Day in the life of a Mekong River Boat Man! (CRAZY ADVENTURE!)

I come to be like a tour guide and come to ambassador on the same time. You've been a tour guide on this river how many years? 12 years. This is kind of like a traditional houses for them made from bamboo. An extra income for them from penning for gold like we saw from the river. Grade one and grade two together. It means not enough room, not enough teacher. But they do have helping from UNICEF. I'm curious also about like how COVID affected your business and your work. The COVID-19, I have no money. I have to be fisherman, farmer. I have to do anything. It means show your skill. The local people, they earn money from the river. Making food, everything by river. If no river, it means no people around here. I like to share our culture and let you know our country. Mekong River, they feed the people. Okay, we're beginning this video in a little bit of an unconventional setting. We're in the town of Hua Sha. I think that's how you pronounce it, Hua Sha. In northern Laos. This is my friend, Sompet. We're actually going to be following along his life in the next two days as we sail across the Mekong River. Very exciting stuff. But first, we're starting off at his homemade crepe station. So you make your crepe? Yes, I do. Yeah, and he's got a bunch of different styles. Chili paste with sausages, shredded pork, chocolate, banana. And we're going to be spending a lot of time together, me and him, the next two days as we sail across the Mekong River. Eat some good food together. But I'm excited now. He's going to make me a crepe. We're going to try it out with some chocolate and bananas. And let's see how Sompet's crepes are. What's the connection of the crepe to Lao? Crepe is a new thing for the Lao desserts. It's not many people know, not many people eat it. Yeah. It's going to be like something special. Something special. Yeah, we do learn from YouTube and then we make it ourselves. Ah, you learn it from YouTube. Oh, wow. I thought it had something to do with the fact that the French were here like a long time ago, no? And so I thought it had some relationship. Originally from France. From France. Yeah, from France. But we do learn from YouTube from Thailand. Okay. But we just make crepe and make it what we like. Okay, that's cool. It doesn't look like Thai crepe or French crepe or Japanese crepe. It's different. Different. Lao crepe. Yeah. I'm excited. Japanese crepe. Cool. I'm excited. A lot of exciting things are happening too right now. It's actually, there's a thunderstorm brewing above us right now. I've been in Southeast Asia for the last month traveling during the burning season when there's been tons of smoke and air pollution. And yeah, you just saw that thunder, that lightning that came down. It looks like we might have our first rainstorm of the rainy season. We're just after Songkran right now. The rains are supposed to come in, which means for the next couple days when we're out on the Mekong River filming and sailing, hopefully there'll be some good weather. I'm very, very excited for it. Here's the crepe batter. And this is Sompet's store with his family. They've got a little shop here with a bunch of knickknacks and goodies. And they have SIM cards as well. You can buy a SIM card with internet. So if you do the crossing the border from Chiang Rai, Chiang Kong to here, you can set you up with some food and with some SIM cards. Wow. So you've got the crepe batter coming on. Tour guide, sailor, and a crepe chef. Wow. That's impressive, man. There was some Chinese salad. Some Chinese salad. Maybe they call mala, you know mala. Mala? Yeah. I've never tried. Uh, some dish, very simple. Uh-huh. It's from China. You like, you like cooking a lot? You enjoy cooking? I'm quite good cook. So this one is egg. And then what is this one? Oh, sorry. This is chili paste. Oh, chili paste. I was gonna say. What is this? This looks amazing. It's a raspberry. Raspberry. Ooh. Put some chocolate on the crepe. God, the sound of the thunder is the best thing I've heard in a long time. So nice. It's the first rain. First rain of the season, no? Yeah. So exciting. I hope heavy rain. Yeah. And then hopefully we have a nice journey when we're sailing. Yeah. We'll look nice. That would be great. Yeah. This one is? This is yolk. Egg yolk. Egg yolk, yeah. Egg yolk, like preserved egg yolk. Uh, yolk and sugar. Oh, that's the golden threads. The golden threads, yeah. And then you put some condensed milk on top of all that. Wow, dude, this looks amazing. This looks really nice. And? Chocolate. More chocolate. Chocolate. All the while this is cooking under from that hot plate. Here we go. Wow, that looks great. Look at that. Wow, man. That's impressive. That's a good looking crepe. Loation crepe. Check that out, guys. So we're gonna try the crepe now. We're gonna give it a bite. It's gonna be hot, but we gotta try it when it's hot, you know? So you're saying it's a Thai style or Japanese style crepe? Japanese