I stand at the top of the giant sand dune, my feet burrowed into the warm, white sand, a cooling breeze washing over my face. I can feel the rumbling surge of the mighty brown river below. -
Behind me, a narrow dirt footpath connects a village of broad-plank, stilt houses to what was once it's livelihood and it's connection to the outside world.
-
The Mekong River rises in the Chinese Himilayas alongside the Yangtze and Yellow, and flows South, forming borders for Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before tumbling through into the storied delta.
-Today, it's fish are few, replaced by farmed Tilapia; it's transportation duties supplanted by sinews of paved blacktop. The villages turn their backs on the river and face the world through rubber-wheeled and digital connections.
-
-Today, a trip along the Mekong in a 'slow boat' is a collection of quiet, reflective moments. The boats are long and narrow, made of huge, heavy planks. A rumbling engine at the back pushes it noisily, steadily through the eddies and swirling pools.
-
Our pilot, Poan, bought his bright blue, red-trimmed vessel six years ago and waits patiently for fares at the bottom of the northern-most landing in Luang Prabang. For 300,000 Kip (just under $40) he'll take you on half-day cruise to the two main river destinations.
--
-- Two hours down river, the xxx falls tumble over limestone ledges hundreds of meters, pausing in cool, impossibly turquoise pools, inviting visitors to soak away the heat of the day.
-
-
-
But this is one place where the trip is more interesting than the destination.
-
-
-
-
(This will, I hope, explain my 'out-of-focus' scenery shots.)
-
Along the river, we pass a number of villages, it's fishing fleet beached by a lack of fish, it's work-force shifted into Luang Prabang to service the growing tourism industry or further south to resource extraction and construction.
-
-
-
-Of course, the river is still where families bath, where clothes are washed and where children play. These young gamines were skipping stones towards boats from the edge of the muscular current.
--
-
-
-
- 
Saffron shrouded monks are a common sight. Young boys as playful as their village counterparts, smiling shyly and waving as the passing travellers.
-
-
-
-
- -
-
-
-
And occasionally, a cluster of women, shrouded in heavy work clothes to protect them from the unrelenting sun, pan for gold in the shallows.
-
-
-
- -
We are exhausted when Poan drops us back at the Quai in the fading evening light. We watch as he pulls his slow boat back out into the current, and reflect on a trip that isn't about departure and arrival, but about a wash of moments captured along a timeless river. Jordan and his travelling companions at the Pak Ou Caves (for Mia and her brothers).
