Whenever Chris shouted to me from the pilot's seat, it sounded like there were 100 of him in a very large and empty room. Though we certainly weren't on the river much past 8 p.m., it felt like time had stopped altogether. We pulled into Thakaek as enchanted and spooked as Huck and Jim below the Ohio. Hoping to straighten my bearings, I went for a walk through the darkened pre-dawn streets of Thakaek. In a century defined by technological progress and Western standards of living, the Lao shores of the Mekong often feel like a dusty asterisk in the history books.
Outside influences look to change all that.
In 1996, Bangkok and Vientiane signed a memorandum of understanding to build a bridge connecting Thakakek with Nakhon Phanom. But a close look at Lao culture itself shows how it's too late to arbitrarily stop time and make judgments of cultural purity. Within two hours of my morning walk, I was back on the river. While I'd been asleep the night before, Chris had invited Liz and Duncan, a good-natured young English couple, to join us for the final stretch. Thus began our descent of the Khemmarat rapids.