“The bridge should open in 2012, but work has been delayed slightly due to project financing that slowed down after the global financial crisis,” the 4th Mekong River Bridge Construction Project deputy head, Thavone Vorabouth told Vientiane Times.

The bridge will span the river between two districts; Chiang Khong in Chiang Rai province, Thailand and Huayxai in Bokeo province, Laos.

If all goes well with the financing the project should open in mid-2013.

Mr Thavone said construction on the Lao side of the bridge in Bokeo province was continuing.

The bridge is part of the Greater Mekong sub-region north-south economic corridor project. It will connect Donsavan village in Huayxai district in Bokeo province with Ing village in Chiang Khong district of Thailand’s Chiang Rai province.

The bridge will facilitate land transport to Kunming in China using the R3A Highway which is about 9 km from the bridge. The distance from Chiang Rai to Kunming is around 1030 km.

However, road conditions on the R3A have deteriorated due to heavy trucks and topography which is very hilly in parts, making the route a challenge for leisure travellers.

The 4th Mekong River Bridge Construction Project is jointly funded by Thailand and China involving a US$44.8 million investment, shared equally. The Lao and Thai governments are each contributing 50% of the construction cost.

When completed, the bridge will be 630 metres long (480 metres over the river) and 14.7 metres wide. The project also includes the construction of 11 km road (5 km on the Thai side and 6 km on Lao side); a common control area and traffic direction change point.

CR5-KT Group of China and Krung Thon Engineering of Thailand are jointly building the bridge and support facilities.

But officials insist they are not interested in turning the mountainous province, bordering Laos, into a transit zone with little or no benefits for local communities.

“We need to focus on gaining a two-night stay from tourists before they move on,” explains Nan Tourism Business Association president, Utai Tantrakul, who acknowledges the highway link to Luang Prabang is going to be a big draw card for Nan in the future.

The overland routes to Laos and Vietnam cover some of the most mountainous territory in the Mekong Region on roads that are often washed away or seriously damaged during the annual monsoon season.

Yet for those who want to push the frontier of their travel experiences it represents an adventure over territory that can be accurately described  as off-the-beaten- track

Since December 2008,   a few hardy tourists have been crossing the Nam Ngeun checkpoint to Laos’ Saiyabouli province and that has opened an alternative route to Luang Prabang using road transport and river boats.

Tourists can now visit Nan and travel across Laos, Vietnam to China and if the trend continues it could turn Nan into a transit point rather than a tourism cul-de-sac.

“In the future, the four countries — Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and China will enjoy a steady flow of international tourists on the route through Nan,” the association president explains, who also notes that an official tourism campaign has still not been established.

“It is tricky and we have to fully understand how we want to promote the gateway position appropriately. We are afraid that we will be like Mukdahan that is now just a transit station for tours to Vietnam.

“Locals gain no benefit at all from tourism. Ideally we hope that tourists heading for Luang Prabang as the final destination will spend a couple of days in Nan. Perhaps we can promote an exchange of tourism between the two points,” Mr Utai explained.

Tour operators in Nan confirmed that October to April, there are now weekly departures to Luang Prabang mainly Thai travellers . There are very few foreign visitors crossing the border at Nan.

According to the Immigration Bureau’s statistics, during 2010, there were 3,401 foreign visitors and 8,344 Thais crossing the border at the Huay Kon checkpoint. The immigration bureau recorded 7,142 Lao border pass holders entering Thailand, while 5,173 Thai border pass holders going out of Thailand.

The distance to Luang Prabang from Nan is around 300 km compared to about 420 from Nong Khai, via Vientiane the Lao capital.

The journey starts with a 138-km road trip to Huay Kon, the border town in Chalerm Prakiat district and travellers continue on a dirt road for 48 km from Nam Nguen, the border town in Saiyabouli on the Lao side to Pak Huay Kan where travellers canl board a boat to Luang Prabang covering 110 km in around five hours.

Mr Utai said it was better to travel by bus and boat as covering the entire trip by road vehicle is very tiring. Road conditions are poor especially during the rainy season. It requires off road pick-ups and sturdy four-wheel drive vehicles to cover the entire distance

Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam is about 410 km northeast of Nan passing Muang Nguen, Pakbeng, Hongsa, Udomxay, Muang Khoa and crossing the border at Sop Hun/Tay Trung checkpoints. Despite, the relatively short distance it takes over 10 hours on unpaved mountain roads. It is a two-day transfer.

To China, the road is better as the journey follows the Asian highway – R3A from Pak Beng to Luang Namtha and crosses the border at Boten to Meng La in China and continue to Jinghong, the capital city of Xishuangbanna autonomous prefecture in Yunnan province.

