Our Great Adventure: Huay Xai Day 77 4/12/2014

Today's plan was to head north and cross the border with Thailand to get to Chiang Rai. There were various options from Luang Prabang including a rather expensive flight to Chiang Mai and bus north to Chiang Rai. Other options included heading to Huay Xai and crossing there. You can get here on a two day slow boat stopping overnight at Pak Beng, speedboat which although much safer than it used to be is stilladvised against by the FO, VIP minibus or overnight bus. We opted for the VIP minibus (think we've had enough of boats for a few days and Diane wasn't keen on the overnight bus) and braced ourselves for a c12 hour journey. Another early start to the day, in part because the actual departure time was a bit vague and we didn't want to miss the minibus! We pulled out of the bus station at around 7.45am with us and two other passengers on board. We were pleased that we'd managed to avoid the back row which we'd endured on the journey to Luang Prabang (bouncy as hell!). Whilst we'd benefited from having all four seats to ourselves on that trip we certainly felt every bump in the road. Not long out of the town centre we stopped to pick up an extended Laos family. We later picked up a father and son who were waiting by the roadside with the customary cash exchange with the driver. The road conditions for the first couple of hours were OK however soon deteriorated into a pot holed dirt track. It was difficult to tell whether the road was simply in a state of disrepair or was actually being resurfaced but we bumped and bounced along for several hours covering very little distance. Eventually we arrived at Udomxai and stopped for lunch. The town didn't look particularly inspiring although we noticed that signs were in dual language - Laos and Chinese as we were only 25km from the border and then not far from the town we picked up another passenger. About an hour later we were stopped at a police checkpoint and our new companion was asked to get off the bus after a lengthy examation of his passport. He returned after about 5 minutes and we continued our journey. Neither of us had any idea of why we were stopped or what the police were checking. As we headed north west from here, and closer to China, the road conditions improved and we eventually passed Luang Nam Tha and as the sun started to set continued west through the Laos National Bio-Diversity Park. The scenery has been beautiful with jungle clad mountains and we travelled over a huge number of passes. Most of the other vehicles on the road are Chinese lorries heading both west and east. We assumed they must use the route through Laos to Thailand to avoid travel through Burma which is not that far north west. We eventually arrived at Huay Xai bus station, a bit numb and very tired and got a tuk tuk into the town centre. Despite the hotel in Vientiane booking a room for us and the Apple Guest House confirming when we arrived at the Sabaydee Guesthouse they had no booking and were full. We headed across the road and got a room at the Oudomphone 2 Guest House, probably the most basic accommodation we've had so far (Diane got out her silk liner to sleep in fearing scrathy sheets!) but at least we'd got a room for the night. We went next door for dinner and had a great curry and enjoyed our last beerlao looking forward to the boat crossing into Thailand tomorrow.