name, but in Lao style. But Lao style. Japanese name, but Lao style. Wow. You cannot buy this in Japan. Whoa. Whoa, it's very different than any crepe I've ever had. I love it. The actual crepe, it kind of melts in your mouth. It's like a meringue. It's really good. This is like, just like a meringue. The skin of the crepe. You barely have to chew it. It like crunches and then melts away. Wow, that's very good. All right, man. Well, we'll see you tomorrow morning for the beginning of our journey. Yeah. We're having Kuga's black tea. Black tea from Kuga. Yeah, look at that. Smells so good and tastes even better. Wow. Good morning, folks. Welcome to my 53rd country. We are in the country of Lao in a little tiny town called Kwai Chai in the northern border of Lao, Thailand and China and Myanmar. Very, very exciting. Walking down right now to the banks of the Mekong River. This is the longest river in Asia. And today we're going to be covering a super, super, super interesting story. So this is the amazing view on the banks of the Mekong River. You can see right over the other side right there is Thailand. I crossed the border a little bit earlier today and I've come here to meet a man named Sompet. I'm going to introduce you guys to him later. But this river right here, the longest river in Asia, it begins in China going that way and spreads all the way down, passes through Thailand, Lao, Vietnam, Cambodia and spills out in the ocean in Vietnam. A river that supplies so much food and life and a whole economy to millions upon millions of people. And today we're going to be talking about and exploring what it's like to live along this river. I'm going to be sailing down from Huaishai, where I am right now, to the town of Luang Prabang, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along this river for the next two days. I've been invited in partnership with a company called Nagi of Mekong, which is a sailing company which puts you on boats that take you from here two days down the river. It helps you explore this part of rural Lao. Lao is a country I've been dreaming of visiting for years. It's been high up on my bucket list for a very long time. So I'm excited to go meet our friend Sompet and introduce you guys to what we're doing. Alright, so we have boarded the boat with Sompet now. So we've seen you as a crepe chef. You know, we saw you making crepes last night and we know that you're a good chef and you like cooking food. But what are we doing now? Can you tell me a little bit about where we are and what we're doing? So at the moment, we are going near the Mekong River. It's from Muay Soi, Lao and Thai borders to Luang Prabang. So right now, we are taking the Mekong River cruises around the Mekong River. And we can see a lot of people around the Mekong River. Scenery, river, people. I mean, you can see the near life of the people around the riverbank. You've been a tour guide on this river for a long time now, no? Yes. How many years? It's roughly 12 years. 12 years? Yes. Wow. So you know this river well? I do. Like, can you... Is it... For you, is it similar kind of like an idea of a road? Like when you see, you know the curves already. You know where it's going to turn. I know, yeah. Yeah? Sometimes I can be the compass. Oh, really? Yeah, I know where exactly the rivers are. I know where the rocks are. I know the sandbanks are. Sometimes there's few people like this. I jump to be the second captain. But I have to be the first captain to stick with me. But I know exactly where we should go. Yeah, but just make it for fun. So Sompet was mentioning that there's very few people. As you can see, we have a very small tour group with us today. And I didn't really explain so much because I wanted Sompet to be able to talk to us about it. But like, what is this tour? What is the idea of this tour? Like, why do you guys take people out on the Mekong River? This idea of the tour, it means we want to make a convenient trip for the tourists against the river bus or VIP boat. It's too expensive and too cheap. We recommend to make a convenient trip. Not so expensive. It's a good price. Everyone can touch. And convenient with a tour guide, good food. And see a lot of our culture on the Mekong River. So it's kind of like the middle range. When people sail from Kuaishai to Luang Prabang, there's kind of like the backpackers route which is the lowest range where tons of people are just crammed into a boat and sort of doing their thing. And then there's a high-end slow boat that's really, really long and more expensive, very expensive. This is sort of the middle range where they still stop you in different attractions and stuff along the way. What is it like to be a tour guide working on this river? Like, what is the feeling for you doing this job? My feeling is so cool because... So cool is good. I mean, like, everyone calls me a tour guide. But I don't think I'm the tour guide. I'm like a culture ambassador, you know. It's come to be like... Exactly. It's my