Tours to Huay Xai
Located in Bokeo province, the Lao side of the Golden Triangle, Huay Xai is the border town with Thailand; the city is busy and prosperous with gold panning and digging. Huay Xai is a popular border crossing between Laos and Chiang Khong in Thailand, the only one in the north.
Once a big opium producing centre for the Americans during the war, the town itself is now of interest only as a border crossing point. It has a number of guesthouses and restaurants which adequately cater to tourists' tastes.
Fort Carnot on the hill, which was built to house the French Foreign Legion, is now a Lao Army barracks and visitors are not welcome, while there is a wat in the centre of town which is nice enough but only worth a visit if one is particularly curious about temples.
A couple of travel agencies in town offer day trips visiting local ethnic minority villages. Most people just stay overnight and move on.
Nowadays Huay Xai is a bustling riverside town where the biggest commercial district is cent red around the vehicle and passenger ferry landings for boats to Chiang Khong.
Many new shop houses have been constructed along the main street, which curves along the base of a hill overlooking the river.
A set of naga stairs ascends this hillside to Wat Jom Khao Manilat, a thriving temple that overlooks the town and river. Constructed in 1880, the teak Shan-style temple houses a 1458 stele donated by a former Chiang Khong prince.
Many of the brightly coloured jataka paintings that decorate the exterior of the sim were sponsored
by Lao refugees who had been
repatriated from the US.
French-built, high-walled Fort Cannot, atop an adjacent hill and clearly visible from the Thai side of the Mekong, is occupied by Lao troops and off limits to visitors
Huay Xai's main morning market, Talat Muang Bokeo Huay Xai, or simply Talat Sao, is in the southern part of town.
This is also the main road transport depot. For most ferry arrivals from Chiang Khong, Huay Xai is just a stopover before boarding a boat south-east.
Worldtravel4indians.com provides information on Tours to Huay Xai and different tours around Laos.
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