Look at me, Mum, I’m on the Mekong

The Mekong River, Luang Prabang

I’ve had two moments like this since leaving London. The first was on Koh Tao when I descended through a school of yellowtail scad on my way to 30 metres, and the second one was on Sunday, when I arrived here, at the Mekong Charm Hotel in Luang Prabang, Laos. And I didn’t do anything this time. I just got here. But I felt like a kid who had just gone head first down the slide for the first time. And I wanted my mum to see me. It’s odd and I can’t say I’m familiar with this feeling as an adult but that’s twice it’s happened recently. And it’s not only a mum thing. Dad, I wish you could see me too.

My two nights in Bangkok went by in a whirlwind and I crammed as much in as I could. I took a boat ride along the Chao Phraya to Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn. And then on to Wat Pho where I took my hat off (and my shoes) to the 49 metre-long reclining Buddha, acknowledging that he perhaps had the right idea. I visited China Town and saw stuff that made my tummy turn and walked Soi Cowboy and saw stuff that made my eyes pop. I had a sundowner at a fancy roof top bar and got swept up in the buzz of the night market. I slurped on watermelon juice whilst window shopping at a mall that was pretending to be an airport and threw caution to the wind by eating noodles from a street vendor. It’s not really any wonder that Bangkok now seems a bit of a blur. And that it made my feet hurt.

But now the pace has slowed and I think I might be in my favourite place yet. Luang Prabang was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1995 for its beautifully preserved architectural, religious, and cultural heritage. There’s a sleepy, dark-wooden, olden-days feel to the place, but also a quiet confidence that perhaps comes with being told by UNESCO that you’ve got what it takes. It sits in a valley at the confluence of the Mekong and the Khan rivers and is magnificently framed by the Luang Prabang mountain range. There are 34 Buddhist temples here and saffron-robed monks in the coffee shops. I loved it right from the word go.

On arrival, I breezed through immigration, feeling like a seasoned world-traveller simply for having got myself an E-Visa in advance. I was the first person in a queue of one whilst it seemed everyone else was busy filling out visa-on-arrival forms. I wasn’t going to bother with a SIM card either as my stay is so short, but it just kind of happened without me putting in any effort at all. And I really do feel better when I’ve got Googlemaps in my pocket. Then, after an equally smooth airport to accommodation run, I made a quick pit stop in my new room before heading back out to change some US dollars into Lao kip. (I’ve had a bit of a banking nightmare over the last couple of weeks and have had to cancel my debit cards on two separate accounts because of fraudulent online activity. I’m expecting a new card to be delivered today or tomorrow, but in the meantime the emergency dollars I’ve been carrying have saved my bacon.) And once currency exchange was taken care of, I reckoned on having about half an hour to find food and water and the perfect spot to watch the sun go down over the mighty Mekong.

But plans change. And I was less than 5 minutes out of the hotel when a cheeky little wheeler-dealer boat-trip salesman appeared in front of me and said, Quickly! Sun go down! Quickly, quickly! My boat! Now! Of course I said, no thank you, observing the golden rule of solo travel. In fact, I think I said it twice. But then I caved. This was the Mekong for crying out loud. How much? Unsurprisingly, my wheeler-dealer friend was more than happy to take my dollars in dollars. So for fifteen emergency dollars, or three Thai massages, I spent the first hour of my first evening in Luang Prabang on the prettiest little wooden boat being gently motored down the Mekong river towards the sunset. Just me and the wheeler-dealer’s boat-captain mate. We did eventually catch up with the big tour boat and even though I knew everyone on board the MK had a complimentary mojito and an extra Thai massage in their sky-rockets, I could not have been happier. Well, not unless my mum could have seen me.