group. People in my group do something wrong. I blame them immediately. You shouldn't do that. I teach them on the tour. If you do it right, it means I keep the hand to them. It means I come to be like a tour guide and culture ambassador on the same time. And yet you know the good thing and bad thing at the same time. I tell you everything you like to do and make you fun, make you learn about and telling you the real thing, all the information. Definitely different from the guy who's on the boat. Yeah, so like what we were talking about earlier before the camera was rolling is like you kind of are like people's first impression in Dalhau. A lot of people cross into Thailand and it's their first time in Laos here. And so you're giving them sort of the first impression. And you know, do you get some sort of sense of pride in your country or in your culture when you're doing this type of thing? Yeah, come to be... I try to present Laos to you like some country is far away from untouched from the world. And you can see something you never met it. For example, like you've been in Thailand, in Malaysia, in big country. You've met the people. You're filling up the people on there. It's not really like honest or kind. When you come to Laos, you can feel that feeling. People are so kind, very honest. Very honest. Very real. Yeah, I love that. We mean exactly what we say. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not something in behind. That's awesome. Well, I'm really excited to explore Laos the next few days with him and get this idea. So today, we're going to be stopping at a small village as well. So the idea of this tour is I want to show you guys a behind-the-scenes look of what it's like to be a tour guide on this Mekong River. Working directly on this riverbank, going back and forth, leading tourists. So you guys are going to get a look of what Sompet's life is like when he's actually leading tourists and giving them information on the day-to-day. And in between, we'll be asking him some deep personal questions about his life and what it's like to be a Laotian. So let's go. We've been sailing for the last maybe hour alongside the Thai border. The entire time, Thailand has been to our right. And we're just starting to peel off of that right now and enter into mainland Laos. The Thai border is sort of disappearing slowly behind us. So now we're going deeper and deeper into the country, sort of sailing along the Mekong River. I'm very excited to see how a Laotian tour guide does his version of it. Shows us his country through his eyes. This is kind of like traditional houses for them, made from bamboo. A little bit high from the ground because when they were in the high mountains, like I told you at the presentation, they were 500 meters from the sea level. But they moved over from there to here by the government policy to try to help people. So that's why they still keep the traditional houses like this. The roof normally made from bamboo. One of the problems, they didn't like to do conservation or they didn't want to. And that's why they got so many kids in the family and that makes them poorer. What is the name of this village? Why do you stop here specifically during the tour? Easy here to stop because another village called the rock. In the dry season, it's very hard to stop. Too many rocky. But this is no rock on here. And you guys have, I'm assuming you guys already have like a very personal relationship with the people here, no? Not exactly like that. We contact the village by headman. Like get permission to visit the village. Ah, really? Okay, so you contact them before you come? Yeah. 300 people. I do believe in the spirit. They know spirit or animus. They know ghost. You know shaman? Like a doctor, yeah. They're all looking for the shaman. A shaman kill people by holy water. And if people have to bring a piglet, a chicken, you see the shaman and then shaman help them by holy magic. Yeah, something like that. But also we put a school on here. The people in the village change their mind to see the doctor. Shaman first and then doctor. And that is make people got good and good more idea and change their life. But still poor because no electricity, no power. They got the solar power. The government try to help them by the power cable. But quite expensive for the people. It mean the people on here have to pay. That's why no electricity yet. But they do have helping farm by UNICEF. By school. What a surprise. People on here, mostly they are farmer. They burn lots of mountain, forest to make a farm. Yeah, it's just the main income of them. And extra income of them from pending for gold. Like we saw from the river. This is a school? Yeah, school, yeah. Surprise today is Friday, right? But no school. We can't decide. It's a little Saturday. You know, a Friday we call little Saturday. And then we are school in the morning. And in the afternoon, off. It's the same in the office. Office in the city. I see like grade one and grade two together. It mean