Visaran in Chiang Khong in Laos over the new bridge (not by boat)

Just in case, who will go to make a visa through Chiang Khong, at the beginning of 2014 (or earlier) a bridge was built across the river, especially for entering Laos, and the visa is carried out in a new place. The previous boat crossing (as explained by the border guard at the post) is closed to foreign citizens. When driving from Chiang Rai, about 8 km before the previous crossing, there will be a big turn to the right. Special buses run at the border for crossing the border.

If you go from Chiang Rai, then from the station there is a bus to Chiang Khong. Next, you will need to change to a rickshaw and get to the checkpoint, unfortunately, I don’t know where the city bus stops, but the remaining distance should not exceed 5-8 km. My wife and I rode a motorbike. From Chiang Rai, drive about 2 hours with two stops for 10 minutes. At the checkpoint itself, after leaving Thailand, a special bus approaches, which carries it across the river to the checkpoint in Laos. After passing through customs control, we entered Laos, then turned around and drove back to Thailand according to the reverse scheme. At first we planned to go to Laos for a day walk, left Chiang Rai early, but due to the delay in finding the right checkpoint (they thought we had to go by boat, as it is written on all sites), there was little time left and we had to go back to Chiang Rai, yes and it turned out that after crossing the border of Laos, you still had to go by another bus or rickshaw, as we were told 10 km to the city itself. I don't remember the amount now, but it definitely exceeded the tariffs for city taxis and tuk-tuks for similar distances.

Thanks to our reader Mikhail for the information provided.

In Chiang Rai we stayed at an inexpensive guesthouse, if you are going to look for a hotel in Chiang Rai, you can book it on RoomGuru, it is a very convenient service for finding accommodation. There you can also see housing in Chiang Khong.