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Published: December 13th 2009
It is 12 years since we have been to Thailand and maybe we have a rosy coloured view of how nice it and its people are. We taxied to a stop in our beautiful and massive Airbus A380 and the man driving the catering truck raised it to our level. He saw us both through the window and gave out a beaming smile and waved. Welcome back to Thailand.
Ninety minutes to clear Immigration and we were soon on our short flight to Chiang Mai. Our hotel was fantastic and only £28 per night. We were soon out having a snack and cheap beer with friendly Thais.
Chiang Mai itself does not have much to commend it, no fabulous temples or like, however, it has some charm and we enjoyed it. The main reason for being here though, is to go on the trips and the list is almost endless. We decided to do a day trip consisting of a few different things and avoided trekking to save on Terry’s tired knees. After a 1 hour drive in a minibus we arrived at an elephant sanctuary where the elephants first put on a show for us and you could
have your photograph taken on an elephant’s back etc. Next we had a ride in a seat on an elephant’s back and what a ride. Over an hour across a river and back, up some hills and finally disembarking (is that the right word) with aching backs and muscles, only to find we had to change to, and return in, an ox and cart. They finally let us have dinner but we were soon up to go rafting down river for an hour. After that we were off by minibus again to see the long necked women but, not wanting to be voyeurs, we opted out and went to watch the tigers instead. Think it is all over? No, we next went to see the butterfly farm and orchid gardens. At last we arrived back at our hotel very tired and flopped on the bed. Not a bad day though for £18 each.
Monday we went to the typical Asian bus station to book our tickets for Tuesday’s journey to Chiang Rai. The tickets went up in value depending on the quality of the bus but as the luxury air-con one was £3, we settled for that.
A
three hour drive on good roads brought us to Chiang Rai but we soon found that it had even less to commend it . Again it is a centre for trips so although we were staying at a most friendly guesthouse, the Chat Room, we decided to move on the next day.
Chiang Khong, on the border of Laos was next but first we had to endure 2 hours 20 min on an old rickety bus with our luggage thrown on the roof. The roads became worse but we got there. We have started to meet the same people travelling in the same direction and a couple we have been talking to come from Greenland! We decided to cross straight over to Laos to get the border crossing over with before starting down the Mekong River. Longtail boats do the crossing and for 60p each we left Thailand.
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chris Derek
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Brilliant - jealous...C