The Mighty Mekong
As we were coming from two different countries we arranged to meet in a backpackers hostel in the Thai village of Chang Rai which is near the boarder crossing with Laos. We managed to find each other easily which I saw as a positive omen for the week.. although it wasn’t that hard to be honest but good omens are still good..
We sorted out our kit, divided it up, wondered if we had too much, too little, what we really needed, what we didn’t need then gave up, shoved it all in our bags and went to find some emergency hard core pain relief for our 1st aid kits that we couldn’t get in the UK. Surprisingly we couldn’t get any morphine or adrenaline anywhere. Thailand isn’t the place it used to be!!
So we focused on some badly taught (by me) 1st aid lessons over dinner and popped into the only bar that wasn’t full of prostitutes for a few beers before an early night.
Now, there are some very interesting westerners who seem to live in and around Chang Rai. I remember meeting one 17 years ago and they don’t seem to have changed. Misfits and people avoiding the authorities for various reasons. Good fun to meet but kinda glad I am not in their shoes.. Anyway the early night didn’t happen but as we hadn’t seen each other for a while so that’s excusable..
Crossing the boarder went without a hitch, we met our guide and headed to Huay Xai. Tried again to get some morphine but failed again so we just crossed our fingers and hoped any injuries sustained over the next week wouldn’t need anything stronger than a couple of paracetamol.
Andy got the boards sorted while I got a local SIM card. I was relieved that by the time I had managed to get the phones working he had got both boards fully inflated to 15psi which is pretty impressive in the heat. I’m not sure how much Andy of that Andy had achieved himself or if it had been with a lot of help from the gathered crowd of men all looking to help. By the end when we were near 20psi we were certainly all taking it in turns.
The Start of the adventure
The slow boat full of tourists gave us a round of applause as they left and that was pretty much the only slow boat full of tourists we saw for the next week..
It felt really good to be doing something different to what we had done in the past – the backpacking routes and traveller hostels. Not that there is anything wrong in those and I have spent several years all in all bumming around various places but this felt like a proper adventure.
Something different. Something we had thought of, arranged and now finally started..
The Mekong was faster than we expected. It was also much more unpredictable. Whirlpools, and bubbling water just appeared out of nowhere and backflow often took us by surprise in an attempt to flip us off our boards when we least expected it.
As we headed downstream from Huay Xai the building works started to fade, boats became smaller and houses became huts.
Neither of us knew what to expect. We didn’t know what the river would be like, no idea how it would work with a guide in a boat, no idea where we would stay, no idea how we would eat or where we would go to the toilet.
I was really worried that our amazing guide, Sai, would just want to hang around next to us the whole way but he was great and they headed off downstream for us to find them again a couple of hours later. The shoreline was often sandy which meant we could camp easily. We didn’t stay in villages – that just wouldn’t have worked but generally we stayed below them as they were up a river bank. Our guide got the fire going by the time we arrived and would cook us a variety of foods or dried meats (I gave up being a vegetarian for the week).
As the miles went by the scenery just got more and more beautiful. Slow boasts would occasionally pass us by. Often they were empty , or everyone was lying down sleeping. The fast boats flew past. Sometimes they wore crash helmets, sometimes they didn’t.
The rubbish floating past was pretty constant. Once we found a huge bag of plastic padding waste floating that we managed to drag to the shore and try to get some local women to burn. If the bag was to stay in the river it was going to burst pretty soon and we decided burning was probably the best thing to do. The villagers were bemused by our attempts to get them to lit it. Hopefully they did..
It was hot. Every day it was really hot by 10.30/11.00am but it was just something you had to deal with as it wasn’t going anywhere. We filled our hats up with water. We also had lightweight scarfs which we dipped in the water and wrapped around our heads and necks to keep us cool.
We would normally stop for an 1 ½ hrs at lunch just because of the heat. Getting back on the boards always involved a lot of will power but once on them again and with a hat full of water it was fine.
Between us we only fell in 4 times over the course of the week. The first time was a real shock as it happened right next to a large whirlpool and scared us all including the guide.
It was certainly hard work paddling nearly 8 hours a day in that kind of heat. And it didn’t let up. Any sections with rapids really sapped the energy from us. We would put the life jackets on, get on our knees and paddle hard. Knackering, a bit scary but good fun.
Halfway through the week the annual farmers burning of the crops started and ash fell from the sky as the smokey haze filled the sky. It gave a very surreal feel to those days. With steep jungle hills, absolute silence, ash and haze all around it felt like a scene from Apocalypse Now. We both just floated silently and breathed it in for quite a while.
A very special moment.
On one occasion on a section of rapids we both fell in at the same time. I lost my paddle (incredibly stupid to let go) and Andy got pulled under for a few seconds. I was downstream of him and saw him go under – it felt like quite a while but I am sure it wasn’t as bad as I remember. Without a paddle I couldn’t do anything and I immediately felt helpless and at the will of the river…
Luckily our driver, Aeg, kept his eyes on my paddle and picked it up for me.
On the morning of our final day we were honoured to be invited back into the village we had stayed near the night before and into the family home of our boat driver. We shared breakfast with them then they performed a special ceremony for us to keep us safe on our final day on the SUPs. Did they know something about the last set of rapids that we didn’t?
Despite everyone being particularly worried these rapids they weren’t nearly as bad as we had been fearing and we both survived. Eventually we arrived in Luang Prabang after 6 days hard graft. Tired, very smelly and thirsty for Beer Lao. Conveniently it was New years and the water festival. The whole town was partying. What a great day to arrive…
Huge thanks to Billboard Sup for their amazing paddleboards, thanks also to Active360 for providing them, The Grayl water filters that meant we didn’t have to buy any single use plastic water bottles, Overboard Bags for keeping our kit dry and .eco – please support the .eco community it is a great venture.
Proper daily detail or this trip can be found on our Facebook page if you are interested..
What next?…
