This 8 part series of blogs are written by Felix from Germany, who joined me for the adventure down the Mekong River. I have not edited any of the grammar as it portrays his voice better in this form. Thanks Felix!
We stayed about 10 days in Vientiane. We did some basic stuff as watching soccer matches in sports bar, enjoying the night life and going to the cinema. The cinema is actually a nice example to show how committed Markus is to his project. The problem with the cinema was that it was in the top floor of a big shopping mall. So we had to find a way to go the top floor without using a motor. That is, no escalator and no elevator. It took us actually quite a long time to find some kind of emergency stairs which we could use to make it to the top floor. Those are the small challenges Markus is facing and skillful managing every day.
During our stay in Vientiane we both extended our visa for another month because we decided that we want to travel all the way down into Cambodia on the Mekong. So, we were quite ambitious and motivated when we were back on the river after our stop in Vientiane. The first day back on the Mekong was a relaxed floating day. We stopped in the late afternoon in a small village, on a crossing where another small river was floating in the Mekong.
We parked our boat next to some stairs that lead up to the village and immediately to the temple. We first asked some local people if there was a guest house or something similar we could stay. However, of course, there was nothing like that as normally no tourists show up there. So, we were again invited to spend the night in a small open building next to the river that belonged to the temple.
The monk who offered us the place could actually speak a bit of English and we had a nice small conversation with him. Then we walked around a bit in the village, searching for food. We found a small soup place which was actually more a woman cooking soup in front of her house. She also had some bamboo sticks positioned next to a small bonfire. In the bamboo sticks there was coconut sticky rice. Of course we also had one of those as dessert.
On the next day the weather was really windy and corresponding the water very turbulent and wavy. Therefore, we had to paddle all the time and moved very slowly. So around noon we decided that it may be better stop for today as the effort we needed was not in line with the distance we were making. We stopped in a remote place, about 5 minutes by foot from a small village.
There was like a small elevated bamboo hut where we decided to spend the night. After we organized some dinner in the village we just wanted to prepare for the night as we were suddenly hearing screams from the village. So, we slowly started to walk towards the village and saw that one of the houses was completely aflame. The people were running around and trying to extinguish the fire with some small buckets, but there was no chance. Way too late the fire department arrived. However, there was nothing more to do. We were really sorry and shocked about the event we just been part of.
At that night while we were sleeping suddenly a car approached our place and three guys came to us. They were kind of officials and wanted to check our passports. It was an uncomfortable situation to be woken up at night by three strangers and given the fact that just a house burnt down close by. On the next morning the weather was better again. No more waves, no more unnecessary paddling.
We passed several border control points always trying to pass them as quick as possible. However, after one border control point suddenly a motor boat left the shore and started to follow and approach us. The guy on the boat was waving and showing to the shore making us understand that we should follow him back to the border control. Damn! In my head I went through the different scenarios that could happen now. But, I was still hoping and confident that we would be able to continue our boat trip.
As we parked our boat we needed to follow the border control into the office. There were about 3 border control people and a police officer. The police man could actually speak English quite good and even a bit of German. He said that he had been studying in Germany for a while. That was actually the first time that I meet an Asian that could speak German. And we were really in the middle of nowhere. It became clear fast that we would not be able to continue our boat trip. There was no chance to discuss with them. They just said that it is law that foreigners are not allowed to travel on the Mekong as it would be too dangerous, so it would only be for our best.
We were really disappointed that our adventure stopped so abrupt and unexpected. We really wanted to make it to Cambodia on the boat (and maybe even further). However, we had no chance to continue. We needed to leave our boat here.
So, we asked the fisher men who were if one of them wanted to buy our boat. We quickly found someone who offered us about 20$ which was about 1/10 of the price we originally bought it for. We didn’t care too much that it was only 1/10th of the price we bought it for because we knew already when we bought it that we pay too much and during our journey we battered it quite a bit (especially when we sunk it). It was more emotionally difficult to sell the boat as it meant the end of our adventure.
An adventure of about 800 kilometers on the Mekong and Nam Houng river. We shortly discussed if we should try to get another boat further down the river and continue our trip to Cambodia. However, we knew that it would make no sense as the Mekong is almost all the way down to Cambodia the border between Laos and Thailand and it would just be a question of time when the next border control would stop us again.
So, decision given shortly: Markus decided to walk back to Vientiane and I took the bus back to Vientiane. I was also considering to walk with Markus, but I was actually not confident enough to walk about 30 kilometers each day in the burning heat with all my stuff as I had already several times before kind of heat exhaustions. However, in contrast, Markus can stop nothing.
Markus actually managed the about 90 km walk back to Vientiane in 3 days. And he was actually quite done when he arrived. We spend some more days together in Vientiane both figuring out what we would do now. Markus quickly decided to get a new bicycle and continue his trip on the bike and I decided to go to Vang Vieng.
I am more than grateful for the adventure I was able to experience thanks to Markus. An adventure I would probably have never experienced if I wouldn’t have met that lonely traveler Markus who is on his mission for a better world and future. I have deep respect for what he is doing and I know not many people would be able to commit themselves for a higher purpose over such a long period of time. I am sure that our roads will cross again in the future. At the latest, when he’s reaching Europe. Stay healthy, stay humble, stay positive, keep on inspiring people... Wish you all the best Canadian dancing queen.
See you.
