Journey from Thailand to Laos

My journey to Laos was off to great start. I conked out in the back of the van for most of the ride, with the occasional backpack falling on me. We stopped at the Wat Rong Khun (also known as the White Temple) in Chiang Rai which was weird. I can only describe it as a modern, avant-garde wat. It was pure white, with a sea of hands, skulls hanging from trees and pictures of Micheal Jackson and Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, due to my lack of sleep, my zombie-self didn't notice the murals of Micheal, Osama, and President Bush. It was a cool wat, but I was too pooped to care. "Wat-ever" is the perfect way to describe my mood at that point, a wonderful phrase coined by my new German friend, Tim.

We FINALLY made it to Chiang Khong, a sleepy town on the shores of the Mekong River. We spent the night at the Boom House which had a stunning view; you could see the river, people going along their daily lives, and across the river, was Laos! Tim and I sat on the patio, drank cold Chang beer, and drowned ourselves in the beautiful sunset that graced the two neighboring countries. I would also like to note, the room I slept in was bigger than my apartment in Korea, AND it had a full sized bed. I hadn't slept in a full sized bed since America. I rolled across the bed until I got dizzy.

My feet, Chiang Khong, Thailand, the Mekong River, and Huay Xai, Laos on the other side! 

We woke up the next morning and trucked it over to another area on the riverside, then walked over to the immigration office. I booked the entire package (ride from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong, bed in Chiang Khong, 2 day boat to Luang Prabang, and a couple meals) from my hostel in Chiang Mai. It probably would have been cheaper if I booked everything separately on my own, but it was so much easier with the boat and visa situation to book it as a package, so I would recommend doing that. The process of exiting Thailand and entering Laos was simple and disorganized. The immigration offices in both countries were just little buildings with window booths. Here's how it went down: went to immigration office (window), got exit stamp from Thailand, took tiny boat across river to Huay Xai, got Lao Visa sorted (for this, you fill out a form, give the window money, leave your passport, wait around for them to holler your name), then we went to another area of Huay Xai along the river, purchased beer and food for the journey, and boarded our boat.

Informative signs for the Immigration 'office'

An attractive picture of me on the boat on the way to Huay Xai

Immigration 'office' in Huay Xai, Laos

The journey begins.

My 26 Hours in Chang Mai Part 2: Night Out on the Town

Chang Mai is sick. I will definitely be back. Delicious food, interesting scents, amazing sites, and suspicious lady boys. 26 hours was not enough time in Chang Mai.

At the Burmese Restaurant (sorry it's blurry)

Our group from the day trek met up again at a delicious Burmese restaurant (which was rightfully called 'Burmese Restaurant'). The food was tasty and spicy and I loved it. Afterwards we hit up the corner 7-Eleven to pick up some beer as we moseyed around Chiang Mai. We eventually stopped at a random bar in the corner. The random bar was literally an open space in the corner of a building. It had a pool table and a nice selection of cassette tapes where we can pick our own songs to play. We stayed there for a bit, hanging out and playing pool, and making our own soundtrack for the night with cassette tapes. If my memory serves me right, Elton John may or may not have been serenading us for some time.

Party at the 7-eleven

After the random corner bar we went to some club that a Thai man recommended to one of our friends, so we had our tuk tuk drivers race to the next place. My tuk tuk won. The club was weird. It was all foreign men and Thai women who approached them as they entered. It may or may not have been a club for Thai prostitutes to hang out, but regardless it was really weird and creepy. We stayed there for one beer then headed over to the reggae bar area. We stayed at these two bars/clubs that were right across the road from each other and they were much more fun. Great music and a good time dancing. Later in the night (about 1:00 am) I left my group and went to another bar with my new three friends from Holland. We went to a popular bar called Spice Club. It stays open really late and essentially it's a place for Thai women to go to meet foreign men and a place for foreign men to go to meet Thai women. It was incredibly creepy, yet I was incredibly entertained. Luckily, I had my nice Dutch escorts keeping me safe from creepy foreign men who thought I was a Thai woman.

Uh-oh. Tequila time.

I finally headed home at about 7:00 am. Walking through the streets of Chang Mai back to my hostel, watching monks walk through the streets, and the people of Chang Mai preparing for the day was a really cool thing to see. I finally found my hostel, and the guys from the day trek who I was with last night were still up drinking, and they just got home as well. We all hung out for a bit until it was time pack up and prepare for my 8 hour drive then 2 day boat ride to Laos that left at 10:00 am. This was the third night of 2012, and of those three nights, this was my second all nighter. I think that my trip was off to a memorable start, and 2012 was definitely starting off with bang.

Look out Laos...

My 26 Hours in Chang Mai Part 1: Day Trek

Let me start off my saying that my day/night in Chang Mai was probably one of my favorite days/nights from my trip. I will definitely be back to Chang Mai at some point in my life.

My first train ride was miserable. I felt like I was on a bus driving over a street with potholes, and I was freezing, and constantly felt like the train was going to derail, and I didn't sleep at all during the 13 hour train ride. Nonetheless, it was an experience.

I arrived in the train station. Lost and confused. "Lost girl" look didn't really help. A Thai man laughed at me when I asked for a map. Followed some other foreigners into a truck and ended up at the Little Bird Guesthouse. Met Yuto (from Japan, currently studying in Australia), who coincidentally was sitting next to me on the train, got a room together and met two Canadians who were on the same train as us. After getting our rooms, we all immediately booked a trek for the day which gave us about 45 minutes to get settled and get ready for the day.

The whole gang

The trek was AWESOME. Mainly we had such a great group so no matter what we did, the day would have been awesome regardless. I even met two guys who had just finished teaching in Korea! First we went to an elephant farm where we rode elephants, but apparently my elephant was taken out of retirement for the day so she was rather stubborn and we didn't really go anywhere. We tried singing songs for her to move, she seemed to really enjoy "Edelweiss".

In the jungle

Next we went on a bamboo rafting trip down the river, It was really interesting to see the Thai people living on the side of the river, and seeing how they go about their daily lives. To make this short, I'll summarize the rest: we went on an hour trek through the jungle which was beautiful! The drive up was an experience, there were many close encounters with our van going over huge bumps in the road right at the edge of the mountain. We hiked about an hour though the jungle and came across a waterfall that you could swim in and where the boys in our trek decided to jump off the waterfall.

Bridge over river

Girls of the Long Neck Tribe

Our trek ended at a long neck village. It was really interesting, but really weird. The lock neck village isn't a real village, it's basically a tourist trap set up by tour companies and not the people themselves. I've heard that at some villages the people are basically imprisoned, but the one we went to, it was a tourist trap but the people seemed to be very well off, we speculated that the people probably get some commission. The long neck village wasn't necessarily only people of the long neck tribe,  there were also people from other tribes, refugee tribes from what I understood.

Chaz, Honey our wonderful tour guide, and me

At the end of the trek, we all decided to meet up later for a night out on the town, which gave us about an hour to get ready...