Overland

While Luang Prabang is just two hours from Bangkok on a turboprop plane, five days overland seemed as if it was actually something to do. It was. We ended up taking six days, with some serio-comic delays getting from Thailand into Laos.

At the Lao consulate in Bangkok, the visa clerk had no knowledge of a border crossing at Huai Kon. He seemed not to have heard of the place at all. But this agreeable man took our word for it that such a legal crossing existed---well-wired Poe had had reports of a new immigration post at this remote spot---and the clerk produced our visas for entry into the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic in under an hour. His puzzlement was only partly misplaced.


The Chiang Mai "Sprinter" struggled out of Hua Lamphong station in Bangkok at 8:45 on the morning of February 4, just 15 minutes late. It crawled down the tracks for a few hundred yards and ground to a halt. The Sprinter moved in fits and starts for the next hour, covering perhaps 20 miles. Then it got going. But it was sometime during that first minimally successful hour that the air-conditioning on our second-class coach conked out. The recalcitrant coach, an apparent New York Central hand-me-down, had unopenable windows. Crew members came through and switched on all the ceiling fans. These earnest men worked under the supervision of an official of the State Railway of Thailand wearing what looked like the uniform and medals of General Curtis Lemay. Unavailing attempts were made at several station stops to generate cool air. The car stayed wretchedly hot, but several 360-degree oscillating fans added an interesting convection-oven effect and also produced wonderously strange harmonies. Joe said it sounded like distant organ music at a busy roller rink. I thought it sounded like 1950's "mood music" played on a worn-out Edison cylinder. Joe used the WC and reported back that it had the best seat on the train---the window opened. After a day of looking out at the greenest rice paddies anywhere, we sprinted moistly into Den Chai at 4:35, only 45 minutes behind schedule.

Joe called the upland town of Phrae, where we spent two nights, "the Chicopee of Thailand." Meaning we could skip it next time. Phrae did have a clean hotel ($32) run by some thrifty Chinese (no lights on in the lobby before 6 p.m.), and we found a nearby open-air restaurant that served good northern Thai country eats, catfish soup and boar curry. The "old city" had a moat and an earthen wall and some gorgeous golden Buddhas, one reclining, in three temples that we found deserted in the midday heat. We could have walked off with the smaller religious treasures. The Phrae historical attractions, mainly the ancient fortifications, seemed authentic. Ian Buruma reported several years ago that, inspired by places like Phrae, some Thai towns were trying to attract tourists by putting up old walls.

We treated ourselves and took an air-conditioned first-class bus ($5 each) to Nan, another one-time Thai capital. It had charm. The unusual cruciform Wat Phumin (1596) had superb murals with scenes from daily life: people cooking, gossiping, having a smoke, making out. Another temple had a big green glass Buddha and murals that were being slowly restored. In the 1950's, an abbott had whitewashed the walls to keep people from being distracted from his sermons. Wat Phumin also had an old outbuilding containing a diarama depicting Wes Craven-style scenes of hellish tortures. It looked Mexican, not Thai, and we never figured out how it got there.

Through Fhu Travel, recommended to us by the staff at the excellent ($28) Deveraj Hotel, we arranged a day-long tour, with driver and guide, of hill-tribe villages around Nan. Nong, a one-time school teacher with a sunny laugh and a nice way with village people, took us around to Mien, Mon, Chin and Mlaberi agricultural villages, most of them animist and very poor. In one destitute Chin hamlet, we stepped into the one-room ramshackle bamboo hut of a man and wife who had ten children, all of whom were bouncing around on an enormous hand-built wooden bed in front of a color TV set showing a movie in Chin. The TV was owned collectively by the villagers. One tot fell off the bed and Joe picked him up, the kid bawling. The dad came in grinning, but Mom looked worn out.

The Mlaberi are primitive people who lived naked in the bush until ten years ago. The Thai government lured them into a village, where now they are field hands for the Mon tribe. Nong had brought along a kilo of pig fat to an old man in a loincloth who cooked the stuff in a bamboo tube over a fire on the floor. His family came in, squatted, and devoured this treat in less than a minute.

On Monday the 8th, the "red bus" to Pua offered clues as to what lay ahead. The vintage-1940's coach had battered wooden floorboards between which we could observe the asphalt road. We sat near the back door, lashed open in the heat with a frayed bungee cord. The hour-long trip cost $1.50 each, about right.

After some confusing phone calls---a cell number we'd been given just played music---the proprietress of the "Green Hills Resort" bicycled up to the Pua bus stop, two benches in front of a shop, and led us the 100 meters to her business. The "resort" was actually a pleasant enough red and yellow small hotel with a blase lady boy in the kitchen and passable fried rice for lunch. No one here spoke English, so my phrase book got a workout. (In my Thai language classes last year I learned to count, plus colors and farm animals.) Any time I spoke a recognizeable Thai word, the proprietress---let's call her Mom---burbled on as if I understood more than one-two-three-green-pig. A guest at the hotel, a Thai man who had studied in Edinboro, helped us out.

Poe had been led to believe that the Green Hills folks could arrange our transportation to the Lao border and then the 60 kilometers to the Mekong. But when the English-speaking daughter showed up that evening, the young woman, named Jook, said, "Unfortunately, there is a problem." She said her dad would drive us to the border in the morning. But there was no known public transportation onward to the river, where we planned on catching an 11 a.m. boat to Luang Prabang. She said Dad would seek advice from the border officials on our onward journey. She kept grinning and saying, "Good luck to you, good luck to you," in that sweet Thai way. Our confidence eroded.

