December 25, 2024 – Det Udom to Khong Chiam – 84 kms – Baan Kieng Tawan Hotel

December 26, 2024 – Khong Chiam – 43 kms day ride – Baan Kieng Tawan Hotel

December 27, 2024 – Khong Chiam – 0 kms – Baan Kieng Tawan Hotel 

On Christmas Day we completed a longish ride (and rolled the tripometer through 1000 kms) to arrive in Khong Chiam, at the confluence of the Moon and Mekong Rivers.  As Don Grier knows from our trip to India, where we saw the confluence of the Indus and the Zanskar Rivers, seeing a brownish river mix with a slightly less brown river is gripping stuff.

The excitement of a confluence aside, Khong Chiang is a great town.  It’s quite chill, with a nice walkway along the extensive riverfront.  It also has a large number of traditional wooden Thai homes, which are becoming rare in most of the country.  We like the town so much that we are staying three nights.  We are also inordinately fond of our accommodation, which I call the Gecko Hotel.  Every hotel has geckos, but this one has them running around in twos and threes.  Their call, the “uh-oh” song at dawn, is one of the memorable sounds of Southeast Asia.

Yesterday, after an early morning excursion to take advantage of the Boxing Day door crasher sales on papaya and watermelon, we did a day ride 20 kms upstream on the Mekong to Pha Taem National Park.  In the 1980s a number of paintings were discovered on some cliffs in the Park.  They are 3000 to 4000 years old and depict people, animals, rice paddies and geometric figures.  Some of the paintings are monumental in size, and the longest sequence goes on for 180 metres.  It was delightful to walk along the base of these cliffs, with the paintings on our left hand, and a bamboo forest on our right.  One hundred metres below us was the Mekong River, with Laos on the other bank.  We hope to cross into that country tomorrow.