While not a major destination for the modern tourist, we included Chiang Khong on this trip in order to board a traditional river boat for a 2-day trip to Luang Prabang.  The Lao city of Huay Xai, the debarkation point for our cruise is just across the river so we needed to spend at least one-night in chiang Khong or Huay Xai and we chose Chiang Khong.

Historically, with the Mekong River as the dividing line, Chiang Khong has been a trading center between the northern Thai hill tribes and Lao with an emphasis on the beautiful textiles produced in this region like the antique clothing shown above that are on display at the Lue Lai Kham Museum in Chiang Khong city..

If you have the desire to be able to tell friends that you have “been to” Myanmar, the overland border crossing in the area known as the Golden Triangle is roughly an hour and 45 minutes away but there really is not a lot to see there and quite a ways from the places most travelers want to visit in the country.

We booked a car and driver through our (Chiang Rai) PAH hotel front desk for our transfer to Chiang Khong and we were happy to see that we had a different driver than the one we had used for our day trip a couple days earlier. With the help of another (than the main desk agent) hotel employee we had done a much better job of explaining what we were looking for on the journey in terms of stops on the way to our next destination.

Without stops the drive should have been roughly 2-hours hotel to hotel but we asked for a first stop in the village of Baan Haad Bai บ้านหาดบ้าย, which is also known as Ban Hat Bai. It is located on the banks of the Mekong River about 15 miles north of Chiang Khong on the road between Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong.

We were looking for the local weaving co-operative and since the main industry there is weaving; our driver had no problem getting directions to “find the ladies that are making textiles” once we arrived in the town.

The ladies at the weaving center co-operative couldn’t have been nicer and each piece in the large collection of textiles presented for sale was beautiful and skillfully made. In actual fact, the options were a bit overwhelming.

This part of Thailand has a large population of people from the Thai Lue (or Ti Lu) tribe and the patterns at the center were predominately in that tradition.

While several of the ladies freely offered ample advice they tolerated our agonizing on just which pieces to pick. We played the negotiation game very softly and ended up paying very close to the original asking price for multiple pieces.

The center is a modern building with clean tile floors and unbelievable views of the Mekong River just below the village.

After we departed the co-op; no more than a block away we came to a house where a lady was weaving under a covered patio off the front of her house so we stopped to have a look.

She was working on an intricate and beautiful Ti Lu pattern requiring what looked like a hundred different threads; each picked and passed under a few threads of the warp one at a time.

As we admired her work an older lady approached and introduced herself as the 91 year old aunt of the weaver and a master weaver in her own right and the person who had set up the pattern for this particular piece. She was rightly proud of her work and showed us some pamphlets promoting something (we don’t know what) with her picture a part of it.

By the time we left our few moments with the master and her niece everyone was laughing and hugging as we bid farewell.

Our route from the village to Chiang Khong mostly closely followed the Mekong River. There were some curves and climbs but we were impressed with the quality of the road. We drove through the town and past the hotel on our way to our second planned stop of the day; the Lue Lai Kham Museum

This is a nice little museum in an ancient 2-level house that we had completely to ourselves. Not only were there no other visitors, other than at the café out back of the house, we didn’t encounter any other staff. In fact, we ended up having to turn on the lights as we would enter different rooms. The same switches also turned on traditional music.

Most of the exhibits include antique clothing and a few other artifacts of the different hill tribes of the region.

Behind the old house was an absolutely gorgeous setting for a little café with patio seating. The specialty of the house is a sweet iced tea and milk. We tried one but found it too sweet for our taste and ended up with water but the view from the deck was worth the price.

It was now lunch time so on the way to the hotel our driver stopped at a little non-descript restaurant beside the road. He didn’t really know the place but had noticed a lot of people eating there. The two sets of prices on the menu shown in this picture reflect the price for each dish without and then with a fried egg. We had a rice noodle and pork soup and a Penang Gai with fried egg for about $3 USD total and it was delicious.

From there it was only a few blocks to The Baan Sakuna Hotel, our home for the night in Chiang Khong. The cruise operator had suggested the hotel and his van would pick us up there the next morning for our transfer to the border station for entry into Lao and then on to the river port.

The Baan Sakuna is an absolutely beautiful brand new hotel not far off the river. It was by far the nicest hotel in terms of the room and room amenities that we stayed in over the entire trip. It featured very nice fixtures from the door hardware to the bathrooms and electronics.

We booked the King Suite and it came with a large King bedroom, another large sitting room, 2 TVs and 2 bathrooms! The bed was extremely comfortable and the A/C featured mini-splits in both rooms. All for a total price of $59.31 USD including a very nice breakfast!

We decided to keep it simple and enjoyed a very nice dinner that night at the hotel. Since we like spicy food, we ordered the green curry “Thai Hot”, which normally is just fine for us but on this night it was about 1 click too much.

Our van to the port was scheduled to arrive at 7:45 AM the next morning so we turned in early to get a good night’s sleep.