Houay Xai - Laos

June 6th - 7th, 2016

After a good night's sleep we had a morning departure to the bus station where we caught the 9.30 bus to Chiang Khong, a 6 hour journey along winding roads, through lush hills and valleys with spectacular views and thankfully with reasonable air con on board. This was our last day in Thailand and we were thankful for the chance to relax and enjoy the views of this spectacular country, somewhere I had never even thought of travelling to a few years ago and now a place I have come to appreciate for its easy going attitude, amazing food and beautiful scenery as well as its modern way of life that makes it all the easier to travel. Arriving at a junction just before the town we were allowed off the bus so we could take a tuk tuk to the border crossing a few km away. Glad not to be walking in the blistering heat we admired the views and enjoyed the breeze afforded by the driver's foot to the floor and soon arrived at a large airport like building where we got our passports stamped out of Thailand and sat down to await the bus that would take us over the Fourth Thai - Lao Friendship Bridge. This bridge spans the Mekong River, which for a long way signals the border between the two countries, but despite it only being a couple of km long, you are not aloud to walk across it, but must pay for the bus instead. After several buses had come and gone, only dropping passengers off, none picking up, we started to get a bit irritated, mostly due to the heat and just wanting to finish our day's travelling than anything else, so almost cheered when finally we were able to get on board an identical looking bus to the others and make the short trip across the border bridge into our next new country. Once on the Laos side of the river, we again had to go through immigration which they really didn't seem interested in us doing, basically ignoring us and another traveller until it was well into their 'overtime' (after 4pm) and they could charge us an extra dollar for the privilege of their attention! Another tuk tuk ride to take us the final 8km into the small town of Houay Xai (numerous spellings!!) and we were finally able to check in to our hotel. Our only plans for the rest of that day being to get some Lao money out and find dinner, both of which we accomplished amid much grumbling at the outrageous charges from the bank machine and despair at the cost of the food being so much more for so much less than in Thailand.