Chiang Khong 13/10/07 & 14/10/07

Chiang Khong is pretty much a one road town purely in existance for the border crossing to Laos and the back packers who travel this way. There are only about 9000 people here, & most of them seem to work in either a bar, guest house or at the border crossing port.

Despite the lack of people, the standard 20 or so tuk tuks met us at the bus station & we followed another reccomendation that we'd got on the bus over here, and went to a guest house called Bamboo. This guest house was made up of a series of bungalows made with bamboo roofs and walls, although some more substantial brick walls were used inside. It was on the side of a hill so all the bungalows had steps and walkways to get to the rooms. The steps and walkways were all made of... you guessed it... Bamboo!!! It was probably the most basic room we have had so far in the fact it had no air-con, TV or flushing toilet (it did have a bucket, some running water and a pan to put the water in the loo).

The guy running the guest house was best described as an ageing Thai Hippy who had some very interesting ideas on people and nationalities. He told us when we checked in that all English were hooligans but as we had not trashed the room or thrown the TV out of the window (not that we had one), by the time we left i think he was ok with us.

The guide book described the mexican food at Bamboo as "excellent" but when we tried to order on the first night we realised that the menu was a little smaller than advertised. When we asked why, he explained that his "hired help" had recently left and for the sake of his wife (and him by the sounds of it) he had agreed to reduce the menu. What we did have was very nice tex mex overlooking the river and Laos, and agreed to meet our new companions, also staying at the guesthouse, in the morning for the trip across the river.

Unfortunately I decided that evening/night/morning to empty my stomach of all its contents as quickly and in as many ways as possible. The next morning I was going nowhere, and our new friends moved on.

We basically just stayed in all morning, and then had a wander round & a drink in the afternoon. We did book the tickets for the transfer across the river and the slow boat from a very proud and helpful bar owner and Manchester United fan (he had not heard of Forest...surprisingly). We finished the day with a drink and watched the sunset over the river again.

As promised Mr Sayan picked us up in his new shiny Toyota Hi Lux and took us to the border port only to be greeted by about 200 or so other travellers doing the same trip. We all needed to get an exit stamp from Thailand as if you don't get it, and you come back in later, there may be some questions... Mr Sayan had an ingenious queue jumping theory though... he walked straight to the front and ignored all the other people queueing and got ours stamped. Easy and worth the little bit extra we paid by going through him. We were then installed onto a small long wooden taxi boat and out into the Mekong towards Laos.