In the Slow Lane

A decade after a carefree backpacking trip, Chris Schalkx revisits Laos, this time with his five-year-old son

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Clockwise from this image: The mountainous district of Kasi; monks at temple Wat That in Vang Vieng; a colorful building in Luang Prabang; the writer's wife on the train to Laos; roadside corn; views of the Mekong River; motorbiking on the outskirts of Vang Vieng; snacks aboard Amantaka's boat; statues at Wat Nong Sikhounmuang temple in Luang Prabang; a bowl of khao piak sen

WE COULD HAVE FLOWN, of course.

There would be an orderly line at immigration and a taxi waiting to whisk us to the hotel. The whole trip would've taken roughly an hour, and we'd be poolside by noon. It would’ve spared us from a whole lot of my son’s “Are we there yet?” whining. But where’s the thrill in that?

So in the half-light of a hazy winter morning, bleary-eyed after the sleepless overnight train ride from our home in Bangkok to Vientiane, my wife, our five-year-old son, and I crossed the Mekong into Laos on a clattering railway carriage. Aside from a single hotel reservation in Luang Prabang, Laos’s former royal capital, we had no plans nor even a return ticket. We had embarked on this unscripted adventure in the hopes of channeling the halcyon days of our first visit to the country, a freewheeling backpacking trip more than 10 years ago. It was a way, we figured, to instill our son with a similar thirst for adventure.

But during the years that passed, Laos, too, had moved forward. I recalled the lengthy drives over serpentine mountain roads, both of us piled into pickup trucks with a dozen strangers or crammed into rip-roaring minivans with a boxed-up chicken clucking at our feet. In late 2021 a Chinese-built railway began crossing the country from Vientiane, the capital, north into China, traveling at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour and cutting down trips that, before, had taken me a full day to a kid-friendlier hour or two.