Day 5: Friday 24 Jul 2009 CHIANGRAI- CHIANGKHONG-HUAYXAI – LUANG NAM THA
Jiez says
Travelled on a local bus to the border town of Chiang Khong. In true local fashion, the bus was non A/C-ed, filled with locals with sacks and sacks of ____ and the back door never closes. Still, it was a comfy and really scenic 2hr ride! Pee factor was too intense becoz there was no stop at all.
Local bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong
On reaching the border town we tuktuked to the immigration to cross over to Laos.Huay Xai is just a 5 minute boat trip away. Immigration is nothing more than a little kiosk, a makeshift temp-taking tentage, we took less than 10 mins to clear since we didn’t need visa. After immnigration, it was just a narrow street where over-zealous locals engage in hardcore haggling with tourists over transport fee out of the border town. After a series of blahh we got a pretty good deal on a minivan to Luang Namtha with some guys from The States.
Chiang Khong to Huay Xai
It was another lovely scenic 4 hour ride to Luang Namtha, a quiet town with a huge National Protected Area. So when you go to in a rural province of Laos (no less), you’d have to readjust your expectations, backtrack abit, slow down a bit just to be in sync with the environment. The general culture is just “chill chill”, no one talks about urgency, it’s just major zen. Despite being just a river away from Thailand, Laos is clearly very different, much more unspoilt and new to tourism. The main agenda for backpackers venturing into Luang Namtha is usually trekking into the Protected Area, since this tiny lil town really has nothing more to offer.
Luang Namtha Town
Basically, Namtha feels very ’50s. We tried to make arrangements for our trek the next day, cycled round town to the Chinese market and met a couple of PRCs along the way (this town is close to the Chinese border too). We chanced upon a Lao-Chinese elementary school, some PRCs and locals were playing basketball, badminton etc in. Decided to join them. Had a basketball game with the PRCs guys whose egos were thoroughly demolished by Van as a result of her ultra pro-ness. HAHAHA it was fun, and amusing cuz i could really see the guy’s selfesteem depreciate over the course of their 1 on 1 HAHAHAHA. Well ok, PRC dude (called himself Xiaozhu HAHAHA) gave some sort of inspirational talk about his life in Laos and how we was to lead a high brow life in x years with a flashy porche and blahz. I guess it was funky to have a immigrant’s perspective of Laos.
Van says
- Whole day of travelling. From CHiangrai to CHianKhong (2hours plus ride), then cross the river to Huayxai, some intense bargaining there, got a very good deal for minibus to LuangNamtha (3hours plus ride). The guy who sold us tickets was called Dui and I think he likes Chia too, kept talking to her, or maybe CHia has very good PR skills, I was busy sleeping anyways… Stopped over for some Vietnamese Pho, was so afraid of the cleanliness.
Huayxai to Luang Namtha
- Ate a grand total of 3 Imodin pills, 6 charcoal tablets, 1 shen sian shui, 3 poh chai pills. Then like kanna constipation for next few days, oh my…
- Reached luangnamtha and went into Zeula guest house, spacious room but full of mosquitoes, I got stung till I gave up.. hot water was powerful but water supply was pathetic..
- Went around looking for our tour trip, almost settled for Green Discovery then found out then opposite them was some Jungle Ecotourism with cheaper deal, haha being singaporeans we went over, it was a matter of PRICE.
- Jies needed to get a pair of Chinese shoes and we rented bicycles to go to Chinese market, people all from CHIna there, got a pair of sneakers for US$3 or less. Then went to some lao-china school and played some badminton and basketball, fun.