not enough room, not enough teacher. What do they teach them in school here? Lao language, mathematics, English, chemical history. It's a basic languages. But for sure, Lao language, English, mathematics, history. At the moment, he's the biggest guy in Laos. He's a prime minister. When we make erection, we never seen them. Just see the picture like this. And then we go. Welcome to the town of Pak Beng. I know I'm not pronouncing that one correctly. This is it. It's a little town here in the middle of the way on the journey through the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. I gotta say, I am being sponsored for this trip with the company who's taking us out. But my only agreement with them is that I have to just make them a promotional video. We don't even have an agreement on the vlog. I'm doing this because it's something that I want to do. Which is the video about our guide. And I don't have to recommend or do anything like that. But I'm gonna wholeheartedly say already, this is one of the weirder adventures I've been on. The whole experience is kind of strange in a really good way. It's super, super unique. And I think this gives you a look at Lao in a very unique way that taking the slow boat with a bunch of backpackers won't. The stops, the accommodations, the guide for the extra information and even the stop we made earlier today, it's very different. And you can see there's some sort of elephant park here. Mekong Elephant Park across the way. It's a very, very interesting experience so far. We're going to relax here in the accommodation for a little bit. I'm hoping to go down to the river and take a swim. But I want to continue with Sompet and talk a little bit more about his life. Especially about how COVID has affected him. But overall, this is a trip I could not recommend highly enough. It is so strange in the bestest of ways. We're in Pak Beng now. You've done a really, really incredible job. This is my first day in Laos, really. Like my first full day. And I feel like you've really done a good job giving me a sort of a feeling of what this country is about and how the people are. And I'm learning a lot through you. I'm curious also about how COVID affected your business and your work. Well, COVID-19 has come to be a very huge effect to Laos. Yeah, to everywhere in Laos. Or maybe in the world, yeah. But in Laos, yeah, sure. We got high, like, no choice. No incomes. Many people have to survive for themselves. Even me, I just... No money. I have to be a fisherman. I have to be a farmer. I have to do anything to survive. That's really interesting. So like, first, was Laos completely closed for the world? Yes, we are, yeah. Nobody was allowed in, nobody out. Nobody out, nobody in. And so then, like, what? In a matter of a couple days, you guys went from tourist boom, like many tourists, to empty. Yeah, to empty, yes. No more tourists, no more income. And the government's not really helped much. They do help just for vaccines. But for payments, not really help, yeah. I mean, we have to survive also. How did you actually survive? I know you were saying you went back to fishing, you went to farming, you went... I went back to fishing. I went back to sell some crepe. Ah, the crepe business started in the pandemic. I started crepe before the COVID-19. Okay. You know, COVID-19 is... The crepes, they are valuable for me. It means everyone's scared of COVID-19, yeah. But, you know, people still need to eat. Right, everybody's got to consume something. Yeah, so it means very, very, very less income for us. But, you know, we do organic. We do something on ourselves. It means enough to survive. Did you feel a very big difference in the country when COVID-19 happened? Like how... In my opinion, I think this is a good timing to show high skill to survive. One day you lose your job. One day you don't have money. And then it's a good timing to show what's your idea to survive. Did it change your mind at all about working with tourists? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like wanting to work with tourism? It did change me a lot. It means one day you lose your job. One day you have to make your own business. It means one day you have to stand yourself. You have to survive all on your own. Survive on your own. No help. On my own, no help for anyone. Wow. One day you have to make up, beef up your idea and learn how to breathe yourself. Actually, you're the first person I'm making a video with throughout the last like six months I've been doing this that has worked directly in the tourism sector. And that's why I was so interested to talk to you because I know COVID affected so many people in such a crazy way. And like, that's nuts. Like one day you just lose everything. You have no way to make money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the COVID is a good thing for autistic people to get the real skill from your mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Focus on something. It means you never think one day