The Slow Boat to Laos

Long-distance travel used to take a long time.

Mongol hordes conducted wars over years, partly because they took weeks to get as far as Russia or China or the Middle East. Marco Polo travelled from Italy to Khublai Khan's court in the space of months. Europeans needed similar amounts of time to arrive in distant lands and administer their little pieces of empire. It was all very time-consuming.

In the modern age, the world is more easily accessible. My friend can get married in Hawaii and I can leave Canada the day before to be in time for the ceremony. I can plan a trip to Asia and expect to arrive in hours, not days or weeks.

The western world, in these days, the, expects instant gratification from travel. It has lost the patience for lengthy trips. It wants to get there now.

So what is it like to take one's time? What is it like to set out for a destination and not arrive in mere hours?

For answers, I took the slow boat from the Thai border to Luang Prabang in Laos, several kilometres down the Mekong River. The trip would take 2 days and roughly 14 hours of sunlight.

The first day saw me and 90 of my closest friends crowd onto a large, flat-bottomed boat. For seats, we had narrow and very upright benches. Good thing I bought a cushion from vendors on the dock, I thought. The lot of us got settled and the boat was underway by 11:30am.

The travel agents who coordinated our trip had offered the last-minute alternative of a bus to Luang Prabang. Either they had over-sold the boat or they were just trying to score an extra few dollars. Or both.

Whatever the case, I refused and was glad I did. The banks of the Mekong showed off vibrant green jungles and lush mountainsides. The shore alternated between craggy grey rocks, some that popped right out of the water, and powder white beaches.

The wind whispered across the tops of our heads. The sun shone, then disappeared as we navigated a kink in the river. We lounged and sometimes slept.

We were, however, also modern travellers and looking at scenery could only entertain for so long. Some people stood and paced. Some broke out cards and started a game. Others retreated within their iPods. I was without any kind of entertainment, having finished my book, American Gods, just before the boat launched. Generally, I sat and looked over the railing.

On the second day, though, after a stop in the village of Pakbeng, Rob sat next to me. He's a lighting technician from Vancouver and has a history of travelling. His parents had taken him all over Europe as a child and he's been to almost forty countries in twenty years of going overseas.

We chatted about travel and found another form of entertainment when that subject finished up.

Two English girls, Kim and Zoe, were sitting in front of us. I pulled the hood up on Zoe's sweater and looked off to my right, suddenly engrossed in the scenery. Zoe turned and looked straight at Rob. He froze, a deer in the headlights.

"It wasn't me - hey, where'd you get those earphones?!" He stared straight at her and hoped she didn't notice the change of subject. A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"That was great! What a distraction!" I doubled up, laughing.

"What?! I'm really interested in her earphones!" But he'd lost it too.

Zoe still stared, never having said a word, now trying to figure the two of us out.

The three of us proceeded to have a conversation about earphones, for my part through laughter and with tears in my eyes, then went back to watching the scenery.

Little kids climbed along the rocks and waved hello - sabai dee! Cows grazed where there was enough grass. Huts rested among the trees. What were they there for? Who lived there? Our boat passed on without any answers.

Rob and I read in the travel guide about caves near Luang Prabang and kept an eye out for them.

"Look, is that a cave?" asked Rob.

"No man, that's a boat."

"Oh. Right." He looked at me out the side of his face.

The caves were important, being very near our destination. We saw them near the end of the afternoon, marked by a number of boats and a staircase cut into the mountain.

An hour later, at 5pm, we docked and heaved our packs up the stairs. Hotel owners greeted us and, choosing one, we took off down the streets of Luang Prabang, finally there after two full days.

Long-distance travel, over days not hours, is no different than short trips but for the need of increased occupation. People who will be passengers for a long time need to focus on keeping themselves busy: with music, with books or with talking to friends.

There's nothing to surviving travel on the slow boat but laughter and a conversation about earphones.