Change of Venue

Location: Jinghong, Yunnan, China
Local Time: Thursday, August 24, 2006 - 11:44am

So, I've been in motion. We took an afternoon VIP bus (a converted van with 7 passenger seats) from Chiang Mai up to Chiang Khong. We stayed the night there, in a lovely little town, had a final Thai meal, watched National Treasure at the restaurant.

The next morning, with our Laos visas intact, we took a boat across the Mekong river, and we were in Laos.

There we met a German who was also going to Luang Namtha, which we believed was on the way to the Chinese border.

Since it is currently the rainy season in Laos, the regular buses were not going, however we found a 4x4 that was going. The next 9 hours we spent the the back of a bouncing Toyota pickup going over roads that were in some places hubcap deep in red mud. Laos has been trying to build a good highway from the Chinese border in the north to the Thai border in the south for over 20 years we were told. They have a little to go, as we covered a mere 190km in those 9 hours. Which included a 45 minute stop a few hours into the trip to wait while a new bridge was constructed over a river because the old one was washed out the night before.

We spent the night in Luang Namtha at a little Chinese guesthouse. There seems to be a lot of traveller/backpacker activity in Laos and quite a bit of English is spoken.

We had dinner with our German friend in a place called the Panda Cafe. The noodles they use in the soups and fried noodle dishes in Laos are the same as the ones they use in Nepal, yummy Mr. Noodle.