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Day 9 - Chiang Mai to Huay Xai
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The plan today was to board a bus to the Thailand/Laos border at 10am, head for Chiang Kong on the Thailand side, and then cross over the border by boat to Huay Xai on the other side of the river.
The bus itself was surprisingly ok, taking under 5 hours, with air con, and in a mini-bus rather than a public bus. We were a bit crammed in but otherwise ok.
We were last to be collected (40 mins late this time !), so I was in the front row and Katie was at the back.
Unfortunately in between us on the middle row was THE most annoying person we've met since starting our trip, some Canadian dude who introduced himself as "an olympic snowboarder", by which point I could feel my eyeballs automatically rolling back, you know the type...
He was the loudest, most opinionated, most irritating person I've met, he really was unbelievably annoying.
All I can say is THANK GOD FOR iPODS !!!! What a life saver. Now I just had the 2 seconds in between songs to put up with him.
Here are some bite size snippets from Raymondo von Canadian:
"yeah London is really dangerous, you have to lock all your doors when you're driving otherwise you'll get car-jacked..."
"I was the manager of a large chain of famous bars in London called Barlucios..."
"there's no point taking malaria tablets, the worst you'll ever get is a fever..."
"most of London is rough, but there are some nice areas, like Peckham..."
I could go on and on and on (like him) he just did not shut up ! Talk about verbal diarrhea...
To be honest I didn't really notice him because my hearing was affected by the water damage from the rafting yesterday, but when we stopped half way for lunch (after 3 hours of him talking non-stop) Katie got out the bus and nearly exploded with frustration !! I thought she was going to strangle him.
Later, about 40km outside Chiang Khong we stopped at a market for a break, and it soon became obvious that this was no ordinary market !! Amongst the weird food I saw for sale were LOCUSTS, RATS and FROGS !!!! Mmmmmmmm.... yummy.
Eventually we got to Chiang Khong, which was pretty much a dirt track with metal houses down both sides, so we decided to go over the border tonight rather than early the next morning, as there was clearly nothing to do here.
I'm not sure what I was expecting but when we got to the docks & the passport office I was looking for the ferry to take us over the Mekong river, but there was nothing to be seen, just a few very narrow and rather dodgy looking fishermen's boats with an outboard engine strapped on the back. 'Poor them' I thought, 'don't fancy your's much...'
Of course, after having our passports stamped for exiting Thailand we were directed to these same fishing boats, which were obviously what the book referred to as the "ferry" !! We clambered onboard with all our packs etc and off we went. The water was rather too close to the sides of the boat for my comfort, but we got across in one piece which was the main thing...
If we thought Chiang Khong was a bit of a small place then Huay Xia made it look like Tokyo in comparison ! It was like a town from the wild wild west or something...
We paid for our Laos visas (US $35 each), plus the special charge for it being after 4pm (?!) which generated an extra charge of a whopping US $1 ! What is the point ?!
We then went to book a bus to go up to Luang Nam Tha in the north tomorrow, where we want to do some proper trekking, rather than the Chiang Mai touristy nonsense...
We spent about 20 minutes haggling between 2 travel agents to save about 50p per ticket (it's the principle - I hate being ripped off !), and then wandered off to find a guest house.
The one we found was basic but fine, and I let Katie handle the negotiations on this one, so I think we probably ended up buying the guy a Ferrari or something, but anyway, we could put the heavy packs down and relax !
There was a really nice view from the roof over the river & down the street...
A while later we were up and off in search of food, and bumped into a Kiwi couple who were in our bus from Chiang Mai, and who were also in the same river boat for the crossing. We also had a random Japanese guy with us who was quite amusing, even if he had absolutely no intention of this whatsoever !
We found a nice table at a riverside restaurant, I had a really nice spicy curry soup, but had to stay off the beers for the second night running due to the antibiotics I need to take for my ear... which sucks.
Being right next to the Mekong river, near sunset with no wind made it Mosquito Central but with mossie spray and some weird candle thing we seemed to get away without being bitten alive, which was quite miraculous really.
We got back to our room at about 10pm, Katie went to sleep straight away, while I stayed up watching 'Shakespeare in Love' with Lao local subtitles !! I had no intention of staying up until midnight, but it's a good film and you know when you can't switch off...
Ok, until next time, as Shakespeare himself would say... a thousand good nights, dear friends ;)
Al & Katie xx
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