28 to 29 mar 2008, Huay Xai (thai-laos border crossing)

most of the time, buses will add stools on the aisle so that passengers can rest their feet

bus terminal

children at school

kids having fun

long tail boat across the Mekong river to get to Huay Xai

buy boat tickets to Huay Xai

we took a bus from Mae Chan to Chiang Rai, stopped over for breakfast, then continued the bus journey to Chiang Khong where we could take a small boat to Laos across the Mekong River. we've heard that crossing the border during non-office hours will require some "fees" paid to the officials. we tried to avoid that by crossing the border in a Friday afternoon. it was easy crossing through here. the boat ride was only 3 mins to get to laos. travelers take note, the money changer at this Laos customs has the best rates offered in the whole of Laos. so, please change some money here before you move on. there is no ATM here though.

there is nothing much in Huay Xai so we left the next day to Luang Prabang. instead of taking a boat, we bought bus tickets from a travel agent. the travel agent said that we have to reserve tickets the day before, it is an Air-con bus and the bus station is 10km away from the town. the next day, we realised that we were duped. the bus station was only 2km away (where we could have walked there) and that the bus was a local bus with no air-con and there were no reservations made at all. the man who drove us to the bus station bought the tickets right on the spot and it cost only 140,000kip per person. the travel agent charged us 196,000 kip per person for arranging only a pick up service. oh, i learned my mistake. :p