5th Februay 2009

No such luxuries for us this morning as there were no taxis of tuk tuk's, so we had to hike a mile with our backpacks to the border crossing!

It was important that we got our departure card stamped on the Thai side, otherwise it could prove problematic later on in our travels. Bearing in mind it is not the most official looking border crossing and it could be easy to miss, or so we thought...

We arrived to see a mass of westerners lined up with their backpacks on and passports in hand! After queing for half an hour we made our way down the sandy and muddy bank to the line of longtail boats waiting to take us across the border.

After buying a ticket for ourselves and one for our backpacks (well, no ticket was given exactly, we just handed over some money) we were herded onto one of the thinnest and longest longtail boards we'd seen. To give you an idea of how narrow it was, it was a bit of tight squeeze sitting next to each other and the boat laid extremely low in the water! The crossing was quick, taking no more than a minute and we quickly had to get ourselves and our backpacks out and onto the opposite sandy bank. Wow! We're in Laos!

First stop was the immigration centre and it was utter chaos. About a hundred or so Thais and westerners were crammed in like sheep into a very small area in which we had to pay our 35USD entrance fee, get our passports stamped and leave. This small procedure only took about an hour and a half to complete and in the 40 Degree heat was pretty unpleasant.

We headed into the border town of Huay Xai to find ourselves somewhere to sleep for the night and to work out what currency was used here! The first hotel that we came across was a large pink coloured building called "Thaveesinh". We checked the room, thought it would be ok for one night and checked in. Fortunately an ATM was next door, so we managed to get ourselves some Laos Kip (which everyone takes here). Knowing that the exchange rate is around 12,000 Kip to the UK Pound, we are finally millionaires!

Our next destination in Laos is Luang Prabang, so it was important for us to find out how to get there, so we ventured out to the town to try and discover our options. This was not very straight forward as the choices were very limited and also not very appealing:

1) A 2 day boat ride (10 hours each day) on a small wooden boat with seats that resemble planks of wood, packed with as many people as they can carry. Never a good sign when all the shops sell cushions for the boat ride

2) An 8 hour speedboat ride, which is not the usual image conjured up by the word, but as the Lonely Planet describes, more like a surfboard with an outboard motor. With an apparently high accident and fatality rate.

3) A 15 hour overnight bus journey, which often breaks down and is a vomit enducing bumpy ride.

After doing all this research and none of the above appealing very much, we discovered a not very well advertised fourth option of flying to Luang Prabang. So out came the credit card and we bought our tickets for the once weekly flight leaving in two days. At 80USD it was also a pretty reasonable price.

So after booking our flight it was back to the hotel. When we got back to our room, we realized that staying two nights here, let alone one, was never going to happen. We must have been a bit weary from the immigration ordeal as it wasn't the nicest of places. So we made an executive decision to leave and find ourselves somewhere more comfortable to stay.

We donned our backpacks and handed the key in at receprion to some very confused looking staff, explaining that we were leaving immediately. A few doors down the road, we found a much more comfortable and clean hotel to stay in for the two nights.

Huay Xai is a very small town with all of the guest houses practically sitting on top of each other and the main road only stretches for 500 Metres. There is practically nothing at all to do here, even finding a defect restaurant or cafe has proved difficult, but on the brightside we do have HBO on our TV.

Bearing in mind the size of the town it came as no surprise to find the desk clerk of our previous hotel waiting for us in reception, demanding payment for our swift three hour stay! As we were pretty surprised we left without paying anything, we happily gave the man £2 and our consciences were clear.

So far our impression of Laos, gone are the smiling faces and the great value food. This isn't a friendly town by any stretch of the imagination but hopefully Luang Prabang tomorrow will be a different story.