you back to the farmer. You never think one day you could be a seller something in the market. You never, you know, it's not easy to sell something because you were in the high class. You never carry something heavy. You never sit in early morning in the market. You never do something. You very good tiny money, but no choice. That's what you have to do. You have to do. It means show your skill. On a lighter note, I know we got a little bit deep now. We're going to have some food now, yeah? Yeah, sure. So I asked him yesterday to tell me about where, when we come to this place, the Pak Beng, where is it the place that you eat locally? What's your favorite food to eat here? Yeah. And Sompet was going to take me to the place where he eats locally. And I'm very excited because I don't know anything really about Lao cuisine. You were telling me a little bit today on the boat. I will, I will. But I'm curious to learn more about it. And I'm excited. Is Pak Beng a big town? No. It's kind of like, I would say remote. Remote. It's a remote area, but this is kind of like a highway in the Mekong River. Yeah. Everyone has to be here overnight. Yeah. That's why it grows like a mushroom. It's very quick. Yeah. You can tell that there's a lot of, a lot of like accommodations here. And people have accustomed to the fact that there's tourists stopping here overnight. But it's not, it's not just tourists, right? There's people who work on the Mekong River who stop here at night because it's on the way. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. It's compulsory. Every boat has to stop here one night. It's compulsory? Compulsory because you cannot pass because it gets dark. Ah, so nobody's allowed to sail on the Mekong at night? Yeah, because the boat cannot do it at night. Oh, interesting. I didn't know this. Oh, so you can't actually sail on the Mekong at night. You have to stop here. Yeah. That's exciting and interesting. A little food stand. Lao doesn't have the amenities that a lot of other places in Southeast Asia have. Like, there's no 7-Elevens here. If you want a convenience store, it's all local convenience stores. And I think some of the big brands... Are there McDonald's and Burger King in this country? No. No fast food, right? No fast food, yeah. Interesting. I haven't been to a place like that in a long time. This is some Indian food. Oh. Yeah. I'm not recommend. You don't like Indian food very much? Not exactly, but I got the problem with Indian food. Stomach. Yeah. Yeah, everyone has too many spices sometimes. We were talking a little bit about the French influence in Lao. And it's interesting to see almost every bakery I've seen here so far has croissants and baguettes. And again, I don't know how much of that is directly due to the French. It's interesting to know with the colonization of Lao by the French, that there's still some elements of that that still remain. Like the bakery goods that still stick around here. Nice cakes, yeah. All right, so Somphet's bringing me into a really authentic local spot here. Away from where all the tourists are. So what are we actually getting here? You can get some pho. Pho? Pho beef. Beef pho. Beef pho, yeah. And you, what will you get? Khao soy? I will order khao soy. Okay. I do like khao soy. But the khao soy... So the khao soy here... You were telling me originally khao soy is from Lao. And it's pork originally. Yep. Okay. So I've had many khao soy in Thailand, but it was all chicken. And unfortunately, I don't eat pork. But maybe I'll just try a sip from the soup in a cup or something. Just to try the soup. As long as I'm not eating the pork. This is the khao soy, no? Oh, okay. Oh, different. Okay. I'm excited. This is awesome. Can you tell me a little bit more about like what is your favorite Lao food to eat? Like when you think of your favorite dish, your favorite comfort food, which one is it? For me, I do like fried ginger with pork. Fried ginger with pork? Yeah, with sticky rice. But we put a lot of chili on there. Cilantro, with some lemongrass, with some herbs on it. And make it very hot and spicy. In Lao, you guys like spicy food, right? We do, yeah. Like very, very spicy. And when we do it, we cook it ourselves. We put a lot of chili. Okay. If I cook in that, another house is nearby me, hatchoo. You know what I mean? It's hatchoo all the time because I'm cooking. When you decide to cook something, when you're putting in the spices, it flies to the next house. Yeah, fly to the next house. And everyone's sneezing. Yeah, yeah. Hatchoo, put hatchoo all the time. And the people in my house have to bring me all the time. What are you cooking? What are you putting in there? What else? Yeah, it could be... We do very hot and spicy. I want to see what you would eat when you are not with the tourists, you know, if you're not touring yourself. Because usually if you're with tourists, maybe you eat there, right? You have like chips and fish and chips and burgers. But Lao people are not eating burgers, right? Most