Getting to Laos (Chiang Khong, Huay Xai)

I think it was in Laos that I began having real adventures. Thailand felt like just hanging out most of the time, less frantic sightseeing, and Malaysia-Singapore were real culture vulture times. Laos was a lot of how I imagined, and wanted, travelling on my own in SE Asia to be.

We (two friends from Pai were going to Luang Prabang) took a van from Pai to Chiang Khong on the border. The road between Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai is infamous for being very winding, and I learned that the second half out of Pai is the worst. The van was comfortable enough and the driver wasn’t nuts (a rare luxury) but I got seriously nauseous for the first time of my life. At a "rest stop" (slap up shack with toilet facilities and roadside snacks) I ran to puke into an outhouse-style squatter, desperately trying not to touch anything or put my face too close. After some ginger tea I had a very pleasant remainder of the ride. We stayed the night in Chiang Khong. I had mediocre eggs and toast listening to the Eagles overlooking the Mekong ("We may lose and we may win/But we will never be here again/So open up I'm climbing in/And take it eeeeeeasayyyy"). This sighting excited me. I’d just finished reading a book by a guy who travelled the Mekong from Tibet to Vietnam. Other than that association, and I guess Vietnam war movies, it would have just been another river.

This was an organised tourist run to Laos but the facilitators weren't very informative and I felt herded. This package deal was geared largely towards those taking the classic slow boat down to Luang Prabang. I heard more about these trips later and some had a totally rad time partying and that it was neat staying in a ramshackle village at the halfway point. It’s a well-beaten tourist trail and you can meet fun people and all that good stuff. That wasn’t my route though. I was getting a van North. So because I wasn’t doing the “usual” thing, I felt even more lost and uninformed. You just sort of wait until you're told to go stand somewhere or climb into some form of transport, and you have to be keen that they know where you need to go cuz mistakes get made (especially if you're the only one going a different way). The international border crossing at Chiang Khong/Huay Xai is as follows: you are motor boated across the river, you fill in two different forms and hand them in to folks in some old buildings on a sandy bank along with 50 USD and a passport photo, you wait about 10 minutes and they hand you your passport, (if I remember correctly) you show the passport to someone else and get some stamp or other, then you show it to someone else and they check that you have the stamp and give you another. It was all pretty easy once explained, but it felt confused and arbitrary.

I want to interject an observation here. When I was in Malaysia there was some confusion floating around about Thai visas. The regulations had recently changed so that people entering Thailand by land were granted 15 days visa-free, while if you arrived by plane, you were granted 30 days. But every place you looked online and every person you asked told a varying story. Some said you had to get a Thai visa ahead of time. I was in a book store in Georgetown and I noticed the owner happened to be in the visa arranging business. I asked him what I needed to get into Thailand and of course he said I needed a visa. Someone I met in Melaka was tied in a knot trying to figure out how to get a Thai visa, but I think he wanted to stay for a few months. I was in a sweat when I arrived at Bangkok immigration because I didn’t know if they were going to send me back or something. No problems. I nervously asked the officer how long I could stay sure enough it was 30 days.

There was almost equal confusion about Lao visas, or at least from what I’d read Laos was known to close borders and change regulations at a moment’s notice. Some said again that you had to arrange a visa ahead of time. Cambodia was straight-forward (visa on arrival) as was Vietnam (pre-arranged visa). As long as you do a bit of homework beforehand you’ll be fine. It’s important not to get bogged down by the rumour mill. Equally, don’t get bogged down by rumours of dangerous areas or even official assessments given by websites like the Canadian travel advisory people. You’ll wind up missing out on cool places I think. I feel like I did because I planned my trip to skirt around sensitive areas. All that means though is that I won’t make that same judgment the next time around.

I finally got into a van with a couple other people to drive a couple hours up to Luang NamTha. The van trip from Huay Xai was very nice though. Mountains, valleys, forest, rivers. A little scarring from slash-and-burn, many stilt-house villages of bamboo, rattan, thatch, wood, but not usually within sight of each other. Always animals around: chickens, dogs, cows, water buffalo. A group of cows was crossing the road right in front of us and one of the cows was trying to mount another. The road was usually terrible, shifted under landslides, pot holes, parts scraped up for paving, plain gravel.

We were dropped off, from my perspective, in the middle of no where. The majority of Luang Nam Tha is along a single road. I managed to find some landmarks that were on the Lonely Planet map and found a lovely guesthouse, though more expensive than I'd have liked. The place was worth the asking price but I would have chosen less and for less money given the option. It was probably the middle of the afternoon when I arrived but I just crashed.