Chiang Mai/Slowboat to Laos

I left Bangkok for Chiang Mai on an overnight train. Chiang Mai is in the mountains of Northern Thailand, near the infamous "Golden Triangle" near the borders of Burma and Laos. Its becoming more apparent that my travel legs are weakening a bit. When I was in Europe, I frequently took overnight trains, and upon arrival I would check into the hostel, drop off my bags and immediately hit the city sites. Now it takes me a day or two to get the wind back in my sails. This might also have something to do with the heat. Surrounded by rainforrest, it's easily 100 degrees everyday with 100% humidity. That forced me to trade in some vanity for comfort, and I shaved my hair off ... which along with my collection of black t-shirts I've collected along my journey has given me a tattoo-less Henry Rollins look (with a much less impressive physique).

Chaing Mai was a pleasant but uneventful stay. The guesthouse I stayed in was owned and run by two ex-pat Americans, who were raised in San Diego and lived in Hawaii in their previous lives, who were very hospitable and made me feel right at home. Chaing Mai, as most SE Asia travel hotspots seem to be, is overrun by Western Backpackers, and most of my stay was spent in the local taverns and the hotel patio meeting new friends from around the world and swapping travel stories. Most of the travelers are college students, mostly from UK Germany & Australia, on Summer holiday, traveling around SE Asia for 2 months before heading back to school. I'm given instant travelers' credibility given the length of my trip and the fact that I went to India ... which I frequently lie about and describe as "Ahhhmmmazzzinnnng". Occasionally I'll run into someone in their late 20's/early 30's and instantly leach onto them, as Im getting tired of backpackers ... so much so that I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing another Bob Marley song and die a happy man. The town also has a nice night market full of local arts of crafts, so I did a little shopping and shipped some stuff home....I was told estimated time of arrival is 3-4 months, so I'll probably make it home before the package does. There were other tourist trap trips, like visiting a local indigenous hill tribe villages, but the brochures seemed off-putting as tourists lined up to take pictures of the tribes-people and treating the villages as human zoos, so I declined. I rested up, ate well, stocked up on paper back books and prepared for my trip to Laos.

Laos is reached by airplane (twin prop planes, no thank you). A 6 hour speed boat down the Mekong River, which require helmets, often hit submerged rocks, and cause numerous fatalities (again, no thank you), or a 2 day slow boat ride down the Mekong. I have plenty of time to kill, so I chose the most safe option of the slow boat. I taxi via cramped minivan with 7 other backpackers to the Thailand/Laos border where we stayed for the night in a provided guesthouse. The next morning we pass through Thailand/Laos border and customs and are packed like sardines into the slowboat, to begin the first day of the boatride ... a mere 6 hours on the boat ... to a small stop off town of Pak Beng, a town which really serves no other purpose other than for tourists to spend the night at as a stop off point to the destination town of Luang Prabang. The second day was a little bit longer ... roughly 8 hours ... and provided a few scares as the over-packed boat began to lean over to one side on occasion. But overall the boat ride was kind enjoyable, with plenty of time for people to spark up conversations, read or stare off at the amazing scenery.

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