Next morning, I grew queasy in Dad's SUV---maybe from the breakfast of green-chili omelet and stewed ferns---but felt good as new after a visit to the bush. The lovely green hills flew by along the excellent Thai two-lane blacktop.

The border post at Huai Kon was a tiny village with a tattered Siamese-style triumphal arch looking odd in the wilderness. A soldier sat making a broom from grass. A few trucks were queued up, their drivers lounging at a snack stall. Dusty Laos was visible beyond the gate.

A Thai immigration clerk at a cluttered desk ignored our arrival---we stood in front of him holding U.S. (hey, U.S.!!) passports---for some minutes while he attended to other matters. Then he took Joe's passport, examnined it from a number of angles, and eventually stamped it and handed it back without a word. My passport was problematical, however. I knew I had exceeded my thirty-day entry permission by a day (Joe arrived in Thailand a week after I did) and I would likely have to pay a 500-baht ($15) late fee. But only a higher authority was authorized to handle this anomoly. A phone call was made. After another ten minutes, a representative of the Department of Tardy Farangs ambled in.
"You are a day late."
I did not say, And a dollar short. "I know. Sorry."
"Five hundred baht."
I produced the cash.
"Please sit down. Much paperwork."

Now it was nearly 9:30, hardly leaving time to get to the boat by eleven---by whatever mysterious means.

After a while, my passport was stamped---I would not be sent to one of the Thai prisons I disparaged in THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE---and we were free to try entering Laos. Dad, meanwhile, had arranged, he seemed to tell us---he spoke not a word of English, and why should he?---for an air-conditioning contractor, with his five workers and two small trucks, to drop us off at the boat. What luck!

After another hour or so---maybe there was a later boat?---the contractor's paperwork was done, and we were on our way. We climbed into the small back seat of one of the trucks with one of the workers.

Next stop, Laos immigration, a low, unprepossessing whitewashed structure. Here all went smoothly---our visas were in order---but again all the paperwork took another hour or so. We sat in the shade under the Lao flags---the Pathet Lao red, white and blue and the red and gold hammer and sicle---and wondered, what next? It was 11 o-clock and we were still 60 kilometers from the river.

The French did not invest much in Laos. They thought the Laos were too laid-back to exploit profitably. They threw everything they had into Vietnam, ho ho. So Laos lacks infrastructure. The Chinese are building roads now in exchange for hydro-electric power, but much of the country still has abyssmal, bone-rattling, red-dirt mountain roads.

We banged along one of those roads for a few kilometers. We came to a turn-off and our driver declared, "Road to Mekong. Boat. You go Mekong. I go Hongsa." There was not another person or vehicle in sight.

Joe said later he was ready to do as he was told. But I had a map, and I was certain that this guy was all wet. I said firmly, "We go Hongsa also." The driver sulked for a few minutes but continued on. Now the Thais were saying farang-this and farang-that---probably, "What are these two fools doing blundering around out here?" But I was convinced that Hongsa was the way we needed to go, and I was right.

We spent the night in this dusty little burg in the ten-dollar hotel were the contractor and his men were installing air-conditioning. Our simple room at the Elephant Lodge had just a fan. That was good enough, since the nights were cold. The town was inhabited mainly by Thai-lu. These are tribal Laos who grow rice and vegetables and use elephants for logging. We passed an elephant laden with plastic tarps on the way into town. The hotel owner called in his English-speaking son, who told us how to get to the Mekong the next morning on the 8 o'clock Saengthiew (truck-bus), and we had a nice time strolling around in the heat. In the market, Joe bought a straw hat for $1.50. We had tasty noodle soup for a couple of bucks.

The 8 a.m. truck-bus to Thaxoang (tuh-SONG), on the river, left sometime after nine. It was a Toyota Mighty X pick-up with narrow benches along either side of the bed under a metal canopy. We were five on each side, with sacks of rice and other goods piled between us. Our bags had been lashed to the roof. As for the road, remember the old movie about two French guys who drive a load of TNT over the Andes? It was that road.

Now I will quote from Joe's journal:

"We bump along rural roads that get worse and worse, climbing and climbing the mountains until we are quite high up. Slightly terrifying. We pass no other vehicles on the 70 minute ride. A Lao fellow is snug against my side to shield him from the cold air streaming in. Passengers are silent until we go over a hard bump. We are unable to see into the cab to see if this driver has many pictures of revered monks and garlands of flowers. We are often reassured to see that Buddhists are behind the wheel. There are huge ferns, flowering trees, which we see less and less of. There are some cut logs along the road, probably teak. They have holes in one end where a rope goes through for the elephants to pull them with. It seems like we will never get there, and just then the Mekong appears on one side of a large mountain. A tiny village is visible. The thought of finding a guest house here (we had thought we might do this) is laughable. We can't even buy a snack for lunch. We buy our tickets from a man under a thatched shelter on the beach. Nine dollars each to Luang Prabang."

Amazingly, the boat showed up at eleven. But. It was the Fellini-esque tourist boat we rode for two long days in 2007. It was jam-packed with camera-laden farangs drinking Beerlao. Joe sat in an aisle with some Swedish backpackers playing cards and I perched on the edge of a step and read every word in the Lonely Planet Lao guide. We arrived in Luang Prabang at 5:30. It looked good.

I always say, That's the last time I'll do that.

This posting comes from far-off Luang Namtha, in northern Laos, and that's another story.