Huay Xai

13/10/07 - 14/10/07 $6

The second day of our slowboat took us from Pakbeng to the border town of Huay Xai, it should have been a 7 hour journey, but we have come to learn that Lao time is a little different to realtime and due to their laid back approach everything takes that little bit longer. But as we seem to be travelling in the opposite direction to everyone else our boat was really quite and we got a bench seat each to stretch out on (doesn't make it that much more comfy though!).

We arrived in Huay Xai around 5.10 and as the border closes at 5.30 we decided to stay there for the night. Ignoring the tuk-tuk driver who told us the place the boat dropped us was the toen centre (2 guesthouses and a restaurant) we took the fairly lengthy walk into the town with Daniel, a german guy we had met in Pakbeng the night before and after finding ourselves a place to stay we decided to all meet up for food later on.

We went to the Riverside Houayxay Restaurant, just beside our hotel and had some great food. Hazel and Daniel ordered a local dish called Sinath which looked like great fun. Basically they just bring you out a whole load of stuff, meat, veg, egg, noodles, chillis and animal fat (grr!) and a big pot stove which goes in the middle and you cook it yourself. Great fun and only 27000kip (around $3). The locals sat next to us were obviously impressed with their selection and spent the night cheers-ing with us.

Across the river we could see a thunderstorm (what a surprise) although the weather our side was ok and the sheet lightening was pretty cool to watch. There was a live Lao band playing in the restaurant and the hand sized grasshoppers dancing round the lights looked like fairies (no really!).

This was my first night on the dreaded doxycyclene (new malaria tablets) and turns out the beer belly I have been cultivating wasn't keen, so while everyone else got to stay out drinking beer, I went back to the hotel to thow up (too much info I know!). Hopefully I'll react better next time!!!