Houay Xai

We left our expensive digs and shortly arrived in Chiang Saen. The town was quite interesting with remains of brick walls and some ruined temples scattered around. We were keen to arrive at the Mekong port of Chiang Kong. There we saw sacks of goods being loaded onto ships that appeared be heading upstream towards China. After a short visit of one of ruined temples we continued on the road. Along the way from Chiang Saen to Chiang Kong we didn't see any river traffic.
Shortly after Chiang Saen we left the main road which was shorter as it cut across a loop that the river had made. As a consequence we had a quieter and flatter route.
We stopped for lunch in a beautiful spot about 20km North of Chiang Kong. It was a bit of an oasis in the middle of no-where. On the sign outside it was marked as being affiliated with Hosteling International but I imagine that not too many backpackers stayed there, though the price for a bungalow overlooking the Mekong was no more than a bed in a dorm in Amsterdam it was a well above the normal Thai guesthouse price.
At Chiang Kong there was an official crossing into Laos. On the other side of the river slow boats started for a 2-day cruise downstream to Luang Prabang. We'd read that getting across the border and onto one of these boats would be challenging and so were quite glad that we arrived in time to get across to Laos in the afternoon. The border formality was pretty simple. Getting a visa on arrival was very simple, though being in the low seaon undoubtably helped. Once through to the Laoation side, the town of Houay Xai, we found a room at the Friendship guesthouse, which was the first listed in a Lonely Planet of some travellers that we met at the border.
First impressions of Laos or least of a Laoation border town was that it was poorer, that travelling there was a bit more raw and basic. We wandered up to a temple and chatted with a couple of friendly English speaking monks then wondered into town to introduce ourselves to street food Lao-style and some famous Beer Lao. The fiid was good, less polished but better in quantity than we had been served in Thailand. The sticky rice was something new. We later read that one eats it with ones fingers (of the right hand) which makes sense as using chopsticks would be impossible and the cutlery that was had simply wasn't strong enough to make much of an impression into it.
After walking up and down the main street of Houay Xai we went back to our hostel and got tickets for the boat. The price for which we later realised we mightily over paid. This hurt a little but not much as the overcharge was not much.
The town was quite loud in the night and we could only sleep thanks to ear plugs.
71kms - 4 hr 9 min - avg 17.1 km/hr