Coffee and the Mekong

The coffee in Laos is dark and murky, much like the Mekong. I sipped my coffee, westernized with a bit of evaporated milk instead of the Lao way with condensed milk and sugar, as I stepped into the tippy boat that would convey me upstream to the caves of Pak Ou. It was early and the river was glassy until larger ferries and the occasional speedboat passed closely in the wide but shallow river. Rock poked up midstream and concrete navigation beacons seemed strangely placed until you noticed swirls or small trees disturbing the flow of opaque green liquid. Two hours upstream, we motored past water buffalo and children splashing in the water, families rowing in tinier, tippier boats and men fishing in their skivvies. The hills rise up from the shores and villages appear around bends.
After a look in the caves, hundreds or thousands of Buddhas of all sizes crowded and golden in the dampness, it was back into the boat for the hour ride downstream. My coffee long gone, I wondered if the Mekong becomes as velvety dark brown with mud in the monsoon. I wish I could stay, sitting on a teak balcony, to see it.