On the Mekong

[Tim]

I am in the coolest place, doing the coolest thing, right now.  We are traversing north-central Laos toward its western border with Thailand, and I'm on a chartered riverboat.  And every moment is delicious.

Our friend, Amanda, lives in Thailand and spends much of her time in the villages of Laos as a traveling nurse.  At age 28, she fluently speaks several languages and has training in linguistics to be able to continue learning.  I'm so impressed with her!  When I got the job teaching in Danang, a year ago now, I looked at the map and realized that we could go overland from our place to hers, but through a country I had no experience with and no language for.  So I contacted Amanda and asked her how much arm-twisting it would take to get her to meet us in Vietnam and be our traveling companion back to her home.  Not much!

My first thought was to take bus-transport.  Those sleeper-buses that crisscross this part of southeast Asia can get you there, unless you crash because the driver hasn't slept for 20 hours and is using amphetamines to help him stay alert, but the adjectives applied to the adventure on Trip Adviser and from veteran travelers often include "harrowing" and phrases like "the worst sleeper bus experience I've ever had."

Laos, as you may know, is mountainous.  Landlocked and mountainous and poor.  The Mekong River (the same one that flows out through Saigon way-way-way downstream) cuts through the western part of the country.  Maybe I should say the Mekong cuts OFF the western portion of the country, because there is but one bridge, and it's miles and miles away from Luang Prabang (Lao's second city and our point of entry when we flew in from Hanoi).

And now we are 70 miles or so west of LPB on the Mekong.  Everything to my left (across the river in the piture below) is part of the country of Laos cannot be accessed from Laos except by boat.  Crazy to me.

Dissuaded from going by bus, but still wanting to somehow cross over to Amanda's home turf through Laos, I looked at the map and realized that the river passage might be just the ticket.  My mom is traveling with us, so our 5 plus my mom and Amanda is 7 ... and with 7 people it is comparable in price to buy tickets on a riverboat or to charter our own boat.  Plus, that way we have the luxury of a boat all to ourselves and we get to choose where we stop.  That's important to Amanda, because not all the villages we're passing are of the people group she works with.

Amanda's people-group lives in Lao and the language is similar to Lao, but they are ethnically not Lao.  I say that as if Amanda is of her people, but she's not.  She grew up in China but her family is from Pennsylvania and now she lives in Thailand and spends most of her time in Lao among her people-group.  She's all mixed up, if you ask me.  Write to me I'll give her your contact information and she'll add you to her group for email updates.  As is the situation with many people living and working in this part of the world, when communicating with her you'll have to choose your words carefully to avoid pricking the ears of government monitors looking for political or religious activity.