of the time. Not really. We got some. We got some in the big cities. Big cities. Yeah, we got some but it's not our favorite. It's not our favorite thing. So you guys like a lot of soups. We do soup. We do sticky rice. You know, we do sticky rice in the morning with some meat, some vegetables, some spicy sauce. Yeah, like that. Or noodle soup. And curry also? Curry not so much. Curry is... It doesn't have in a Lao dish. It means traditional Lao dish, no curry. No curry. But we do have curry some dish. Because we make it for the tourists or make it for someone want it. But it's not our thing we like. Okay, cool. I mean, I'm really excited to try this. I've had pho before in a Vietnamese restaurant. But it's pho from Lao. It's something else. It's a different pho. I think different. Different, okay. I'm very excited for this. Fresh vegetables. I noticed in Lao almost every meal they give you this. And this is just lettuce? This is just some vegetables. It's called salad. And some lemon for make sour. We use this fresh lemon to put in our soup. But in Thailand, we use the lemon from the bottle. So you guys like fresh lemon. These you eat just like this? Yeah, we put in the soup and we eat it. Oh, okay. So you just dip it in and eat it. So that's what I want to know. I want you to show me today how I actually supposed to eat this. Because I noticed in Lao the third meal I got here is... You get this all the time on the side. And I don't know what to do with it. I'm just shoving it in my mouth like an idiot. And then also what you have here on the table. Okay, this is like chili paste. Then this is vinegar. Oh, fermented chili. Fermented chili, yeah. Very spicy or not so spicy? Not really. Okay. You want to try? Yes, yeah, I want to try. You can smell it. Oh, wow. It smells very spicy. And this one you just eat like that? You put in the soup. I put in the soup as well. Wow, it's a very strong smell. Are you sure you can eat that? Yeah, I think I can handle it. And then here you have soy sauce. This is fish sauce. Fish sauce. This is chili sauce. Sweet chili. This is from instant lemon, but it's not good. Oh, this is like lemon juice? Okay, so this is Khao Soi. So you have the Khao Soi soup. And then you have ground pork on top, right? This is pork. It's already fried. Bean fermented, tomato, salt, and sweet. And this is a very popular food throughout all of Lao. I'm hopefully... I want to just try some of it if it's okay with us. I just want to try a taste of it. It's the same soup with your dish. Ah. It is not mixed. Oh, really? It's the same soup like mine? It's like pho? Ah, okay. Because it's the same water. So no need that I don't try it then? Because then it's the same. It's the same. Okay, okay. They mix it and put so many things. So here in Khao Soi in Lao, you don't put curry paste. No curry paste inside. Because in Thailand, they put curry paste and coconut milk. No. Ah, so it's different here. Completely different. That's crazy. If you make like that, I will throw it away. It's not Khao Soi at all. That one, no. Oh, really? Because in Thailand, it's coconut milk and curry paste. Thailand is crazy. Everything sweet. Everything curry and sweet. Okay, okay. Now I'm very excited. I thought it was going to be similar to Thailand. It's different, different. Okay, so now we're just going to watch Sompet prepare his dish. So what do you have here? Right now, it's salty. That's good. Looking for enough chili. This is not enough for me. Need more chili. Oh, wow. You like to make it really spicy, huh? No, not spicy. Just for the flavor? I never trust anyone in Southeast Asia when they tell me no spicy. It means really spicy. Okay, and then we got the beef. So you put lemons inside, okay. Squeeze a whole lemon in there. This one is very spicy, no? The fresh one? Yeah, fresh one. We make more hot. And then you mix everything up with the chopstick. I love that you're eating it and then you find out what you want else and you put it inside. Sugar. Ah, so sometimes you add sugar to make it sweet. I like something sour, sweet and spicy. I think I'm just going to copy what you do because I'm a beginner here. And I don't know what I'm doing. These are rice noodles, right? Yeah, rice noodles. And the beef actually looks really nice. It's a very thin cut of beef, a little bit of fat on there. I'm going to try just the beef first. That's really good. Very beefy, very stocky. So Sonphet was saying put some chili sriracha. Yeah. Okay, so how much? A lot or just a little bit? Not much. More. More? Good, good. Okay. Don't want to overdo it. Okay, so that's chili sriracha. Then some sugar. You put lemon already, right? Yeah, I put lemon already. Like this? No, no, no, too much. No, it depends how... I like, I usually, I like sweet. Okay. I think that it would be good. Okay. If not enough, you can put more. Okay, cool. So you add the sugar in. That's why, don't put too much. Okay. Otherwise, you cannot take it out. And then I mix that together. So sugar and chili and