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Published: December 17th 2010
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I took another sleeper bus into Chiang Mai and arrrived at 6am. Again I didn't sleep all that well and was exhausted when I arrived. In fact I've been tired a lot lately and I figured this could be a great place to catch up on sleep. I chose the second hotel that I came to which was $8 a night, rather expensive, but I just wanted to eat and sleep. At 6am there isn't much open for food, but I saw a McDonalds instantly went in to get my fill of the local cuisine.The McDonalds didn't have any McGriddles, but I still found something to eat. The city of Chiang Mai is the place where a person leaves and goes on a trek, or rides elephants, or looks at drugged tigers so you can pay extra to hold them. I had been so tired that I did none of these things. I did ask the price to see the tigers and immediately walked away, they wanted $70. The old town is quite nice, not much really to see. The city had a large night market, but it was really more of the same counterfeit street stalls as far as the
eye can see. I felt bad about being in this place not wanting to do anything and not doing any of these adventures that I decided to go to Pai where it is expected of a person not to do anything.
Pai was nice I stayed about five days in a bungalow next to the river. The weather was nice not too hot. I really liked Pai even though there really isn't anything to do, I went to the pool just about every day with a group of people and read. The highlight was a street vendor who sold tea and put it into a bamboo tree stalk that was used as the cup. I thought it was so cool that I continued to drink everything for the rest of the night out of it. The more drinks I put into it the cooler I thought it was, unfortunately I lost it somewhere at the reggae rave and the next day I didn't feel like getting another one maybe sobriety had some influence. I guess some things are best left in the moment.
I decided to take the slow boat into Laos and it was one of my
biggest regrets thus far. I've gotten so lazy that all it takes for me to make a decision on the trip is to see an advertisement in a travel agency. The first day consisted of a 6hr mini van ride to some place in Thailand. The room was fine I had some issues with the way they did things and treated the people who were in the group, but I'll forgo writing about them since it will make me look petty. The next day we crossed the river it was down the road and they claimed that all the stamps would be in our passports awaiting us when we crossed and that is why we paid them money. That wasn't true and the Laos border was a joke. They had stacks of passports and you just waited until someone who couldn't pronounce anyones name shouted something and everyone went to check to see if it was their passport. The hotel said that the boat left at 10am and would not wait for anyone. We had to wait for everyone to get their passports so it didn't matter when you gave them. When we got to the part of the river
the boats left from the boat I was on didn't leave until 1pm. I still have no idea why, it is just how things go in Laos. When we were waiting for the boat the guide who took us across the border said that rooms in Pag Beng, the place we were sleeping for the night, filled up fast. Well I know never to pay a guy before you arrive at a location, but when I told him no he shrugged. This was not a sales tactic that I had not seen and started to get nervous. In the end four of us did get rooms from this guy and sadly I was one of them. We arrive well after dark into the town and I was feeling pretty good that I didn't have to go look for a room. I showed up to the hotel with the three others and they inform us that they do not have our rooms. One worker there said the guy didn't call to make the reservation (even though we saw him do it while we were waiting) and another worker said he no longer worked for the hotel (he just kept all the
materials). Needless to say we were not happy. I was kicking myself and decided to take it out on the guy at the hotel by insulting him the best I knew how and that was to compare him and the people of Laos to the people of Vietnam as tricksters and thieves. I don't think he understood the insult, maybe he had never been to Vietnam. He promised to help us find another room. Rather than walking down the main road which had every hotel on it, he took us to the one single hotel way out of the way, and it was full. Then he apologized and told us to go down the main road and look for a hotel. At this point everyone on the boat had already found a room first and as we went to every hotel with no luck. Finally the last hotel had two rooms. This old guy, who I had just met, and I had to share a double bed in the worst place I had ever seen. I am not sure which was cleaner the bed, floor, or wall. If the color of the wall was originally dirt brown I may said
that, but I think the natural color was white. Then they had the audacity to charge us $13 for the room. When we tried to bring the price down he said he knew he was the last hotel and if we didn't want it we can try to find another place. I almost decided to sleep on the street, or the floor of the room of one of the people I had met. The extortion I was paying combined with the scam made this a $30 bed, and I was sharing it with some guy.
The third day of the trip was another full day on the boat. The only good thing that came of sleeping in the conditions described was I was not to eager to sleep in. I was the first on the boat and got one of the mini van seats that was on it. I'm not sure I could have handled the lack of sleep with another day sitting on a board. This really lifted the mood for the final day and all the people that I had met on the boat the previous day thought the situation was hilarious. Obviously not true friends. The
boat arrived in Luang Pra Bang around 5pm.
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