Rollin' down the Mekong river

IN THE late morning of Wednesday the 12th of May, I reached Nong Khai (Northeast Thailand), after a whole-night bus trip from Chiang Mai with one change in Udon Thani, about 60km south of Nong Khai.

Nong Khai is a small but charming town, lying along the Mekong river, the longest and probably most important watercourse in South-east Asia (about 4,350km, from the Himalaya to Vietnam!).

From the room of my guesthouse I could see the wide river flowing and, about half a kilometre on the other side, Laos!

It was so calm and peaceful in Nong Khai, with small restaurants and temples (including Wat Lam Dewa with its big Buddha erected on its roof facing Laos) lining the long riverside promenade as far east as Wat Taat, the stupa that was reconstructed after the original fell into the Mekong in 1849 and whose tip can be still seen emerging from the water when its level is low, like in this part of the year.

So peaceful there while violent street battles were and are still being fought between the army and the red shirts in the capital of Thailand with so many people being killed and wounded. There are two more roads parallel to the river making up Nong Khai, with shops, markets and businesses, and to the southeast lies perhaps its main sight after the river — Salakaeowkoo, a sculpture park where a yogi-priest-shaman called Bunleua Sulilat built dozens of concrete sculptures of Hindu deities and Buddhas, some various metres high!

I stopped in Nong Khai for two days relaxing and getting ready for my next destination: Laos. While there I even bumped into a Canadian lady who was staying in the same guesthouse as me in Georgetown (Penang)! She had told me she lived in Thailand, but I hadn't realised it was in Nong Khai.

On Friday the 14th after breakfast I took a tuk tuk to the Thai-Lao Friendship bridge, joining Thailand and Laos just west of Nong Khai. First I went through the Thai customs, then I took a public bus to cross the bridge; after that I had to get my visa before going through the Lao customs, just a matter of a few minutes as I was the only foreigner and I had already one photo and US$35 ($49) ready for my one-month visa. From the other end of the Friendship bridge there are another twenty kilometres to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, which I covered with a something that I shared with other Laos returning home.

So from the southern bank of the Mekong to the northern one! In fact Vientiane lies along the opposite side of the Mekong to Nong Khai, but a little further west, and in a similar fashion Thailand is clearly visible just opposite.

Vientiane is quite different from Nong Khai — certainly bigger but not much busier, the traffic being heavier in a town like Chiang Mai for instance. The first thing one notices is the French influence in many buildings, in the names of public institutions and in the cars driving on the right-hand side of the road ... Lan Xang avenue in a way resembles Champs-Elysées in Paris, and its big arch, the Patuxai, the Arc de Triomphe ... In fact, after the Dutch area (Indonesia), the English area (Malaysia), the "neutral" area (Thailand, the only country in South-east Asia that wasn't colonised by the European powers), I've entered the French area now, as far as the recent colonial history of all these countries is concerned. However, whereas English is widely spoken in Malaysia, hardly anybody can speak French here and, like in Thailand, only people working in the tourist field can speak some English, which for me means a lot of gesticulation and, unfortunately, little verbal interaction with the locals.

There isn't so much to see in Vientiane, apart from Pha That Luang, the big golden stupa built in the 16th century and symbol of the country, Wat Si Saket, the oldest temple in Vientiane (1818), and the Lao National History Museum.

In spite of this, I did enjoy the two days I spent there, cycling around to visit the above mentioned sights or simply enjoying another French legacy to Laos: its bakery, confectionery and coffees one can enjoy in the many cafes found around the old town along the Mekong.

Pity that big works are being carried out on the bank of the river and the view from the town is not so nice ... the river front is being widened and I guess that the central part of Vientiane will look quite different a few years from now, as it must look quite different now to somebody who visited it only a few years ago — more modern, with international restaurants, ATMs and Internet cafes everywhere making it not very different from any Thai city.

Yesterday, Sunday the 16th I took a bus to Luang Prabang, considered the most beautiful town in Laos. Another long nine-hour trip, but definitely worth it, as the view from the bus was among the most beautiful I've seen since I started my journey — kilometres and kilometres of high peaks and green jungle and, here and there, small villages of thatched stilted houses along the road. In the area of Vang Vieng big limestone peaks soared over the green rice paddies ... so different from the dryness I saw in Thailand!

Next week more about Luang Prabang, a Unesco world heritage city.

The Brunei Times