This was a travel day, to get from Chiang Mai to the Mekong river, about 6 hours drive away, and cross the border into Laos on the other side before the Immigration office closed. In fact I got my visa and passport stamp just before 4 pm, when they start charging an overtime fee.
I had decided against the minivan/Chiang Khong guesthouse/ferry package for 1700 Baht (good value, as it turned out) as I wanted to check the options in Houay Xai myself, hoping for a one-day trip (an illusion).
Tuk-tuk to bus station by 8 am, in rush hour.
Exemplary family on motor scooter, one helmet for three:
Bus to Chiang Khong at 8.30 booked out. Bought ticket on 9 am "Air Bus" to Chiang Rai, 3 hours. Almost impossible to comprehend what the lady behind the glass was telling me, with loudspeakers blaring announcements. In the middle of it, the national anthem was played, and everyone stood still and silent until it finished.
The bus was very professional, I even got a luggage receipt for my bag. Countryside hilly and forested, quite a few towns to slow down for, useful break of 10 minutes at a small bus station halfway there, adequately equipped with the usual toilets for 3 baht, and plenty of cold water on sale (though as it was a VIP bus, we had been given a bottle of water and a packet of biscuits by the conductress).
View from country bus stop:
Chiang Rai has a new bus station well out of town, so I had to get a tuk-tuk to the old bus station, where the local buses, red not green, left for Chiang Khong. I thought the lady at the counter said "10" baht for the ride (maybe it was 10 km? 10 minutes?), so I was incensed when the driver said 80 Baht, and walked away, but soon realised my mistake and offered 50, which was not accepted. Luckily another chap came over and said he'd take me for 50, probably going home for lunch anyway. He dropped me by a red bus in the old bus station and proclaimed "Chiang Khong!". "Chiang Khong?" asked a woman, and when I said yes she heaved my backpack into the bus, took 65 baht off me and said it left at 1 pm, which left me a good 40 minutes for lunch. That was fine by me (the minivan would not leave Chiang Mai before then), so I went across to the Scandinavian Bakery to eat a good meal, omelette with European bread. The bakery supports a charity looking after orphans, some of whom train in the shop. On the way back I realised there must be about 5 different bus companies competing on the Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong route, and my bus was the most dilapidated.
Stuff in the back of the non-VIP bus:
Nevertheless, it rocketed along as fast as the road allowed, dropping off locals, including schoolchildren, wherever they needed to get off, as well as the odd parcel. Scenery very rural, fields ploughed and sown by hand, but also by tractor.
I'd bought water and also a can of Chang beer to celebrate my good progress. This was a mistake, and the last 30 kilometers of the journey extremely uncomfortable. I considered asking the driver to stop so I could go behind a bush, then realised I really needed a few words of Thai which I did not have, and the conductress had in the meantime abandoned us. The road got bad and we went down to about 20 km an hour, on and on, I was becoming desperate, however, suddenly we stopped on a shopping street, no bus station, and it was the end, after only 2 hours. I grabbed my stuff and asked frantically where I could find a toilet. Behind the shops was a market, and at the end a public toilet but no sign in English, in fact no sign at all. A young girl, about 10, stared at me, then said: "three!" I'd been clutching a 5 Baht coin for the last half hour. I was so relieved.
Tuk-tuk to the ferry pier for 30 Baht, bought $30 for the visa with Baht, paid 40 Baht for the ferry and put-putted across the great Mekong in about 4 minutes.
Houay Xai, Laos
A friendly chap said "Welcome to Laos! Do you need a visa? I can help you. Here is the arrival form and here is the visa application. Do you have a photo? Good!".
Visa and Immigration completed, my friend informed me that the slowboat tomorrow was booked out, the day after there were tickets, or I could take a bus. I didn't like this news, so I said goodbye and headed up the road. 20 metres on, a woman in a shop offered me a slowboat ticket for tomorrow for 950 Baht, including transport to the pier. I thanked her and continued. Luckily the BAP Guesthouse (LP recommendation) was not far off, and the third room shown was OK. The landlady offered me a slowboat ticket for tomorrow for 1000 Baht including transport and a cushion for sitting on.
