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A slow burn adventure to Luang Prabang

Justin Jamieson boards a luxury riverboat, eats something mildly illegal, drinks something definitely dangerous, and floats gloriously into oblivion. It’s just another day cruising from Chiang Rai to Luang Prabang on the Gypsy.

It starts, like all great adventures, with a boat that looks too good to be true and a glass of something suspiciously strong in my hand. I’m standing barefoot on the Gypsy, a two-cabin floating dream built to drift slowly down the Mekong River from Chiang Rai to Luang Prabang, and already wondering if I’ll ever want to walk on solid ground again.

The Gypsy is outrageously good-looking, all teak and soft cushions and open spaces made for doing absolutely nothing. It’s the kind of boat you imagine Hemingway would have chartered if he were less grumpy and had a thing for throw pillows. Two staff flit around discreetly like river ninjas, ensuring that my biggest problem is deciding between another ice-cold Beer Lao or a nap in the sun.

Leaving Chiang Rai behind, we carve through the thick morning mist. Jungle-clad hills rise up on either side, and every now and then, a lone fisherman stares at us, presumably wondering which minor royal or washed-up pop star is floating past.

I spread out across the daybed, sipping G&Ts and reading a book I have absolutely no intention of finishing. This is a slow cruise, and the Mekong, a muddy, muscular beast of a river, doesn’t so much flow as swagger downstream. It suits me perfectly. River boats chug slowly along, the ones heading upstream fighting a battle against the fast-moving Mekong. A “fast boat”, which is basically a surfboard with a massive engine and 8 people strapped to it, zips past us, and I’m reminded of my last trip on this mighty river. Backpacking, sleeping in hammocks and clinging to the edges of a “fast boat”, wishing I’d taken a Laotian “nerve settler” in Pakbeng before climbing on. I toast myself and the Gypsy with another Beer Lao!

The days quickly fall into a rhythm: wake up to the sound of the river coughing and spluttering past, eat something stupidly delicious, lounge about pretending to write deep thoughts in a notebook, wave half-heartedly at passing kids, and drink more things that would make my liver file for a restraining order. But it’s the nights where the real magic happens.

On our second evening, we pull up near Xanghai Village, a pocket-sized cluster of stilt houses so charming it feels like I’ve stumbled into a very well-curated Instagram post. This place is famous, at least to those in the know, for its handmade Laotian whiskey, which is basically rice wine’s bigger, badder, drunker cousin. Somsak, our guide, suggests we head ashore. “Good people here,” he grins. “Good whiskey too.” A statement both promising and deeply ominous.

We weave through the village’s dusty laneways, past chickens scratching around ancient motorbikes, women weaving barely glancing up, and end up in a small courtyard where a handful of locals are already getting a head start on the evening’s festivities. There’s a fire pit crackling away and something roasting over the coals that even from a distance does not look regulation.

Somsak mutters something to the group, and before I can fake an allergy, I’m handed a bamboo skewer topped with what is, unmistakably, a bat.

“Barbecue bat,” Somsak confirms unnecessarily. “Good for stamina.”

Wonderful. Because if there’s one thing I’ve been worried about lately, it’s stamina.

Trying not to think about wingspan, I take a bite. It’s… crunchy. Burnt rubber with notes of despair and regret. I immediately chase it with a shot of the village’s famous whiskey.

The whiskey hits like a freight train. My eyes water. My soul briefly leaves my body. Then someone yells, “Another!” and just like that, I’m locked into a drink-off with men whose livers have clearly been forged in fire. We laugh, we clink tiny glasses, I try to teach them a Johnny Cash song, and I decide that, bat aside, discovering Xanghai village might be the best part of this adventure.

We stumble back to the Gypsy, smelling like smoke, bat, and Mekong mud, and I pass out in the comfort of my soft cosy double bed. Honestly, if I’m going to vomit up questionable wildlife, this is exactly the sort of five-star setting I’d want to do it in.

The next morning, hungover but proud, I drag myself to the sun deck, where the crew, clearly veterans of worse nights, greet me with strong coffee and a delicious breakfast sans wings and fangs. The Mekong, wide and uncaring, keeps on rolling, dragging me deeper into Laos and deeper into a kind of blissful, sun-drenched stupor.

By the time we glide into Luang Prabang, all crumbling French mansions, orange-robed monks, and mango-scented magic, I am practically a new man. A bloated, mildly poisoned man, sure, but a new one, nonetheless.

As I disembark, I look back at the Gypsy bobbing on the river, a little slice of teak-and-cocktail heaven in a mad, beautiful world. I give a small, dignified wave.

And then promptly stagger off to find the nearest pharmacy. Manpower, it turns out, has a price.