LAOS Huay Xai – Day 24
Could not for the life of me make the shower hot this morning and spent 10 mins being sprayed with cold water before I went to find the crazy old lady and have her get the gas working. Unfortunately by then I was so cold that the lukewarm shower did not warm me up. My theory on the crazy lady is that she married a western guy, because the daughter is definitely Asian/western mix, but he left her and now she hates foreigners but cant afford to close the guesthouse. I also discovered this morning why Asian people don’t use toilet paper. How did I discover this? well…. As it turns out the plumbing in Asia is not exactly designed for toilet paper and tends to clog, particularly in the case of a non-flushing toilet that you flush by pouring in additional water. I was in the bathroom in absolute hysterics and yelling at Dee through the door what was happening and then she was in hysterics. It was about the funniest thing I’ve done in Asia. In the end, by pouring in about a bathtub full of water, it finally worked itself out, but I now understand the no toilet paper policy.
Found breakfast in a café run by a French guy, it had only been open 3 weeks. 2 German guys who live locally came in to check the place out while we were there and despite being well over the age of 60 spent an hour enquiring how to roll pot cigarettes and telling the owner all about their ‘I almost got arrested for drugs’ stories.
Left the packs at the guesthouse and caught a sawngthaew for the 10km north o the opium museum at the golden triangle. The opium museum was good, but I’d seen a lot of the information yesterday at the hill tribe museum. About 50m up the road was the official view point for the Golden Triangle, the meeting point of Thailand, Burma and Laos divided only by the Mekong River. There were countless number of tourists and little kids walking around in traditional clothing posing for photographs, along with about a hundred stalls selling ‘I’ve been to the golden triangle’ t-shirts.
We could not work out how the hell to catch the sawngthaew back to the city of Chiang Saen so instead we grabbed a life with an old Thai couple, who let us sit in the tray of their ute. After he dropped us off he refused to accept our money, we thanked him profusely.
The border crossing to Laos is from Chiang Khong so we picked up our packs and made our way to the sawngthaew station for a ride. The cost was 60B but after waiting 20 mins to leave I began to get concerned because the driver was clearly not leaving any time soon and we had to be at the border before 4:30 if we wanted to cross today. When I finally enquired about our possible departure time his response was “when full”. Since no one else had come in the past 30 mins and it seemed unlikely another 8 people were going to come along in the next 30 we had no choice but to charter the truck to Chiang Khong for 250B each. We were dropped off at the top of a dusty street where the driver pointed down the hill and said “Laos”. Sure enough about 50m down the dusty hill was a sign that said ‘departures’ and pointing to a small building. Inside the officers took our departure cards and stamped our passports. When Dee asked which way we should go next he looked at us as though we were as thick as 2 short planks and said “down street”. Obviously. Further down the street the road ended and at the bottom of the dusty hill was a small sing that announced ‘ferry crossing 20B’. We each paid our 20B for the 1 minute boat ride across the river to Laos.
Once on the other side of the river we walked about 20m up the dusty hill to ‘immigration’ where we filled out a form and the official glanced at our visas. The whole process took less than 5 mins. Now that we were officially in Laos we went looking for a guesthouse. At the top of the hill we saw a sign for the BAP guesthouse and grabbed the last room for ourselves. Whilst checking in who should wander in but Brendan. Its lucky the room was actually a triple.
We went for a walk just a few doors down to the Gibbon Experience Office to enquire about the trek/program in the Bokeo National Park. I had read about the program in a magazine article back at home and was keen to spend the next 2 nights living in the tree houses and flying through the jungle on the zip wires [flying foxes]. The others weren’t so keen and for all 3 of us to go we would have had to hang around for 3 days which is not appealing since Huay Xai consists of one main street and a border crossing. Given that I was the only one interested I managed to squeeze in as the last person for the tour leaving tomorrow morning. I think I was very lucky to get the place actually. The cost for 3 days and 2 nights is 5000B which is much more than I have spent on anything else, but I feel that it will be worth it. When am I ever going to be Laos again with the opportunity to live in a tree house and fly around the jungle by zip wire?
We went and grabbed dinner and Dee and Brendan made arrangements for places on the 6 hour speed boat to Luang Prabang tomorrow. Back in the room Brendan and Dee read while I packed my bag, I’m only taking my daypack with me. I’ll have to be up at 6:45 tomorrow. I’m really excited about tomorrow and very proud of myself for surviving my first border crossing by land. Yay me!
Tags: Laos
Nic
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