Cracking open bottles of ice-cold Beer Lao, we gaze across the Mekong River, eyes peeled for elusive elephants amidst the oil-green cliffs and stormy jungle before the sky, heavy with rain, turns inky black.
I’m with a crew of backpackers, stopping overnight in the small town of Pakbeng on a two-day boat trip from Thailand into central Laos. While the elephants evade us, multiple sightings of water buffalo that we mistake for the world’s largest land mammal, prove thrilling enough after several drinks.
A few decades ago, this journey wouldn’t have been possible. Caught up in America’s war on Vietnam (Laos is the most bombed country in the world), the communist government shut its borders until 1989. While its neighbours Thailand and Vietnam have flourished as tourism hotspots, landlocked Laos slipped under the radar. But tourism is climbing: in the first eight months of 2024, Laos welcomed 2.6m foreign tourists, a 19 per cent hike from the same period in 2023.
Crossing from Thailand into Laos is popular on the backpacker “banana pancake route”. Flights from Chiang Mai cost a reasonable $100 (£80) if booked months in advance. But for disorganised travellers like me, who tend to leave planning until the last minute, fares can stretch to $400 (£318).
Instead, I opt to take a slow boat, which travels from the Laotion border town of Huay Xai to the former royal capital of Luang Prabang, after crossing the border by bus. While it’s quicker to do the whole journey by bus, I’m put off by stories of Laos’ sketchy roads. A slow boat means a more leisurely pace after months on the road – as well as saving precious pennies.
After a night in Huay Xai, I head to the port and catch my first sight of the Mekong, southeast Asia’s greatest river, which also hurtles through China, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. On the filthy, furious rapids bobs a thin flat-bottomed boat, which is now a water taxi after a former life as a cargo vessel. I climb into its dark-red interior alongside several handfuls of passengers, some who have conquered the border dash from Thailand that same morning, brave souls.
It is a far cry from what travel writer Donald Gilliland described as “dungeon-like conditions” in…
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