We started our two-day-one-night cruise on the Mekong River from Luang Prabang this morning. We arrived in Pak Beng, Laos around 5:30 pm and will be spending the night at a hotel here. The cruise company website specifies that there must be a minimum of five passengers for the cruise to happen, but to our pleasant surprise, Kenric and I were the only two passengers! Besides our wonderful guide, Xai, there were a husband-and-wife team and their nephew (the captain) who was steering. The lady’s cooking was REALLY delicious. The best feature of the boat: western style toilet.

We stopped at Pak Ou Cave where there are 4,000 plus Buddha statues, big and small, placed here by people for blessings. The boat ride was very smooth, but required constant maneuvering as the water level is low and there are rocks to be avoided. When the water level is much higher and alł the rocks submerged, the captain’s job is even more challenging. Xai said the captain remembers where every rock is. The view was amazing, and we saw cows, goats, and many water buffaloes.

Pak Beng

At the store next to the one where we bought the cereal, two drunk Chinese men were yelling nonsense at each other in Mandarin. A woman, presumably a wife of one of those drunkards, was standing by the sidewalk, hands on hips. This must be a common occurrence because the villagers who passed by and the people at the neighboring stores did not bat an eye. A sign outside the Poverty Reduction Fund building says “View Point <— 1100 M”. It was getting late, so we didn’t try to walk 1.1 km (0.7 miles) each way. I suspect we would see a lot of natural beauty if we ventured outside of the main road in town. The people seem very nice, except for the drunkards.

Lizards Everywhere

The food at dinner was OK. I got mad at Kenric for not telling me that there were at least ten lizards on the wall behind me feasting on all sort of flying insects. I had told him how I was traumatized when I was six or seven years old by a broken-off lizard tail that fell onto my lap; two damn lizards had been fighting on the ceiling. So, when I finally noticed there were that many lizards within four feet, I scolded him, but he thought it was amusing. He said he was monitoring them and even if they were going to fight and fall, they wouldn’t have landed on me. I switched to sit next to him, but facing the lizard wall only freaked me out more. If you don’t like lizards, I suggest you not view the very last photo of this post.

There are many boats docked by the pier below us and we can hear the different crews joking, laughing and I assume, drinking with one another under the full moon. The likelihood of someone joining our boat to go from Pak Beng to the border town of Huay Xai is pretty low, so we may get the whole boat to ourselves again tomorrow.

Map of Places Visited