Exploring the Mekong by Hovercraft –
From Ho Chi Minh City to China
Part 2

Around 14.00, we passed Phon Phisai Distict in Nong Khai Province, where on the full moon day in October the Naga Fireball Festival is celebrated. There is an ongoing controversy explaining, how such gas balls could rise from the water into the sky. There were large sandbanks on the Thai side of the river, where people were fishing. At 15.15, we passed the First Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge, which was built in 1994 to connect Tha Deua in Vientiane with the provincial Thai town of Nong Khai. At 15.45, after a ride of nine hours, we had reached the port of Vientiane, where Armin Schoch and the organizer of all logistics arrived from Bangkok to personally greet the hovercraft crew. I used the free time to explore the surroundings of That Luang, the symbol of Lao unity, in downtown Vientiane and later checked in at the Phon Paseuth Guesthouse to reconstruct the timetable of the French Expedition at the beginning of 1867. The French had left Champasak on December 25 and stayed in Ubon on January 7-15. On January 26-February 13, they were based in Khemarat and reached Vientiane on April 2.

The Expedition's Routing

We left the port of Vientiane early the next morning at 6.00 and passed Wat Phra Buddha Bat in Nong Khai's Si Chiang Mai District. The flat landscape suddenly changed again to give way to narrow passages and forested mountains. We passed Pak Chom at 8.30 and the rapids of Chiang Khan in Thailand's Loei Province just one hour later. Leaving Thailand behind, we enjoyed the dense bamboo vegetation on both riverbanks and tried to spot a few of the exotic birds around. At 11.30, we landed in Pak Lay to refuel the hovercraft. At 12.15, we were on the way to Luang Prabang, the former royal city of Laos. The bizarre limestone hills were covered under thick clouds and we had difficulties to speed against the wild current of the river. There were many rock outcrops to maneuver through and at 16.45 we arrived at Tha Deua, a very important ferry point connecting Saiyaburi and Luang Prabang Province in Laos.

As it became darker and darker, we had to use some lights again, but when the current became a hindrance for the hovercraft to handle, we had to stop near a Laotian village and asked for a local pilot.

Hovering nearly an hour in the dark, we finally made it to Luang Prabang at 19.30 and were transferred to the Visun Restaurant to have our dinner. It was again a short night spent in the Tum Tum Cheng Guesthouse near Wat Xieng Thong, the most impressive temple in Luang Prabang.

Wat Xieng Thong

Getting up as early as the monks do, I researched the area around Wat Xieng Thong and found a willing local boatman to bring me up the Nam Khan River to locate the gravesite and tomb of Henri Mouhot. This French naturalist explored the interior of Indochina and died from malaria near Luang Prabang in 1861. He was just 35 years old and is recognized as the modern discoverer of Angkor in Cambodia.

When the French River Expedition arrived in Luang Prabang on April 29, 1867, it was Francis Garnier who erected the tomb. The exhausted expedition's official leader, Captain Doudart de Lagree, intended to leave the Mekong River behind and use the Nam Ou River to reach China. Nevertheless, because of Garnier's mental fixation on the Mekong River, they finally continued upriver as far as to the southern border of the principality of Keng Tung in today's Shan State of Myanmar. From there, they had to go overland to China. They had left Luang Prabang on May 25 and reached Simao in China only five months later on October 18. They stopped to travel on the Mekong River and discovered the upper stretches of Hanoi's Red River instead.

Back in Luang Prabang, we boarded the hovercraft at 10.00 to cruise to the pilgrimage site of Tham Ting (Pak Ou Buddha Caves), which we reached at 10.45. We had time to explore the lower cave filled with thousands of wooden Buddha statues and later had lunch at a Lao restaurant in opposite Ban Pak Ou village.

Henri Mouhot's Grave

We departed Ban Pak Ou at 12.45 to leave for Pak Beng in Udom Xay Province. Green mountainsides closed in dramatically to form narrow gorges. Rumors have it that somewhere here, a royal sunken treasure boat is hidden on the bottom of the river. Two hours later we reached a relocated Hmong village along the river. The Hmong are immigrated Southern Chinese hill farmers, who practice shifting cultivation and used to produce opium. At 16.00, we passed a Khamu village and saw some elephants hauling teak wood logs to the river. The Khamu are the aborigines of Northern Laos and belong to the Mon-Khmer speaking forest tribes. We arrived in the port of Pak Beng half an hour later and stayed in the Salikha Guesthouse. Already preparing for the end of the expedition, I arranged a farewell dinner at 18.30 for the Chinese crew and our Lao guide who had to leave us tomorrow at Huay Xai.

Leaving the busy port of Pak Beng at 7.15, there was morning mist all around. Later, small settlements along the river steadily increased cultivating bananas and I noted more slash-and-burn dry rice fields reaching to the blue sky. Mr. Zhang, the Chinese captain of the hovercraft informed me about the crew's supply on board during the month-long expedition. They had brought 120 bottles of Chinese beer, 24 bottles of Chinese liquor, 6 cartons of Yunnanese cigarettes, 20 packs of vegetables, 2 cartons of each Nescafe, Coffeemate and Lipton tea as provisions to survive the hard conditions during the river journey. At 10.15, we had reached Thailand again on the western side of the river, which became wider and wider, when we approached the Laotian border town of Huay Xai directly opposite Thailand's Chiang Khong District of Chiang Rai Province. During the time of the French Expedition, Chiang Khong was under the control of the kingdom of Luang Prabang, but once was part of the powerful principality of Nan in today's Northern Thailand.

We stayed in Huay Xai for more than an hour to stamp our passports out of Laos and say goodbye to our Lao guide. Huay Xai in Bokeo Province of Laos is a strategic hamlet to connect the town of Luang Nam Tha nearly 200km further inland with the Mekong River. From Luang Nam Tha, it is not far to the international Lao border town of Boten to reach the Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan's Xishuang Banna, where Jinghong, the capital, is located on the Mekong River. We left Huay Xai at 12.15 and cruised for another one and a half hours through gushing rapids in a kind of nowhere-land to reach the Thai port of Chiang Saen. When I recognized the white chedi of Wat Phra That Pha Ngao, I knew our river expedition had now come to an end. After immigration, the Chinese crew stayed on in Chiang Saen to do work on the hovercraft and returned to China on December 2.

Ban Huay Xai

Some 333 km left to reach Jinghong in China, I said farewell to our Lao interpreter, who left to return to Vientiane by plane from Chiang Mai the next day. I left the Mekong River for good to return two weeks later to complete the full circle of the French River Expedition to go overland to China. But instead to choose the difficult and military-controlled highway from Myanmar's Tachilek via Keng Tung to Jinghong, I opted for the easier freewheeling dirt road from Huay Xai via Luang Nam Tha and Boten in Laos to reach Jinghong. As I was still holding a valid entry visa for Laos and China, I finally reached Jinghong on December 16.

Needless to say that the reunion with Captain Zhang and the hovercraft was a big happening and I took the chance to explore China's Jinghong for another three days. Retrospectively, the French Expedition met tiger and rhinoceros during their stay there during September 29-October 7, 1867. They met the young ruler of Chiang Rung, a Tai Lue principality, who was torn between Burmese and Chinese agents. Only because they could produce a letter from Prince Kung in China's capital Beijing, the French could continue to Simao in China, but they had to give up their itinerary on the Mekong River.

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