Day 59 - The Mekong River
Having bid farewell to the rest of the tour group the previous evening Lieke and I were getting the slow boat to Luang Prabang. Sat on the boat at 9:30am awaiting an uncertain departure time we observed a few of our fellow passengers already on the beers. Funny how once an idea takes root it can swiftly become all-consuming. And the idea was to consume all the beers. We put on our shoes with furious haste and dashed up the concrete steps to the road above the pier. Grabbing a polystyrene cool box and bags of ice we filled it with all the beers we could, threw indecipherable banknotes at the shopkeeper until she nodded that the bill was covered and hared it back to the boat before it left. We were hot, sweaty and reeking of alcoholism but we had our essential supplies. A swift bond was formed with three English lads who shared our intention to make this a party boat. Lieke produced a ludicrously oversized bluetooth speaker and the die was cast.
From this -
To this - 
We were the sort of group I'd loathe were I not part of it, rank hypocrisy I know. But I'd like to think we brought everyone along for the ride. Heads began to nod at favoured songs and our group grew and morphed to include anyone that fancied a chat and a beer. The empty banks of the Mekong passed slowly by as the unique intimacy that travelling engenders grew. Far from home we'd left our barriers behind and liberated ourselves from pre-conceived ideas of people and place. There's a bit of a conversational script when talking to another traveller. Name, nationality, where you've come from, where you're going to, how long you're travelling for. It can be trite but it's an easy starter and a good way to get insight and recommendations. Once these topics have been covered though the beer (and lack of food) lead us to sex, religion and politics. Our drinking was also helped by Dima, a burly Russian who exhorted us to drink at a frightening pace. He had been exiled from his country after refusing to serve in the army. You had to respect his decision in an impossible situation. You also had to respect his semi-coherent monologues as non-active listening was not permitted. The journey continued in an exuberant style until we docked in Pak Beng around 5pm. A group of about ten of us found a hostel on the river. Moments after we arrived an electrical fire broke out in the ceiling and spewed foul smoke into the room. The manager's attempt to put it out involved hacking at the ceiling with a machete. He was successful but couldn't restore the power until we left the next day. With the room not particularly habitable for the time being we headed down to the river for a swim. The 'route' down was a steep dirt bank with barbed wire, litter and broken glass. The Ritz this was not. The Mekong was temperate and placid...for about three metres from the shore. Beyond that a strong current would swiftly whisk you downstream. Each of us in turn found the need to test the strength of this current despite the warnings. I tried to affect an air of nonchalance as the flow took me and it required some forceful strokes to get me to a rock I could cling to. If the river had flowed the other way I could have saved on the boat fare.
Back on the boat the following morning the conversation is hushed and tired, hungover bodies slump in their seats. Travellers stretch out on the floor creating an obstacle course of growing complexity. The unusual coolness of the morning adds to the exoticism of the river. Its rocky banks are broken up swatches of sand. One of the English lads is convinced that the sand has been put there intentionally. Communist governments came up with some ludicrous ideas in their time but turning an empty stretch of the Mekong into a kind of beach-fronted riviera would surely be up there. Maybe it's the quiet about the boat that is giving me this conradian feel, like Marlow on the Congo. And aside from scattered houses on stilts the landscape seems untouched in a way I have rarely experienced so far on this trip. The only person drinking this morning is Dima. Unsurprisingly he doesn't want to drink alone, and he makes this clear in loud and certain terms. He has no takers. But by the afternoon the sun is out and heads are sufficiently cleared to crack open the beer lao. At the front of the boat the speaker comes out and we sing along to the classics. I am starting to feel like I'm drifting to the edges of the group though. I'm not sure why, maybe I have a limit of social energy. Everyone else has a sub-group they are part of here and this gives them an effortless and unquestioned relationship to fall back on. I feel like I must offer constant value to maintain my status which in turn creates a paranoia I could do without. Whilst I envy people that thrive within a group I also envy those that can switch seemlessly between group and solo mode. I'm not so good at this. It could be the need for external validation though I know it isn't healthy. Does the secret to self-esteem lie in accepting that you are not special or in maintaining the belief that despite all evidence to the contrary, that you are?
