TrekPhongsali.com

Sleeping

Yu Houa Guest House
Tel: 210186 – Room: US$3 – 5
This friendly Phu Noi-owned guesthouse near the bus terminal has plain but clean rooms. Those on the top floor have cold-water showers and Western toilets and those on the low levels share squat toilet bathrooms.

Sengsaly Guest House
Tel: 210165 – Room: US$3- 5
This small and simple guesthouse has rudimentary rooms with mosquito nets an attached bathrooms containing squat toile and scoop nientary Lao tea and the beds are dressed in warm covers.

Phongsali Hotel
Tel: 412042 - Room with/without bathroom US$3 – 5
The Chinese-bunt Phongsali Hotel, in a centrally located four-storey building, has austere but bright rooms owing to large windows - the upper storey rooms afford decent views. Most rooms have three beds and the most expensive have hot water. The whole place could do with a scrubbing, but it’s tidy. The staff are indifferent though.

Viphaphone Hotel
Tel: 210111 – Room: US$6)
The three- storey Viphaphone offers good value with spacious sunny rooms packing Western-style bathrooms and glorious hot-water showers. They make a good stab at furnishing the rooms with coffee tables, wardrobes and even hat stands. Try to get a corner room for ISO-degree views of the street below from the sizable windows.

HAT SA
If you get stuck in Hat Sa, a stopover for visitors heading to Phongsali via boat, Wanna Guesthouse (US$3) has three-bed rooms with floor mattresses and mosquito nets above a family home.

Eating

Yu Houa Guest House restaurant
Tel: 210186 - Meals US$0.50 – 2 – Open: Breakfast, lunch & dinner
The ground floor of this guesthouse is devoted to an airy restaurant serving filling and cheap fare. The menu has excellent Lao-Yunnan dishes and a modicum of stodgy Western fare.

Phongsali Hotel
Tel: 412042 - Meals US$1 - 2.50 – Open: lunch & dinner
The restaurant here has a reasonable menu with ubiquitous “tom yam” and stir-fries, plus a good selection of regional specialties like sweet sausage. You can choose between Beerlao and Beer China to wash it all down. It’s a sunny space during the day, although you have to share the ambience with Chinese soap operas on the TV. At night it thuds out lurid pop and if you join the modest crowd you’re sure to be the main event.

Phou Fa Hotel
Tel: 412057 - Meals US$1.50-2.50 – Open: dinner
This reformed army barracks once moonlighted as a hotel but all that remains now is a concrete bunker of a bar and restaurant. The aesthetics are a little odd, but the fireplace keeps things cosy and the food is good. The menu offers stir fries for the tame and authentic Lao dishes for the adventurous

There are several noodle shops on the main street through town towards the market. Chinese beer is cheap all over town, while Beerlao is relatively expensive. The local lao-lao is tinted green with herbs and is quite a smooth tipple. Good Chinese-style tea is also available.