Stop over in Nong Khai

Dennis, sue and Ben by the Ma Kong
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After Sue's village we returned to Nong Khai for a stop over night before heading into Laos.

Nong Khai is a small town of a couple of hundred thousand. A boarder town to Loas it is also only one for 2 entry points to Laos from Thailand and situated by the Ma Kong. There was more street juice but that was made up by very friendly locals who even offered us a beer out their car widow while we were riding in the tray of the ute! Gota love the people! Beer anywhere is a great excuse to meet new people and to get to know them! I wont review the places we stayed at as i didnt record the name but it was very basic. Clean but in need of a paint job, it cost us only 250b and that was for a room with 2 double beds hot water and a squat toilet. Sam and Catherine chose a hotel across the street for $400 b which was more modern and ascetically pleasing.

Nong Khai and into Laos!

Chinese new year celebrations
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Like Bangkok you would be met with many varying smells as you walked the streets or many markets the town offered. Prices where much better than Bangkok as you would expect further off the tourist trail.

Breakfast was at a english style restaurant and we ordered a very large breakfast consisting of 2 sussages, 2 eggs, 2 rashers of beacon, 1 fried tomato, 1 hash brown 2 peices of toast butter and jam and tea/coffee for 160b. Very filling and they played western muisc and BBC world which allowed us to catch up on the cricket back home.  The weather turned overcast and drissel on the second day which was the first cloudy day since we had been here.

Sign on the friendship bridge donated by aussie govt.
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There were numerous night events with celebrations continuing for the chinese new year.

We also got our first load of washin done here. Not speaking the language i assumed the washing would be completed by 6pm the same day and since that was only and hr or so i proceeded to wait. Then the Tuk Tuk driver that had taken me there was tryin to get me to get back in the Tuk TUk. I thought it was just another trick and so i waited and he proceeded to xplain with hand signals that it would not be ready till 6pm the next day... and we had planned to be in lao by that time! Through a little effort and some help from another local i was able to renegotiate the time to 12midday the following day.

We collected the washin on the way to the border and it cost $145b for the 3 of us. We made it to the border where we got visas for $1550b or $39us. With a Lao Beer in hand we paid another 10b to catch a buss over the friendship bridge donated by the Aussie govt. in the early ninetys. Where else can you go across a border with a beer in hand!?

We were then Tuk Tuk'ed by a taxi who offerd to take us to Vientiene in his nice airconditioned Mini van. After driving at around 40kph for 25ks in 4th gear (i think the driver was trying to save fuel) we finally arrived in Vientiene the capital of Laos.

Have you ever been Tuk Tuk'ed - Write to me and tell me or provide feedback in the guest book if possible!