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Published: February 18th 2006
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Looking across the Mekong River towards Laos
The amazing evening view from Chiang Khong (Thailand) into Laos. With a beer in hand, not bad at all. Well, am a bit behind on my travel diary as i've spent the last few days in wonderful laos, but more on that later. at the minute, we are talking northern thailand.
after finishing my last entry in chiang mai, some of the group headed off to a massage at the local lady's "correction centre", or prison to you and me. didn't know what to expect really, whether it would be big bruising women who would pummel us to death or not. turned out to be really good fun in the end. we had to change into some hilarious looking gowns which were way too big, and the women proceeded to pummel us to death for the next hour. this included punching, joint stretching, artery blocking (i'm not joking) and being embalmed in tiger balm -- wow, i never realised how hot that stuff gets on your back! all in all, it was really funny and good to talk to the locals. we learned some new words and thai phrases and had a good laugh (although the ladies kept giggling and chatting in thai, and we couldn't understand a word of it, so god knows what they were laughing at!). a 1 hour massage ended up costing under 2 pounds which i thought was a bargain.
after our visit to the prison we all got into open sided tuk tuk vans and then proceeded to race at brake neck speed up the hill bordering the town to visit Chiang Mai's most famous temple. many of the driving rules we use in the uk go out of the window in thailand, as the drivers think nothing of overtaking up a hill and a blind corner and stay in the wrong lane!
the temple we went to was really beautiful and the weather was absolutely amazing. as we were at a pretty high elevation it was much cooler - around 23 to 25 degrees, breezy and really nice evening sunshine. we had a guided tour from a local girl and had to climb over three hundred steps to get up to the temple. inside there were loads of really elaborate gold temples and buddha images, and we the chance to watch some of the buddhist monks doing their evening chanting. i also got a blessing from a monk and had a band of string tied around my wrist. following our visit, we then sped back down the hill at break neck speed again and headed back into chiang mai town centre where we had a lovely evening drinking beer and enjoying good food around the night markets.
the following day was more of a travel day, as we left chiang mai behind and drove onto the town of chiang khon, which borders laos and is located on the mekong river. on the way we stopped to by locally produced cashew nuts and other odd snacks (the shrimp crackers were particularly good), stopped to see a garrish temple, visited a hill tribe museum, and went for lunch at a restaurant called cabbages and condoms, which despite the odd name, the food was really good. it is a charity which helps to raise money to improve awareness of contraception in thailand, and they have had great success in reducing the birth rate and reducing the number of people getting aids. from what i read, their motto has arisen because they want to make contraception as easy and mundane to get as cabbages, hence the name.
after a good meal we carried on (on the ever increasingly bad roads) towards our evening stay. the countryside was become increasingly more spectacular, and i got to see my first rice paddy fields complete with guys in pointed hats and limestone karst scenery in the background. very nice, but no time to stop.
our guesthouse and location in chiang khong was nothing short of spectacular. it was a huge rambling old wooden mansion right by the mekong river, which looked amazing at sunset. the accommodation was really lovely and it was nice to be able to walk around bare footed (which is required inside most guesthouses in south east asia), and enjoy a cold beer.
our host laid on a really good buffet for us, including rice dishes, noodles, and fresh fish from the river. after a decent night's sleep, we prepared for departing thailand and crossing over into laos. this entailed getting a narrow boat across the river after clearing immigration. following this, we boarded our boat to take on the mighty mekong river for the next 2 days. this will be the subject of my next blog.
hope you are enjoying it, keep me posted with how you guys are getting on!
cheers
phil
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Becky
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Mai oh mai!!
Well, Philly - it sounds like you are having a fabulous time!! The cooking course sounds awesome - that's one thing I wish I'd done while I was out there - I LOVE Thai food. I also loved the Thai massages so glad you enjoyed that (even if it was from the SE Asian equivalent of 'Bad Girls'!) Keep us posted hun, loving it so far (although gnashing my teeth with pent up jealousy and frustration!!) xx