To Laos We Go!

North, to the border of Thailand and Laos. We travel by bus to Chiang Rai, a small town 2 hours from the border of Laos. We have one night to explore the night market and eat some northern Thai food before heading northeast to Laos. We arise early in the morning as to catch the 7am local bus that will take us the two hours to Chang Khong, Thailand We are able to watch the sun rise up over the rice paddy’s and experience early morning activities in the surrounding areas. The sun is usually orange/red at this time because of the morning cooking fires, so it is gorgeous. We arrive in Chang Khong and take a tuk tuk to the “ferry” crossing of the Mekong River. We go through customs and then board a long boat for a 3 minute crossing over the Mekong River into Laos.
We arrive in Laos and get our visas in order. This takes perhaps 45 minutes and $36 US dollars. Lucky Americans that we are, we get the most expensive visa fees. After we are all sorted out we head for the bus terminal to catch the last bus (12noon) to Luang Nam Tha. We decided to take the local bus so we could see how the locals travel……well this bus was full of westerners and just a few locals. The roads are being expanded and were in very poor shape for half of the 4+ hour ride.
Laos for me is a very peaceful place and I truly do love it here. Just crossing into to Laos was almost like relief, a peace came over me. We were very surprised to see such a large and “prosperous” town when we arrived in Luang Nam Tha. We were expecting a small village with perhaps a small percentage of tourists. This was not the case and we found that the local people are prospering greatly in this area. This was due to a couple of factors: tourism, Chinese (2 hours from Chinese Border), road construction. The Chinese government is improving the road from the border all the way down to Vientienne, Laos’ capitol city! This will become a major trade route from China!
~Karen~