I offered a tuk-tuk driver 20 Baht to take me to the pier, 2 km away. He wanted a lot more, so I set off walking. Being Lao, not Thai, neither he nor anyone else made another offer, so I had to walk. On the way I inquired in a travel office and was offered a ticket for 900 Baht including transport.
At the pier I inspected the boats lined up and saw that the first one had open sides and comfortable enough looking seats, like coach seats (LP had warned ...).
Just before the ticket office closed at 5 pm I bought ticket number 6 on boat number 3 for 900 Baht. Without transport, without cushion.
Lorries from Thailand and China were lined up the road from the pier, a ferry was taking them one by one across to Thailand. A bridge is planned to complete the new highway from Kunming, linking Yunnan with the port of Bangkok. I saw no signs of any bridge, or any highway for that matter. Maybe the roadworks which had caused me such anguish earlier on?
I walked back another way and saw the backstreets of this quite pleasant little border town with lots of greenery.
Female motor-scooterists do not wear helmets, but do use parasols, mostly in pastel shades.
Two monks were walking along with black umbrellas as sun shades. By the time I had asked their permission to take a photo, they had decided that umbrellas were not suitable accoutrements for display.
In Laos, most young men do a stint in a monastery as part of the growing-up process, so there are plenty of them around.
In Laos you take their shoes off before entering a house or shop, annoying of you just want to pop in to check something out and are not wearing flipflops (I left mine in Bangkok). Then, revelation, a shop called "Duty Free" selling a large variety of wine at inflated, but not Thai-horrendous prices.
Back at the guesthouse, I discovered that I needed an adapter for my electrical equipment, something else I'd left in Bangkok because I hadn't needed it there. My landlady advised asking her nephew, along to the left, but I found no nephew. I started searching all the little shops along the main street, some checked, most shook their heads, then several starting pointing to the right, and shortly before closing time at 7 pm, I found an electrical shop, selling washing machines, light bulbs and suchlike. An adapter was produced, I couldn't make it work (I'd brought a sample plug) but after a firm push it did, so I happily went back and plugged in mobile phones and camera akku. Now I was fit for Laos.
View across the river to Chiang Khong, Thailand, from the BAP guesthouse balcony:
A lone fisherman:
At the pleasant riverside restaurant where I later ate a good meal, I drank a "Beerlao", the local brew, very tasty, while the sun set over the Mekong.
Strolling back I went down to the ferry pier (I keep saying pier but it is no more than a concrete ramp at most) to take some photos and was barked at by some dogs who didn't like the look of me, so obviously not a local. One nasty little yapper even tried to bite me, and would have succeeded had I been wearing shorts. As it was, the trouser material protected my calf and only a small bruise is visible. However, one does worry, and I regretted not having had the rabies shot as well to be sure. Only advisable if "spending much time in rural areas", now does this mean 6 months as a volunteer in a village, or does it just mean anything other than a package tour? Another dog was carrying a monkey around on its back for some unknown reason.
Houay Xai nowadays has internet, so I went into a place offering terminals and wanted to update my travel log. To my horror, I found that the menus were now all in Thai, no fiddling with settings made any difference, the guys hanging around hadn't a clue, so I could do nothing, wasted a whole hour and felt frustrated. A quick email check with Harald reassured me that no permanent damage was done, presumably the local browser configuration was to blame.
Got back to the guesthouse and found everything shut. Remembered there had been a sign saying they close at 11 pm, and it was midnight. Found a bell and rang it. Landlady came. I apologised. Laos is generally an early to bed kind of place.
For lunch I had Thai buffet in the MBK Fifth Floor multinational food court. My first selection was rather spicy, then a fellow customer took me in hand and showed me how to create a Thai meal without chilli: rice noodles plus pineapple, dried shrimps, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, coriander, coconut sauce.