“We discussed with the Transport Department about providing an international bus services to Saiyabouli, but the problem is the roads are very hilly and unsuitable for standard buses,” Mr Utai added.

Currently, Nakhon Nan Tour provides a daily van service from Den Chai train station in Phrae to Nan that then continues to Huay Kon. On the Lao side, there is a bus service to Pak Huay Kan and taxi boat to Luang Prabang making it feasible although tiring trip for adventure travellers.

The head-on crash happened when a truck slammed into a van packed with passengers in the popular southern beach town of Sihanoukville, popular with international tourists.

“There are 19 dead at the scene,” Sihanoukville traffic police chief Prum Pov told AFP.

He said the truck veered onto the other side of the road before hitting the other vehicle.

“We don’t know why the truck went that way. The truck was going down a slope,” Prum Pov said. “We are investigating the cause of the incident now.”

Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death in Cambodia, killing more than 1,600 people in 2010.

Better roads — allowing people to go faster — and more vehicles contribute heavily to this bloody toll, but bad driving is the main cause behind most accidents, police say.

The highway from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville is the only route for tourists who want to visit the beach resort, which is also the gateway to islands where luxury villas are being built for foreigners.

There are no airline services between the capital and Sihanoukville’s airport although services are being planned.

© 1994-2010 Agence France-Presse

Also, a new Bangkok Airways service,  due to launch 2 December, will transfer tourists from Phuket to Trat province for the first time, a move that could lift business prospects for overland travel to Cambodia.

Tourism planners point to the Mekong Region’s “southern coastal economic corridor”, as the main beneficiary of better transport links that should eventually encourage overland travel through eastern Thailand to link with a coastal route through Cambodia to Vietnam’s Mekong delta region and Ho Chi Minh City.

Today, Chang Island in Trat province is the main magnet drawing visitors to Thailand’s eastern seaboard and the long-term vision is to extend tourism flow to destinations in southern Cambodia once relations between the two countries improve.

Ms Charuwan told TTR Weekly that more overland routes linking Trat, Cambodian and southern Vietnamese towns could be developed to improve overland routes as well as promoting Trat as a convenient gateway in the southern part of the Greater Mekong Sub-Region.

“The last section of  the Sukhumvit Highway,  from Trat to the border, has already improved and this provides convenient access to more coastal resorts on the eastern seaboard,” she explained.

She acknowledges that mainland resorts such as Ban Chuen beach and Sai Kaew beach have been overshadowed by Chang Island and other islands nearby including Kood Island.

There are only small resorts along the Trat coastline with one four-star property, the 44-rooms Centara Chaan Talay Resort and Villas located between Ploy Daeng and Ratchakarun beach.

Most developers prefer the islands and Kood Island is home to one of the country’s most expensive up-scale resorts managed by Six Senses.

The main highway known as “Sukhumvit Road” sweeps around Trat town and continues for another 90 km to Klong Yai district and ends at the Thai-Cambodian border at Ban Had Lek opposite Koh Kong province in Cambodia.

From Ban Had Lek, Cambodia’s Highway No 48 goes southeast to Srey Ambrel, where the road connects with national highway No 4 to Sihanoukville and north to the capital Phnom Penh. From Ban Had Lek to Sihanoukville the distance by road is 230 km and to Phnom Penh 280 km.

From Phnom Penh, it is only about 170 km on national highway No 1 to reach the Bavet-Moc Bai border crossing to the Vietnamese town of Moc Bai and then a short 70 km drive on Highway No 22 to Ho Chi Minh City.

Overall, the distance from Thailand’s Trat province to Ho Chi Minh City via Phnom Penh is just 610 km, similar to the distance from Bangkok to Lampang in North Thailand.

Travellers who prefer to stay close to the coast head for Sihanoukville, a deep-sea port with an airport. The town has various beach resorts and is the ferry terminal to off-shore islands that are being developed as the country’s “Riviera”.

It is also possible to travel from Sihanoukville on a coastal road to Vietnam or connect with a ferry to Vietnam’s biggest island, Phu Quoc.

“Some tour companies are already organising overland trips, but the response is small and frankly since our political disputes, the numbers of tours have declined, she said.

“Exemption of visa rules should have started since January, but the project is in limbo. If travellers could enjoy visa-free travel on this route business would grow for everyone,” said Ms Charuwan.

On the airline scene, Bangkok Airways’ will introduce a new four weekly Trat-Samui-Phuket service, 2 December. This will bring more tourists to the province making it easier to sell tours to southern Cambodia.

