Thailand into Laos

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Thursday 11th Feb 2010
Chaing Mai to Chang Kong (Thai-Laos border)

Well after quite a pleasant drive in a posh minibus with some mature canadian tourists to the border town we arrived to some rather grotty digs! 6 quid for what can only be described as a cell like bathroom with a bed in it, no thank you siree, I imagine there is lots of that to come in Laos so we shall seek some better digs while we can. Just around the corner we found a room for 7 pounds, 350 baht with bathroom, ac, tv etc....bargain. The Canadian tourists followed and booked in, they were with an arranged trip from Chang Mai which includes all transport and accommodtaion etc, unfortuntaley they were ripped off! We went out on the search for some good grub, and found a small town, one main street, few tourists but a restaurant run by a German, offering Pork Scnitzels for 150 baht. Well when it arrived Daves eyes nearly popped out of his head!! Two massive slabs of meat, salad and a pile of a french fries. He was in heaven!!!!!Apart from the scnitzel there really isn't much else to write home about in this border town. Oh except it has the Mekong running alongside it so we had our first glimpse of the mighty Mekong river.

Chang Kong to Huay Xai, Laos
Friday 12th Feb 2010

Well after a good nights sleep we ate breakfast and watched the numerous rickshaws taking hoardes of tourists down to the Mekong River to catch the first boats across to Laos , probably in the hope of avoiding the queues at immigration. An hour later we walked down to the river and paid 40 baht each for the 5 min crossing in a longtail boat, and joined the queue at immigration, the same people we had seen leaving an hour earlier! As usual a mass of people, completely disorganised, no forms to fill in, no instructions of what to do, but suprisingly the jostling lasted only about an hour, and 35 dollars later we both had Loas visas and our passports safe in hand.
(It is futile to expect any kind of efficiency at border crossings as they appear to be cash collection points only. In this case, 5 surly characters were “employed” in the office but only one appeared to be qualified to use any of the 6 million rubber stamps required for a legal crossing. The others simply stacked up the greenbacks or emptied bag after bag of passports and prepaid visa app's onto the desk of the rubber man while he gazed glassy eyed at some distant vision of what he would buy when he eventually plucked up the courage to empty the safe and run!)
We trundled up the hill to the border town, considering the idea of the Gibbon Trail or moving straight on to Luang Nam Tha. We discovered from a few other travellers that the gibbon trail was fully booked for 2 days and it also cost 180 euros for 3 days! It sounded fantastic.....you basically head into the jungle and live in huts raised 200 m from the ground, actually in the jungle canopy, and from here you zipline through the jungle on many ziplines as if you were a gibbon! However we later found out from a couple who had done this that yes it was good but the huts were dirty, food awful, guides were not that proffessional and unless you had a hut in the right place you had to walk 40 mins to start ziplining. We didn't want to hang about so took a rickshaw to the bus station and caught the 12 o clock bus to Luang Nam Tha. Quite uncomfortable after 4 hours we arrived and booked into he Kamking for a whopping 60,000 kip, 4.8 quid......fan, tv, ensuite! Opposite was the night market where Dave bought a whole barbecued duck for 2.30 pounds. I had a wander but lost my appetite at the sight of fried chickens feet and boiled intestines....choosing instead to head up to the indian restaurant for a chicken masala.....nice but with trimmings came to 4 quid! We took the following day to catch up on sleep, do laundry, have a wander, etc. We walked along a small river and watched the locals washing, fishing and shrimp catching.It really was exactly how I imagined it to be, slow, peaceful, dusty, with wooden huts and chickens scratching about. Lao has a different time to everywhere else, Lao time, as in “don't wear a watch and chill out”. Laos is called the Peoples Democratic Republic and has become Laos moto....Please Dont Rush!! It is very different from Thailand, you can tell this country is pretty untouched.....there is so much space, the scenery is fantastic, mountains shrouded in mist, little villages dotted along the road and a sense of calm.

We were going to trek from here but decided instead to go to a village north, just near the chinese border, 2 hours away as it apparently is a must see little town. We headed back to our digs later that evening, just before the 10.30pm curfew (!), packed our things and had a good nights sleep.

Sunday 14th February
Vieng Phouka, Laos


Well my day started badly, after my malaria tablet and a cup of coffee in the restaurant I had to run to the loo and be sick....hmmmmmm. Shared a baguette with Dave and a boiled egg...had to run up to the room and be sick again........only thing I could put it down to was the malaria tablets so have decided to take them at night on a full stomach. We wandered down to the local bus station bought our tickets to Muang Sing and then back onto the main st to a cafe to wait an hour and a half (the buses never ever go when they are supposed to). In this time we bumped onto a gang of travellers who had just arrived from Muang Sing and advised us not to go. They said it was not a pleasant place, the people were actually unfriendly and unhelpful and that prior to this they had been to Vieng Phouka and it was wonderful...We don't normally take peoples word for it but they really were all in agreement that we should absolutely go to Vieng Phouka. We changed our tickets but had to wait till 1pm. At the bus station they said actually it would be 2 or 3pm......my god we were spending half a day waiting for a bus!!!!! Eventually at about 1.20pm, cramped up in a very small minibus, with a small lady with a sick bag , we set off and only an hour later arrived at the bus stopcumrestaurantcumbarcumshop. Met up with a great gang of germans and a young english couple who were all looking to go trekking the next day...yeeha. We agreed to meet at 5pm to decide on which trek. Again this was a one street town, very friendly, smiley people, and a couple of guesthouses. We paid 40,000 kip (there are 13000 to the pound) for a concrete room with attached bathroom (!) and bed, cheap at about 4.50! A pint size Lao beer was 10,000, a coke, 5,000 and a noodle pork soup 8,000.
There were eventually 10 of us, a french couple joined us, and we chose the misty mountain trek, 3 days, 2 nights and it cost only 30 pounds each. Afer a few beers at the bus stop and some homemade chips, we returned to our digs to pack our stuff. Despite the fact that it was chinese new year and that our guest house had a 24 hour party with disco blasting out all night we slept ok!
Oh Happy Valentines by the way....no flowers or card for me this year!! har har
Dave......
(It is worth while pointing out that Vieng Poukha only has electricity from 1800 - 2100 each evening and it is greeted with some xcitement each night when the lights, fridges and fans lumber into life. In our case we hoped it would bring to an end the dreadful celebrations of the locals who had set up their disco/party headquarters outside our digs. After using the last dribbles of our electricity to make a nice cup of tea, we perched upon our humble little balcony to enjoy our brews and hopefully witness the demise of the Disco - Tet offensive.......................tick tock tick tock....lights out!! A small horrah escaped my lips (actually “thank **** for that”) only to be sucked back in as the locals cheered and a generator struck up.............oh well, back on the sleeping tablets)

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Photos

Drying underpants
Dave trying to dry his pants under the AC in our ultra tasteful room!!!

The Mekong River
Just leaving Thailand and crossing the Mekong into Laos

Luag Nam Tha river
Very picturesque

The locals fishing?
were not sure what they are looking for but they kick the mud and then all walk in a line and push very small things (not fish) in the net...?

Bus stop/bar in Vieng phouka
One hang out place in this very small village