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Published: October 26th 2006
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So we are back in Thailand with the minimal possible effort (as is true of most things in Thailand). We crossed the Friendship Bridge (across the mighty Mekong) on Monday morning from Vientiane to Nong Khai.
The differences are startling and visible immediately, not surprising when you look at the 2006 to date GDP per capita either side of the border; Laos=US$481, Thailand=US$2930 (incidently Ireland now stands at US$53,090??? )
a) We went back to driving on the right side of the road (meaning the lefthand side of the road).
b) There are roads and I mean highways and roads better than what we have in Ireland.
c) There were more ATMs on one street in Nong Khai (a provincial frontier town in Thailand) than there were in the whole of Laos.
d) No more Beer Lao...the major beer in Thailand is Chang (which from our last dabbling in Thailand we discovered produces a ghastly "Changover". I think a dry period is in order.
e) A return of the yellow t-shirts. (Yellow is the Kings colour and the vast majority of the population wear yellow tshirts every day)
f) Sadly also came a return to fat Western old men
with beautiful young Thai girls.
While Ed was looking forward to a new (well nearly new) country again, I had found the tourist resort that is Southern Thailand and Bangkok a little jaded and I wasn't too bothered about the 2 weeks we had to spend up North. I was wrong!
Due to a slightly hungover state (our farewell to Beer Lao) we couldn't make it any further than Nong Khai on Monday and instead hired bikes (to call them that is really an exageration) and cycled to the famed Statue Park, Sala Kaew Ku. This is the more elaborate and younger park to that which we had seen almost directly across the Mekong in Laos. We got seriously lost on route despite my excellent map reading skills and sense of direction (it was the maps fault) and had to be helped by an angel like icecream lady (or lollypop lady as Ed prefers) who appeared on her scooter and side car from out of nowhere and led us back onto the correct path. We repaid her kindness by buying two toxic looking lols. We were relieved and sweaty when we finally found the park but had fun
picking out our new favourite statues.
Tuesday morning we got on the road early in the direction of Chiang Khan. The Thai people here are so different from down South and love to help and chat to us, as soon as we reached the bus station we had five helpers all directing us to the correct bus stop and generally taking care of us. We waited nearly an hour for our bus and when it arrived it was a margarine tub with wooden benches...Ed and I barely fitted onto the seat together. The 4 1/2 hour journey followed along the Mekong with banana trees on either side of the road and a whole load of bushes which had been carved into various animal shapes. We arrived in Pak Chom with aching bums (again) and investigated where we could catch a Songthaew the remaining hour to Chiang Khan. Our bus driver who at this stage was drinking a can of Chang??? said there was none and offered to drop us to a guesthouse. We checked it out but it was really grim so we returned to the bus station in search of other options. We eventually decided on another Songthaew
going to Loei (the provincial capital). Now our main reason for wanting to visit Chiang Khan was that our guidebook said it had the best guesthouse in all Thailand, we had been travelling two days in that general direction (bear in mind this was only about 200Kms away) we were beginning to wonder if a guesthouse could really be worth all this effort.
I am delighted to say the answer was yes. We had a brief wander around Loei (nothing much to report) and the next morning got on another Songthaew to Chiang Khan. A little girl befriended me and deserted her mother to sit beside me. The previous day on the bus a baby had oogled Ed for 4 hours solid to the amusement of everyone on the bus... he is such a smoothie, a real hit with the kiddies! Anyway I digress...Chiang Khan is a sleepy little town on the Mekong and the guesthouse lives up to its billing. We are the only people staying and have a room about the size of our entire flat in Lansdowne. It looks out on three sides at the Mekong and oozes style and calm. The people are so happy
and trusting, everyone wants to talk to us and we are finally getting to see where the land of smiles truly smiles. Today we hired bikes and are having fun peddaling around while everyone waves and shouts at the crazy Farang as they go by.
We've planned some sort of route to bring us through to the 9th November when we fly from Chiang Mai, if its all as good as this I think we will be very sad to leave.
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