then the chili. This one, you think it's good or it will be spicy, this one? It's spicy, a little not. Oh, it smells... Wow, it smells amazing. Yeah, if you like it, you can try. Mmm, it smells so good. I think I will add maybe this much is okay? Yeah. Okay, this is like a chili paste. Yeah. Okay, it's spicy and salty, but it's really not that bad. It's not too spicy. I'm going to mix this all up together. Okay, this seems like one of those soups I'm going to suffer a little bit, I think. This one, the local name for it is just pho. But you can choose beef, pork, chicken, or buffalo. You got different kind of meat. And then you take some of this lettuce inside. Some cabbage inside. Just throw it in your soup and you eat it as you're eating. And like this, I will take the shrimp paste. Ah, that's shrimp paste and chili. And chili and eat it. You mad man. I'm so bad at just eating chili and shrimp paste. A whole live chili. Chili. It's crazy. Maybe a few more months in Southeast Asia and I'll be on Sompit's level, but not yet. You know how much this cost? What's the price usually? Yeah, something like this. It's 20,000 kip. 20,000, so around one dollar. One and a half dollar. One pound. One pound for a whole bowl. And that's going to fill you up. That's a good meal, you know? Maybe you can eat another snack or something after, but this is pretty filling. So we're going to dig into this food and enjoy as we've got another long day of sailing tomorrow across the Mekong River. All right, so we've boarded our lovely boat again this morning. Second day here on the Mekong River. We're heading out of the town of Pakpeng and we're going to be exploring along the way a bunch of different stops. I'm going to be showing you guys how Sompit actually tours the group on the second day of this adventure. I'm really excited for it. The view is beautiful today as well. And we've had a big rainstorm last night, so the air is even clearer and fresher today. All that burning is slowly going away as the rainy season begins. And yeah, I'm very excited for this. Guys, we're going to do a little interview with Sompit also about the Mekong River now, but I wanted to give him a shout out. He has a YouTube channel. You have your own YouTube channel. We're going to link it down below in the description. Guys, go subscribe so you can watch. Once this video comes out, you'll be able to see what Sompit uploads on a day-to-day because you upload videos from all of your trips pretty much, no? Yes, quite often I do trip videos a week. Why did you start a YouTube channel? Just for fun? Yeah, at the beginning just for fun because I'm working in a very nice area. Everyone said you've got a good job and a nice office. I mean, I always say compared to my office, yeah. So and then I've seen lots of people make videos around the Mekong River and then someone suggested to me, why you didn't do that? You just use your area. You know it better than everyone. So I said, I don't know either how to make YouTube, but I just tried to do that a couple months ago, not long. So yeah, this is the way I hope I can earn money from YouTube. It's not easy if you do that, but hopefully it's one channel or the one way and bring more people in to our boat. And they got some a little bit income from commission. Yeah, and like if this video doesn't convince you guys to do this tour, you know, watching Sompit's content, you'll be able to see things that happen here on a day-to-day because he's doing this journey almost every week, going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, sometimes multiple times a week. I was thinking, you know, I'm just sitting here as we're sailing away and looking at the river and I'm curious, like I wanted to know, what does the Mekong River mean to people of Laos or to you personally? The Mekong River has deep meanings. Mekong River, it means the blood of many countries and also in Laos. The local people, they earn by river. If no river, it means no people around here. That's what the local people mean. Yeah, river means very important for us because this is one of the longest rivers in Southeast Asia to make a very, very nice scenery that people want to come to see. Is there like a personal attachment that you feel to being here? Do you enjoy the view, enjoy the scenery, enjoy the water? Like you have any memories here that you can recall that are like make this place feel like home? Yeah, we do, we do. We do spend the time, vacation. It means we like to make a party near the river. We can see so many people make a tent around the riverbank, make a party and it means it rests, it relaxes. Anything else, we need river. You told me you've spent 13 years doing this, up and down and I'm sure even more time before that on the river. Has there been any like crazy moments, anything crazy that's happened to you or something that you remember that was like, wow, this is amazing or some moment that you can really remember from your life on the river? My favorite thing is in the