“In terms of international tourists, Pattaya is our big brother on the eastern seaboard and  our main tourism pipeline. Now Bangkok Airways’ service will allow us to tap travellers who make Phuket their first stop in Thailand.”

According to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, there were 176,241 overnight stays at accommodation units in Trat from January to June this year; of which, 94,728 were Thais and 81,513 foreigners. This was an average decrease of 34.24% over the same period in 2009 (-57.59%, Thais and +82.75% foreigners). At the end of June this year, the province had 236 accommodation establishment supplying 7,228 rooms.

The company announced, earlier this month, that it was ready to start a service once the third Mekong bridge, 6 km north of Nakhon Phanom, opens late next year. However, days after the announcement the company admitted it faced opposition from the Ministry of Transport.

Thai Phakbhum Engineering owner, Suraphong Prasert, gained the headlines in Thai and Vietnamese newspapers, earlier this month, when he elaborated on a plan to run international bus services from Nakhon Phanom passing through Laos’ central Khammouane province to Vietnam’s northern coastal province of Quang Binh.

The bus service was to have a start-up fare of Bt500 per person per sector. He said the service would boost trade as well as tourism between the three countries.

He gained approval from Laotian and Vietnamese authorities, but admitted his plan collapsed when the Thai Ministry of Transport told him that such services were reserved for state enterprises.

To get around that snag, he could register a company in Laos and operate an international bus service from a base across the river from Nakhon Phanom.

“I am not that desperate to start this business”, he concluded. “But in the long run it will benefit tourism to have a reliable bus service linking all three countries.”

The road route from Nakhon Phanom through Khammouane province using Laos’ Highway No 12 is the shortest route to Vietnam. From the Thai-Lao border to the Lao-Vietnamese border the distance is 140 km. However, it is still another 180 km from the border to Quang Binh’s major city, Dong Hoi.

Quang Binh has over 100 km of coastline and is home to Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For trade, Quang Binh is an important sea port close to southern China cities — Haikou, Sanya, Nanning and Guangzhou.

So far, the Thai government Transport Company runs international bus services between Thailand’s northeastern provinces and Laos — Nakhon Ratchasima, Khon Kaen, Udon Thani to Vientiane; Ubon Ratcha Thani to Pakse and Mukdahan to Savannakhet.

The company surveyed other potential routes: Bangkok-Ubon Ratchathani-Pakse; Nongkhai-Vientiane-Vangvieng; Udon Thani-Vientiane-Vangvieng-Luang Prabang and Nan-Huaykrone-Pakbeng-Udomxay.

The third friendship bridge across the Mekong River between Nakhon Phanom province (Thailand) and Kham Muon (Laos) is under construction at a cost of Bt1.8 billion, funded solely by the Thai Government. It will be  ready in mid-2011 and authorities of the two countries, as well as Vietnam, will streamline roads and other systems to facilitate transportation and tourism across all three borders.

HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn will officially declare the bridge open, 11 November, 2011.

Tourism Authority of Thailand and Yunnan Provincial Tourism Administration accelerated tourism promotion after the R3A overland route that connects Thailand, via Laos to Yunnan province was opened last year.

Last month, the construction of a bridge across the Mekong River at Chiang Khong and Huay Xai in Laos was approved. It is the last missing link in the highway to China. The bridge will open in late 2013 at a site just 3 km south of the Chiang Khong. It will be the Fourth Mekong Friendship Bridge. Others are located at Nong Khai, Mukdahan and Nakhon Phanom (due to open in 2012.)

TAT confirmed it would extend tourism cooperation after signing off on an agreement with the YPTA in Bangkok, yesterday. YPTA was on a sales mission to Bangkok and showcased its tourism products at the recent Thai International Travel Fair, 25 to 28 February.

“We will set up a working committee to manage issues related to travel promotions between the two countries,” said TAT deputy governor, international marketing (East Asia and South Pacific), Sansern Ngaorungsi.

He said the committee would share information and assist each other in tourism marketing. A MOU will be drafted soon to make the commitment official.

TAT also hopes cooperation will pave gthe way for preparations for the opening of the fourth Mekong Friendship Bridge (Chiang Khong- Huay Xai) which is expected to be completed in 2013.

TAT is supporting an overland caravan of 40 tourism related companies from the Northern Thailand to Chiang Rung and Kunming, from 13 to 19 March. They will hold table-top sales and meetings with government tourism units to follow up on tourism promotional issues.

According to TAT’s East Asia market division director, Euamporn Jiragalwisul, there are numerous problems that discourage overland travel on the R3A route.

They include: rules that  forbid right-hand drive cars; road signs  in Chinese language only; a lack of gasoline stations and rest areas on R3A;  visa issues and duplication of border checkpoint procedures.