Skip to main content

Trip 01-06: Day 6-7 (Travel along the Mekong)

Day 6 -7 (11-12 May)

As we were heading to the end of the trip, there was not much interesting place to visit for the remaining days.

We took a slow boat to Huay Xai with overnight stay in Pak Beng. Both days required up to 8 hours journey. So we had two days of river cruise with scenery of green lush forest and mountains. As it was a low season, there was a lot of vacant seats on the boat. Some gwailo took speed boat which was faster - reach Huoy Xai in a day. However, the disadvantage of speed boat is you have to bear the loud engine noise for 6 hours.

Pak Beng is a one-street town. The town serves as pit stop for travellers to and fro Luang Prabang or Huoy Xai. It offers the cheapest accomodation in the country. We had a room for two for just 100 Bath (equivalent to RM10 or USD2.50). The weather in Pak Beng was cooling. No wonder no fan was installed in our room.

The journey on the second was more pleasant. Nicer scenery. We reached Huoy Xai at 6pm. Not possible to cross to Thailand as the immigration office was closed at 5.30pm. Well, I think they purposely arrange such way so that travellers will have no choice but stay one more night in Laos. As we gazed across the river, Thailand has a much better infrastructure. Better buildings indeed.

Throughout the 2-day river cruise, I set my personal record by completing a whole novel reading. I was reading a novel by John Grisham (The Last Juror).

End of day 7....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The wedding of ....

This wedding has some similarity with ours but, by comparison in every detail, each is still distinctly unique.

Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route

Just came back from Japan last week. Went to Tokyo for conference and added side trip to Tateyama Alpine Route and Kanazawa. I must say that Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route was great. You can do the trip either from Nagano side or Toyama side. For us, we did it from the Nagano side. Took the Shinkansen to Nagano early morning. Then boarded the express bus to Ogizawa. From there, we boarded the tunnel electric bus to get to Kurobe Dam. From the dam, it was all the way up to the peak (almost). Murodo is the highlight of the route. This is the place where you get to see snow covered peak and lake. In spring, there's snow wall nearby Murodo station. From Murodo, we descended to Bijodaira and Tateyama Station to catch the local train back to Toyama. The fare for the entire route is not cheap, but it's worth it. A hike from Bijodaira to Murodo should be interesting, which can be considered in future. View from the tunnel electric bus, onward to Kurobe Dam Arrived at Kurobe Dam View of t...

MyVi

Had got my new MyVi last Friday. Initial consumption was a litre for a 10-km drive. Well, it seems quite costly but this is still early to judge as the engine needs up to 5,000km drive to get optimize (that's what people tell me). Enjoy driving it.