THAILAND - Border Crossing into Laos
The tiring task of getting from Thailand into Laos. We had to catch an overnight bus to Chiang Kong on the border arriving at 4:30am, hang out in some tourist office/restaurant where they try to rip you off by indicating it's too difficult to get across the border to Huay Xai by yourself. Then had to deal with their grisly response to our stubborn refusal to accept their ridiculous advice, which is just another way to scam the unsuspecting tourist, the stupid farang. At the border we waited an hour or so till the immigration office opened at 8:30am. A short boat ride later and you are in another queue on the Laos side of the border waiting to process your Laos visa. Across to the foreign exchange office to pick up 3 million kip. A wad of notes so thick you almost needed to buy a backpack to store the cash.


The comfortable bus ride from Huay Xai to Luang Nam Tha, still under construction took 8 hours over a long, bumpy and extremely dusty road! We had unwittingly picked a broken seat, which required readjusting our butts off the metal rod back onto the cushion. Three Vietnamese jumped onto the bus just after dinner and were forced to wedge themselves in the stairwell in front of us in between sacks of rice and wheat. At one stage James had to rest his feet on the shoulders of one of the guys who fast asleep was oblivious to the worn leather smell. Mmmm!