Boat travel

[The_Traveler]

People seemed to be interested in the nitty gritty of travel on my last trip so I thought to post this.
Laos has lots of rivers and much travel is done on these rivers, in fact some villages are unreachable by road. Since the rivers are usually quite shallow with rocky uneven bottoms, the boats are small and shallow-drafted.
Boats that might be hired in toto might have 4 actual seats with narrow planks for the rest but the typical boat has planks for everyone. Discomfort is a talking point for most tourists; we hired a boat with seats for the longer trips.
Boat travel is organized locally with seemingly two or three people vying for the big man slot. It is good to nail down all the particulars of any hire agreement in advance. The actual details of leaving and scheduling are rather vague in Western eyes but seem perfectly natural for the Lao.

This is the office at the boat landing.

The signs and indeed everything else is rather vague, hidden behind minimal English and lots of free time.

Once you have settled on a time, a boat and a firm price, you all head out to the boat. Usually they will pull this up near a strong plastic float that is steady as a rock for the Lao and a big squirmy teeter board for us clumsy Westerners.

This is pretty much as formal and organized as it gets for river travel in northern Laos.