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After many hours on boats and buses in the last 3 days (... about 32 hours), I have finally made it to the big city of Chang Mai in Northern Thailand. It really is big. I've heard the population is around 1 million, but I doubt anyone really even knows. Laos was great, but it's also really nice to be back in this country where everything is at least a little bit on schedule. In Laos you just can't make plans specific to the hour, because your efforts will always result in frustrated failure. I went to bed in Luang Prabang on Wednesday intending to spend another couple days in the city, but I woke up on Thursday and just felt the urge to move on. I took a tuk tuk down to the pier and got on a long, skinny, ancient riverboat for a 2 day trip to Thailand.
We were going upstream, and spent about 11 hours a day on the vessel. I wasn't thinking ahead that first morning, so all I had to eat and drink was bread and water. The Jesus diet. I read two books. It's difficult to see this specific type on jungle without
occasionally picturing napalm bursting all over, so thank you Apocolypse Now. It didn't help that one of the books happened to be about the fire bombing of Dresden in WWII. For the entire duration of the trip, not once did the riverbank consist of anything other than immediate mountains and cliffs. There was literally not one flat plain to be seen, right up until we were along the Thai border. The boat stopped 7 or 8 times a day at tiny villages along the river to drop off and pick up passengers and cargo. I spent a good part of the tip sitting on the roof, or with my feet hanging off of the side. It was a very relaxing journey, and a good way to meet people. Four of us have been traveling in a group since then, but I believe we will split up tomorrow. I guess it's time for some final impressions of Laos: Soooo cheap; my budget is $40 a day, but I'm averaging less than $25. Very very friendly for the most part. All of the Lao men seem to shave every day, but NONE of them shave moles on their faces and the several
4 inch long hairs growing out must be a thing of pride. All Lao people litter off of buses and boats like crazy. And finally, it's just a very very isolated and undeveloped country.
We all arrived in Chang Mai yesterday evening (me, Irish guy, and two Swiss guys) and got a couple double rooms. We're each paying about two dollars a night for lodging. A girl from Belgium and a girl from New York joined our group and we went out to eat and then explored the local bars. We first went to the "Reggea area," which consisted of several bars in close proximity with live bands. It was extremely strange because these bands were all Thai people, but they were playing American rock covers, and they were doing so very well. Nirvana, Pink Floyd, CCR, Oasis... it was just strangely good. And the pool tables are actually free here. Next we all got a taxi to the Rooftop bar. It was great, but just... strange. There was trance music playing and big projection screens showing the most random things- slowly zooming in on 3 middle-aged Thai men standing in the coulds. Cats in fish tanks.......... much more
that don't remember. We got very very lost on the way home, but finally made it around 5 am.
My current plan is to go to the train station later today and book tickets for a Monday trip down to Bangkok for myself and the girl from Belgium. From there we'll either take a train or a bus down to Chumpon, and then a boat out to some islands. That will be about a 30 hour trip in all. I'll have about 4 weeks to island hop. I think I'm actually going to do a 4 day dive course early on, and then dive several times after that. It's about $200 for the course, and that includes meals and lodging, so it's pretty hard to pass up.
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Shawna
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Beautiful!
Your photographs are beautiful. Its great that you hand the camera off to someone else every once and awhile. That way we know it's really you. Thank you for all the details you've included in your blog. I love that you just go wherever your mood takes you. So different from the pace back home.