Chiang Khong, Thailand

Trip Start Dec 08, 2007
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Trip End Aug 14, 2008


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Saturday, May 31, 2008

After a lie in and a lazy morning we were picked up at our hostel for the first part of our journey into Laos, a 6 hour drive to Chiang Khong. From here we cross the border, the Mekong River, into Laos. The journey was ok stopping at various markets enroute where the driver (we were picked up last so sat in the front with him) picked up some live locusts for his tea and hung them on the dashboard! Locusts! Hundreds of them! At first you could here them buzzing around trying to escape and then the noise slowly died down!! We were worried that he might eat them live, but he reassured us that he likes them fried!

We arrived at our hostel and it was one of the worst places we have stayed at on our travels, terrible bed, smelly toilet and our room was right underneath the bar! The only good thing was the buffet they put on. We had a few drinks with Dan and Hayley who we'd met on the bus, then had an early night for the following days travel. Although we had an early start it took ages to get across the river and deal with immigration and getting our visas. We decided to go into Laos on a trip to make the border corssing easier and to avoid bribes which heard can be a problem. We also thought we could only have 14 days in Laos, but were given 30 days visas which is much better. There were no problems at all and we realised that we could have easily done the whole trip ourselves.

We then boarded our slow boat to start the journey to Luang Prabang. the slow boat takes two days sailing down the Mekong with an overnight stay half way. It was 250km and took 7 hours each day.
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