Search hotels in Ban Houayxay

If your used to the Hilton its not for you. If you are ok with clean and close to local environment, it's good. Its not fancy. Its clean. The concierge is attentive. And there are nice local walks. And a cement walkway just down the the same street the hotel is on. That goes along the river. No one was on it. I really enjoyed it. I stayed 2 nights. I put the do not disturb sign on my door. No one bothered my room. The locals smiled. And were friendly. Its a small street town. Not a tourist corporate town. A local vendor town. If your looking for hustle and bustle its not here. The Cafe next door did have activity until around 8pm. The Hotel was not far from the friendship bridge. And Tuk Tuks were available apon arrival and took me straight to the hotel. They knew where it was. There was several Tuk Tuks waiting every morning to take you back to the Thai immigration port. 200 baht.

We really enjoyed walking up to the fort built in 1900. The coffee, view of the town and Mekong river were excellent. The food at the various restaurants was very tasty. We met some locals; who took us to the morning market.

Very pleased we decided to stay here rather than going onto Chiang Rai after a second long day on the slow boat. One-horse town but with several good little restaurants all within a couple of minutes walk from where we stayed. Staying here also meant that crossing the border the following morning was very easy as noone was around.

As far as I know, the only reason to travel to Ban Houayxay as a tourist is because you are taking the slow boat to Luang Prabang from there. The town is getting some construction upgrades, so lots of dust. It looks like it could be a cool place to spend a day or more, but I recommend you not do it on a Sunday. Most everything was closed, and it was difficult finding a place where we wanted to eat a nice meal. And because they know you are tourists and are pretty much stuck there, prices are a bit high. If you didn't already purchase your boat ticket package, I recommend shopping around a bit. We got ours at our hotel, including a tuktuk ride. We could have paid a tiny bit less at the currency exchange place, but either way was much less expensive than booking through agencies in ChiangMai/ChiangRai. It's easy enough to figure out the rest on your own. Pro-tip: if you are going to take the slow-boat (and you most likely are), I recommend getting there early by tuktuk (way too far to walk- it's not where Google maps makes you think it is). You can buy food and beer at the drop-off, but don't dawdle around there. Get your ticket and walk down to the boat as soon as you can, because even though your ticket has a seat number, it's sit where you want- first come, first served. Make sure you don't have something you need for your time on the boat in your big backpack, because that is getting stowed out of reach. Sit nearer the front of the boat for less engine noise, but choose your seats carefully. Make sure they recline if that's important to you. The seats are basically minivan seats that have been nailed to wood skids and placed on the boat. So they are fairly comfortable.

You have to go to Ban Houayxay if you want to do the Gibbon Experience (highly recommended!). From my point of view it's the only reason to visit this place. I think getting decent accommodation is hard to find as it's such a transient place given it's a border town.