rain. They got a little bit of rain and sunny at the same time. Someday we got rainbows across the Mekong River and that's a gorgeous view for me. I have been in this area over 10 years but every rainy season, it still got some park, some scene in the Mekong River. It make me impressed. Even this is my area. It's still like every rainy season, it's like magic. What's your favorite part of doing this kind of job? Like interacting with the tourists and you know, going back and forth. I guess you're meeting a lot of people all the time, like brand new people. What's your favorite part of doing this specific job as a guide? I meet the new people every two days, you know. I think I do like it. I mean, I can share the idea of mine and I can get the idea from them share to me and I meet new people and meet new idea every two days. It's mean, make me grow. I like to share our culture and let you know our country and we also learn each other. That's do we like it and make me grow very quickly. Yeah, that's it. Amazing. I've been saying this like so many times already since I met Sompit but I feel like he's a great cultural ambassador for people in Lao. Like even from the first moment I met him, he was giving me information about the country. Obviously, the dinner last night, you're teaching me how to eat the food and I'm dying from the spiciness. So yeah, it's super cool. And we're getting ready now to stop again on the river, right? Where are we stopping today? First place. We do stop at a village. A village. As we call. Bo Village. Bo is the name of the village. Bo Village. In this village, they got temple. It mean they do village. In Buddhist. We do visit the village to see how they living. Cool. Yeah, I'm excited to see the continuation of him as an amazing tour guide with the rest of the tour group. It's a really cool experience as I get to sort of be behind the scenes and kind of see how Sompit is touring the other people around on the tour. It's a very, very cool experience. This is 35 years. Maybe 40 years. Anyway, so welcome to the Bo Village. Bo, B-O. Yeah, we call Bo Village. In this village, we got people living here around 200 people only. It's quite small. And they believe in the Buddhists. Some of them just believe in the Buddhists. They always got the temple. Like this for the monk. And got the monk to put it to the people. By conversation or by speaking or by picture. So but nobody can do that for 100%, you know. So even monk from the temple. Just only one guy can do that. That's a Buddha. Yeah. The belt is recycled from the bomb. From the U.S. bomb. American bomb. Second World War. We have lots of bomb in the ground still working. And the Lao, U.A.O. try to remove it every year until she die. So in the past, we have a lot of people die because bomb, the elephants, the animals. The seven heads in the snakes. Now we got five heads. Sometimes nine heads. We found the cave and we found it. Okay, so we're coming towards the end of the journey now. Yes, we are. I wanted to know like why... How and why would you recommend this trip to somebody? If somebody's thinking about doing it? Because this one is not so cheap. Not so high prices. It's a good price, you know. And good food. And we do have very nice food cafe around in Mekong River. It means you can do a convenient trip from Huishan to Luang Prabang. Okay, so we finished the trip. We finished the journey. You know, overall, people are going to be wondering why should they come to Luang Prabang? Why should they do this trip with your company over the other companies? So you should come to Luang Prabang because Luang Prabang is the world heritage. It's the main target of the tourists come to Luang Prabang. It's a French colony. You can see a lot of beautiful scenery, people. People are so kind, good food here. And you should take our courses because we make the courses in the Mekong River scene 2009. Until the moment is to be... We got high experiences to do in the Mekong River. You've been doing it for a long time. A long time. And if you have one message for the people outside watching about Lao, what would you want to tell them about Lao? Have one message to tell them. We are very honest person. We are very friendly. I don't know exactly how to one message. I mean, we do well for the tour for a long time. We know what you want. We know what you do. And we do have a lot of impressive places for you to come. Here in Lao. Amazing. Yeah. Well, I'm going to wrap up this video when I get to my hotel. But Somphe, thank you so much for everything during this trip. Sort of documenting your life over the last two days. Hey guys, thanks for watching another amazing video here in Southeast Asia in Lao. I'm going to request that you guys check out Nagi on Mekong down below in the description. They hooked me up with the tickets for this Mekong cruise. It was so much fun. Obviously, huge thanks to Somphe for helping me make this video possible. We'll see you in the next one. I love you a long time. Goodbye, clouds.