After a sleep-deprived night in a dorm in Luang Prabang I move to a private room in another guesthouse. I'm torn about doing this as I'll likely lose contact with boat friends but you can't invest too much into travel relationships I rationalise. At a riverside bar company finds me anyway. I get to talking with a German woman called Anete. And we talk and talk and go for dinner and talk some more. We both love writing and happily discourse on everything from favoured authors, to writing styles and wonderfully banal topics like ballpoint versus fountain pens. We share many other things too, it's funny what you'll tell a stranger but not your own closest friends. Travel presents a wide array of often novel choices to us. Some would say we are defined by what we chose to do (or not to do) but is a choice a searing insight into the essence of a person or is it a mixture of bias and experience and the infinite variables of a moment in time? We have to live with them either way. Anete with hers and I with mine. Without religion a rigid belief system or a customised personal morality is rarely carved into stone tablets. To covet is human when nothing is divine.
Having bid farewell to the rest of the tour group the previous evening Lieke and I were getting the slow boat to Luang Prabang. Sat on the boat at 9:30am awaiting an uncertain departure time we observed a few of our fellow passengers already on the beers. Funny how once an idea takes root it can swiftly become all-consuming. And the idea was to consume all the beers. We put on our shoes with furious haste and dashed up the concrete steps to the road above the pier. Grabbing a polystyrene cool box and bags of ice we filled it with all the beers we could, threw indecipherable banknotes at the shopkeeper until she nodded that the bill was covered and hared it back to the boat before it left. We were hot, sweaty and reeking of alcoholism but we had our essential supplies. A swift bond was formed with three English lads who shared our intention to make this a party boat. Lieke produced a ludicrously oversized bluetooth speaker and the die was cast.
From this -
Back on the boat the following morning the conversation is hushed and tired, hungover bodies slump in their seats. Travellers stretch out on the floor creating an obstacle course of growing complexity. The unusual coolness of the morning adds to the exoticism of the river. Its rocky banks are broken up swatches of sand. One of the English lads is convinced that the sand has been put there intentionally. Communist governments came up with some ludicrous ideas in their time but turning an empty stretch of the Mekong into a kind of beach-fronted riviera would surely be up there. Maybe it's the quiet about the boat that is giving me this conradian feel, like Marlow on the Congo. And aside from scattered houses on stilts the landscape seems untouched in a way I have rarely experienced so far on this trip. The only person drinking this morning is Dima. Unsurprisingly he doesn't want to drink alone, and he makes this clear in loud and certain terms. He has no takers. But by the afternoon the sun is out and heads are sufficiently cleared to crack open the beer lao. At the front of the boat the speaker comes out and we sing along to the classics. I am starting to feel like I'm drifting to the edges of the group though. I'm not sure why, maybe I have a limit of social energy. Everyone else has a sub-group they are part of here and this gives them an effortless and unquestioned relationship to fall back on. I feel like I must offer constant value to maintain my status which in turn creates a paranoia I could do without. Whilst I envy people that thrive within a group I also envy those that can switch seemlessly between group and solo mode. I'm not so good at this. It could be the need for external validation though I know it isn't healthy. Does the secret to self-esteem lie in accepting that you are not special or in maintaining the belief that despite all evidence to the contrary, that you are?
After a sleep-deprived night in a dorm in Luang Prabang I move to a private room in another guesthouse. I'm torn about doing this as I'll likely lose contact with boat friends but you can't invest too much into travel relationships I rationalise. At a riverside bar company finds me anyway. I get to talking with a German woman called Anete. And we talk and talk and go for dinner and talk some more. We both love writing and happily discourse on everything from favoured authors, to writing styles and wonderfully banal topics like ballpoint versus fountain pens. We share many other things too, it's funny what you'll tell a stranger but not your own closest friends. Travel presents a wide array of often novel choices to us. Some would say we are defined by what we chose to do (or not to do) but is a choice a searing insight into the essence of a person or is it a mixture of bias and experience and the infinite variables of a moment in time? We have to live with them either way. Anete with hers and I with mine. Without religion a rigid belief system or a customised personal morality is rarely carved into stone tablets. To covet is human when nothing is divine.
But the truth was that he died from solitude, the enemy known but to few on this earth, and whom only the simplest of us are fit to withstand. The brilliant Costaguanero of the boulevards had died from solitude and want of faith in himself and others. Solitude from mere outward condition of existence becomes very swiftly a state of soul in which the affectations of irony and scepticism have no place. It takes possession of the mind, and drives forth the thought into the exile of utter unbelief. After three days of waiting for the sight of some human face, Decoud caught himself entertaining a doubt of his own individuality. It had merged into the world of cloud and water, of natural forces and forms of nature. In our activity alone do we find the sustaining illusion of an independent existence as against the whole scheme of things of which we form a helpless part.
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