Kathleen
Laos – The Mekong River from Houayxay to Luang Prabang
February 20-21, 2016
After a rather uneventful busride from Chiang Rai to the Lao border, we spent one night in Houayxay, on the border, and also on the Mekong river, ready and excited for our two-day boat cruise. Houayxay is a pretty small town and the tourism revolves around folks headed down the river, so there are a few bars, restaurants and guest houses, but nothing to write home about. We did have a pretty extraordinary experience in this small town, though, one that is likely to be a highlight of our trip. After a very long dinner (Lao time is like Mexican time) we walked up the long stairway to the main temple in town. While wandering around, we noticed an open room in one of the temple buildings with about 15 young monks between the age of about 11 and 15, sitting at desks with an adult monk and a white girl at the front of the class. The girl beckoned to us, saying, “you have been invited.” We went into the class room and the teacher monk explained that this was an English class and he was hoping we would help with their lesson. The girl was also a tourist, she was from Denmark, but spoke very good English. The teacher monk asked both Steve and I to get up in front of the class and tell a bit about ourselves. He then asked me to go through today’s lesson, on the chalkboard, with the students. It was super fun. The lesson of the day was about 20 different ways to aplologize. Some phrases the students did really well with and others they had to repeat several times. The worst one was “I’m terribly sorry,” as the R’s are very difficult for them. After several times, I laughed and said that “I’m very sorry” was perfectly adequate:). Who says “terribly” anyway? The whole experience was very uplifting and the reception from both teacher and students left us with a warm feeling. Alas, we didn’t get any pictures of the occasion, so it will have to live in our memories…
The next day we left for the most delightful boat trip down the Mekong. By some amazing stroke of fate, our boat which probably held about 40 people, only had 5 passengers total. We met three delightful women from Ireland and the 5 of us settled in for a very relaxing trip. We stopped at a couple of villages and a cave along the way, but mostly we just relaxed, took in the scenery, and enjoyed what is undoubtedly the most pleasant means of travel in the country….if not the quickest. After several subsequent travels by van or bus, I can say that the river is the only way to go if you have time for it. We stopped overnight in Pakbeng, another town that simply seems to cater to river tourists. We had a decent Indian dinner and turned in early, looking forward to the rest of the trip. I highly recommend this tour if you are ever in Laos, such a beautiful countryside, we could have done this for days, but lovely Luang Prabang was waiting for us at the end of our journey.