Messing About in Boats – Part 1
They don’t call Si Phan Don Four Thousand Islands for nothing. At this time of year, with the Mekong nine or ten feet below its monsoon peak, this jade-green archipelago in the deepest south of Laos is, as Z observed, more like Four Million Islands than Four Thousand, and all the more beautiful for it.
Our plan for the last four days, and I use the term extremely loosely, was to rent a kayak on Don Khong, the largest of the islands, stock up with some basics and a decent map, then amble gently downriver, stopping overnight at whatever village would have us, to Don Det, the most touristed of the islands, and perhaps from there to a safe vantage point over the local waterfalls.
With hindsight, it might have been obvious that there would be no kayaks on Don Khong. Or, rather, only the local equivalent, slender wooden skiffs paddled from the rear by a single wooden oar, so that one can cast a net with one hand and propel oneself with the other.
We duly arrange to hire one of these for “three or four days”, a period which raised some eyebrows, as did our ultimate destination.
The map, which I had been awaiting with great excitement, proved to be a blurry photocopy of the one in Lonely Planet South-East Asia which I had already written off as useless.
Undaunted, off we set, in our slightly leaky vehicle. “He really gave us his worst boat, didn’t he?” says Z. “Look at the state of the caulking. No wonder he wanted his money up front.”
It takes us, with ample pauses for swimming, setting light to flotsam, exploring islets, leaping off rocks and doing interesting things with the anchor (Z) and trying to get a handle on the steering, wondering what all these bloody rocks are doing there, bailing and wishing he had a lifejacket (me) about two and a half hours to cover the first 600 metres (as the crow flies).
Z has always been pretty good with boats, and, for that matter, directions. He got the hang of tacking when he was five. Once I have persuaded him that we need to make progress, he demonstrates a talent for reading the water, for telling a good calm patch from a suspicious calm patch, wind-blown ruffles from the ominous ripples signaling rocks below the surface.
We slot into the life of the river, where water buffalo come down to wallow on the banks, other little skiffs go about their fishy business, the odd pirogue roars past, kids jump off islets into midstream, farmers tend maize on the floodplain, and the mica in the sand makes even the banks sparkle slightly in the sunlight.
Si Phan Don is populated, yet peaceful, and, bar the introduction of petrol engines for boats, corrugated iron for roofing and electricity used selectively, if at all, life has probably changed very little over the last few centuries.
It’s a nice pace. I settle into the rhythm of skulling. Z and I chat amiably about which shallows/micro-rapids are coming up and how to avoid them, which cluster of stilt huts peeking from between the trees at the top of the bank might be large enough to have someone selling cool drinks, and whether to go tubing when we reach Don Det.
It’s all very pleasant, bar the odd racy-scrapy-sticky-rocky bit where Z wants to get out of the boat to sort us out, and I wish he had a lifejacket so that he could safely do so, or, indeed, could I.
We are idling down a channel between an island large enough to be clotted with paddy fields yet not large enough to figure on our map, which has a touch of the Here Be Dragons once off the main tourist drag, when we encounter our first proper set of rapids.
More precisely, we encounter a bunch of kids screaming at us to pull over, an audible roar of water, and a nice chap who explains that “Is dangerous with the baby.”
We pull over. “The baby” ties up the boat and starts jumping off the rocks with his peers. I inspect the rapids from various positions on the bank, cursing myself for not thinking about a life jacket and for believing the boat vendor understood me when I asked if there were any rapids the way we were going and he shook his head.
“I think it’s fine, Mum,” says Z. “You go down there, at that side. It’s quite straightforward.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But I’d feel a lot more comfortable about this if you were in a lifejacket and a helmet. And, for that matter, if we were in a kayak. Or something we could right if it overturned.”
A longtail comes past, slows its engine, then takes precisely the path Z had identified. “You see,” he says. “You go straight down there, then swing round hard to the right to avoid that tree trunk.”
“Yes,” I say. “You’re right. But he’s got an engine, and we haven’t. And he knows the river, and we don’t.”
I smoke a cigarette and chat to the bloke. I don’t want to turn back. But Laos is hardly a beacon for health and safety, so when someone tells you something’s dangerous, you listen.
Eventually, a skiff comes by and negotiates the route. The paddling coming out of the chute looks energetic, but achievable, and there doesn’t seem to be anything horrid waiting after the tree trunk.
“I think I can do it,” I say.
The nice chap offers to stand in the river and help us on the opening stretch. We go. The chute takes us. I paddle like a demon to control the boat. Z lets out a war whoop. Spiked branches loom out of the foam, far too close for comfort.
I haul hard on the left side, correct back on the right, compensate for the turbulence as our racing channel meets a calmer stream, realize that everything is actually both fine and finito, and start to breathe sufficiently to wave a faux-cheery goodbye to our new friend, who is surprisingly far behind us.
“Oh no!” says Z. “It’s over already! Can’t we go back and do it again?”
The odd thing is, I would have quite liked to do it again. Just as we finished, the raw fear kicked out and exhilaration kicked in. For Z, of course, it was exhilaration all the way.