Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Mekong

Our boat, #77, from Luang Prabang to Pak Bang.


The slow boat up the Mekong was a great way to slow down and relax. We went into another world. We'd been warned we have that there were backless wooden benches on the boat. We went early and got seats. Actually all the seats had backs, and the wooden ones had cushions. We were early enough to get regular tour bus type upholstered seats. Very comfortable. The dominant feature of the trip - as has been most of the time in Thailand, but particularly in Laos - has been the
smoke from the slash and burn agriculture of the hill tribes. The river was shrouded in thick smoke as you can see in the pictures. But we were in sparsely populated areas and just slowly went up the river. There were people here and there on the shore fishing, panning for gold, in boats, with their water buffalo, in villages. There were lots of interesting rock formations. And time just slowed down as we spent two ten hour days - with a break overnight in a small
village full of guest houses to accommodate the boat passengers.



















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