2023 Austrailia Boris Yammy

After a lot of forms and fees we were across the friendship bridge and free to roam around Laos for thirty days.  There is an immediate change from Thailand. Things are a little more third world. There is a lot more garbage around. The public buildings are these grandiose stodgy looking communist inspired structures. But the people are friendly and right away I felt we were getting a more interesting travel experience.  We took the slow boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang. This is about a hundred foot long wooden river boat. It is relatively narrow and seats about eighty people. 90 % are budget tourists and for the most part 30 to 50 years younger than us. The organizers encourage drinking and partying so the first day to Pak Benh was a little rowdy. At Pak Benh you have to spend the night before the last eight hours to Luang Prabang. The second day was little more quiet as most of the young people were nursing their hangovers. We had got a quieter and more comfortable seat ne...

We spent a couple of days on rented bicycles. We put on many kilometers pedalling through the countryside. Then there was the flower festival.

Not much to report. Bused to Chiang Rai spent a few days here then went to a ldge in the country for a few days. Tomorrow we off to Laos .

From Chang Dhao we took another public bus to the sleepy village of Thaw Ton perched on the banks of the Kok River. Not much to do here except chill out. There is a very nice temple complex on the ridge on the other side of the river.  It has a very nice bridge which is all dressed up with flags and coloured lights at night.  Here we stayed in the best room of our trip so far. It was a bungalow perched on the banks of the river with a flowering tree out front. They charged us 40$ can. I am sure we could have bargained the price down as there was only one other guest in among the thirty or so bungalows.

We took the ten hour express train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Our first room was dark moldy smelly and unclean. We moved to the other side of the old city and got a great room which was clean and bright with nice friendly staff. Good thing as I was laid up for about thirty six hours with food poisoning. We didn't accomplish much in Chiang Mai except recover and visit a few temples. Next we took a public bus to Chiang Dhao which is up in the mountains bordering on a nature preserve. We stayed at a great place right next to the park.  The swiss co owner of the lodge was a big orchid expert. He had two thousand species of orchids in his garden.

Wats are great places to get out of the hustle and bustle and chill out a little. There is no end to the beautiful carved teak, ancient cast bells, sitting buddhas, standing buddhas, reclining buddhas, teaching buddhas, fat buddhas, thin buddhas and laughing buddhas. And just for variety there are some Hindu and Chinese dieties thrown in.