The Mighty Mekong

Nong Khai is the border town for crossing to the Laos capital, Ventiane. Laos being one side of the Mekong River, Thailand the other. The river is huge, very fast flowing - truly mighty.

Our digs are the Baan Sai Thong guest house, a beautiful teak building. The room is huge and immaculately clean, the kind of place you could stay a while. There's a strange choice of tiles on one wall in the bathroom though!

The town is quite big but spread along the River, it's friendly and quiet, particularly where we are staying. Nearby is a huge covered market which seems to be mainly a tourist thing, I saw a stall selling Laos souvenirs, a bit odd but whatever we're not exactly a million miles away. 

Dinner on our first night is riverside and we get a local to order for us. The food is delicious but too much. Lemongrass chicken, a fantastic whole deepfried fish which is filleted served with prawns and a squid salad and a tom yam soup, which has meat and fish in. It was, we thought in our western way, an odd combination of food and we're completely FTB when we finish. The food here really is delicious.

A three and a half hour walk gets us to the Thai Laos Friendship Bridge and back. We walk to the centre of the bridge which is the border between the two and back again. It's quite scary on the bridge, very windy and big lorries are going over quite fast. I'm more than a little relieved to be back on terra firma. 

The Friendship Bridge was designed and paid for by the Australians, it took 29 months to complete and was opened in 1994.

Our last task here is a sunset cruise down the Mekong to the Friendship Bridge and back. We have a couple of Chang beers to help us on our way. We've had a very relaxing time here but it is now time to move on.