to elaborate and he proceeded to tell me about his life on the legendary commune there founded by Dr. Timothy Leary. He knew the whole crew, Billy Hitchcock, Baba Ram Das. He had been one of the original members. He told me of the warring factions. One faction wanted to just get high and chant and let god take care of them. The other faction to which he belonged wanted to create an alternate sustainable community. They had set up a printing press and pottery shop. He told me of the police raids. He described how the community churches had rallied around them during the months of endless police harassment. He told me about the bitter dissolution of the community and their flight to Nevada. Since then he and Pink Pants had traveled around the world. It seemed there was no point on the map where they had not set foot.

Listening to Ted was like listening to a movie and the time flew by. Soon we were in Luang Prabang. The boat pulled ashore and we were greeted by the usual army of Tuk Tuk pirates. They are in every bus station and port ready to take advantage of the anxieties of new arrivals. The Kharst formations we had seen as the boat descended the valley surrounded the town. It was full of tiny streets and luxurious gardens. There were rows of neat structures in classic French colonial style. We rolled our suitcases down the dusty narrow streets searching for a place to rest as the moon rose in the east.