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Published: July 16th 2009
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We took a flight from Singapore via Bangkok to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. Our guesthouse was a really great place, it had a swimming pool and lovely terrace, all for 3 pounds each, which after the place in Singapore was a dream. We had a Singha beer on the terrace before catching a tuk-tuk to the night markets -a huge network of stalls selling souvenirs of all sorts - textiles, t-shirts, jewellery, fake Luis Vuitton bags etc. We were really pleasantly suprised - the markets were pretty chilled out with no hassle from the stall holders and lots of interesting items to browse. We ate on a street stall on benches effectively in somesones back yard. There was such a huge menu and the food was delicious, the dishes cooked outside in front of us by a really lovely man with a pile of fresh ingredients.
We ate breakfast in the guesthouse before setting out on foot to visit some Wats (buddist monastries). The first, Wat Chiang Man, the oldest in the city, was probably also the most impressive. After having a look around we met a lovely Thai man who wanted a chat. Cynically we automatically assumed he
wanted to sell us a tour or something - he was as it turned out a tour guide in the mountains but it was his day off, so he wanted to chat about our travels and give us free advice about Chiang Mai!
From here we walked to the Arts and Cultural centre which was a museum that told us all about Chiang Mai's history (perhaps a little too much about it!) We walked to Wat Chedi Luang - it's main temple was a bit gilt and glitzy but the ancient 'chedi' stupa was interesting, as was watching the many monks go about their daily business. It was raining so we ducked into a little wine bar for a glass of red wine that had been a long time coming! We walked to yet another Wat - Wat Phra Singh, before getting a tuk-tuk to a riverside restaurant where he had a platter of Noth Thai specialities including a couple of odd sausages and some pork scratching-like things. After a relaxing swim back at the guesthouse we headed out again to the night markets where we browsed the various stalls again and bartered for a few souvenirs.
We
caught a tuk-tuk to the bus station first thing, where we found that there was a bus leaving to Chiang Khong within 30mins. We bought our tickets and jumped on board. It was a pretty comfy bus and we were looked after by a lady in the style of an air stewardess - we were given complimentary water and a big pack of biscuits each (it doesn't take much to impress us these days!) About 6 hours later we arrived in Chiang Khong in the steady drizzle and caught a tuk-tuk to our guesthouse overlooking the Mekong. We walked up the main street in the rain to sort out our slowboat for the next day and bought some supplies for the 2 day journey. We ate a lovely meal back at the guesthouse on a terrace looking across the river to Laos on the other side!
We woke up early and ate breakfast at the guesthouse before getting picked up and driven on the back of a pick-up truck to the 'ferry pier' (the little wooden boats were not ferry-like and there wasn't a pier in site!). After going through Thai customs we boarded a little leaky canoe boat
and travelled across the river into Laos.
On the riverabank we went into Laos immigration which involved quite a bit of queuing for a visa and then again for passport stamps. Then we climbed a steep hill and, along with about 8 other people, we piled our rucksacks onto the roof of a pick-up truck and climbed aboard. We were taken to a travel agents/shop, our passports were taken and we were left sitting outside for about 30mins before swapping to a restaurant on the other side of the street. We waited there for another half an hour before we were given a briefing about the slow boat trip (not a saftey briefing, more like info about where we were going and how long it would take etc.) Finally, we and all of the other 30 odd people who'd been waiting in the restaurant, trooped down to the river and climbed aboard, only to find that all of the benches were taken! All the time that we'd been told to wait, the boat had been filling with tourists! The space on the floor was also filling up, so Phil took the two big rucksacks to the rear of the
boat whilst Elly bagged a little corner - it wasn't an ideal spot as it was clearly going to be used as a 'bar area', but there was nowhere else, so we collapsed the little fold away table and settled in for our 6 hours sitting on the wooden floor! We were rumbled however, as the little boy who was to act as the 'bar man', re-errected it in our leg room and was not best pleased! Needless to say, it wasn't the most comfortable of journeys, but it wasn't our worst, and wasn't as bad as it sounds - we were able to stand up, stretch our legs and watch the Mekong River flow by - it's very wide and muddy brown with some fast flowing whirlpool sections. We saw the 'fastboats' whizz by - they are speedboats, the alternative to taking the slowboat and are essentially deathtraps, killing several tourists a year who take the risk. We were able to witness river life, watching fishermen in the dugout canoes casting nets, and children playing in the river near villages made up of little huts. The boat would sometimes pull up to villages and hawkers would climb aboard the
boat selling pineapple, beers, crisps etc.
Around 6pm we arrived in Pakbeng where we followed a man to our chosen guesthouse. The walk was pretty tough - it was up 3 steep flights of huge stone steps, carrying 20kg on our backs in the heat and humidity. We arrived (exhausted) at the guesthouse, checked in and then had dinner and a few bottles of Beer Lao, overlooking the river at the guesthouse (rather than going out to Pakbeng after dark which is supposed to be tad dodgy, with apparently the highest number of drug dealers per capita in the world!)
We made sure we were down at the boat at 8am, though it wasn't due to leave til 9, to secure a seat. We were succesful and it was a different boat which had little cushions on the wooden benches - what luxury! We refrained from joining the drinking games that ensued in the back of the boat to pass the time (some people arrived later in Luang Prabang worse for wear and fairly incapable of negociating themselves a guesthouse!) The second day of boating was a long day - about 9 hours perched on a little wooden
bench - but the scenery got more and more dramatic, changing from the lush rolling hillsides to jagged karst peaks.
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sue
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i'll be sorry when you come home as i am enjoying the trip so much [the slow boat reminded me of a trip on the Llangollen canal] I am keeping my eye on the dukes family they are all behaving and not getting too stresssed. You won't believe how much Poppy has grown/changed. Enjoy the rest of the trip I think that Bali is one of the loveliest places I have been to very romantic love you lots