Chiang Mai Loving

Rocket Festival

    After spending a week living in Chiang Mai at Nick's, feeling a bit like a local - eating lots of local street food, going for daily walks to and from the Old City, spending hours motorbike shopping/browsing, doing laundry, cleaning the house and visiting small town Annual Rocket Festivals - it was time for Jenny to arrive! The idea of Jenny joining me arose the night of my going away party and lucky for me, grew from there over the months I've been gone, into her arriving in my arms! Chiang Mai was a wonderful place for us to start our adventure together as I was already very familiar with the city and have grown to love it very much. It helped for Jen to have a smooth transition into where we were, the culture, the people, etc. Her own personal tour guide (according to her, of course)!

    We hit the ground running with a pre-arranged day-long tour on Jen's first full day. We were picked up bright and early by the same lovely driver and tour guide that had snatched Jen from the airport the previous day. They dropped us at Spice Bike Tours where we met our very energetic, and friendly bike tour guide, Ji. The 3-hour bike ride was such a wonderful way to see the city, and a way I hadn't experienced even after spending a total of 3 1/2 weeks in the city. Some of the stops we made were to places I had seen before, but having Ji there was a great way to learn more about the temples and sights. Though, about an hour in she had nicknamed me Nickipedia after I couldn't help finishing her sentences. Guess I knew more than I even realized.

    Ji led us out to the outskirts of the city, where we were all of a sudden surrounded by a village of ruins. It was incredible and something I had never seen before! There were a number of sights within Wiang Kum Kam that had been dug up and all that remained were the foundations of old temples. Some more destroyed than others, some bigger than others.

    The rest of our day was filled with lunch and a trip up to Doi Suthep (again, for me) as well as a temple located in the forest. Both Jenny and I were exhausted by the time we were dropped back off at our humble abode. Later in the week we tried our hand at some Thai cooking, Jenny took a day to practice her elephant mahout skills, we discovered a pool just outside the Old City for some cool down and in the blink of an eye it was Sunday and time to begin our trek to Laos!

    The van pulled in roughly 45 minutes late, already filled with our 8 co-passengers and we set off for the highway with Chiang Khong being our final destination for Day 1 of 3. Quite shortly after leaving the city and heading for the mountains, the heavens opened up, the rain started showering down and strangly enough, our driver became more aggressive on the slippery, winding roads - tailgating cars and passing on blind corners. He thought he was the next Sebastian Vettel I suppose. Don't worry, our piece of mind was soon reassured when he quickly slammed the brakes but then sped off and we all looked out the window to see a car in the oncoming lane, swirving out of control.

The White Temple

    A few nauseous, yet scenic hours into our ride, we pulled over into a little coffee shop on the road for lunch and a quick brake. 30 minutes later, we were on the road again, this time the rain coming down harder, but thankfully on roads that were slightly straighter. Driving in and out of towns that if you blinked you would have missed them, I noticed us drive under a highway sign that read 'Welcome to Chiang Rai,' and 20 minutes later we were pulling up in front of the famous White Temple, which I had been dying to see ever since arriving in Northern Thailand in May. Though it was almost as dark as night, with rain still lightly coming down, the temple was as beautiful as I had imagined. If anything, the white and silver gave a striking contrast with the background setting.

    The drive to Chiang Khong was perfectly picturesque. We passed through fields of rice paddies, and tiny villages, all the while being surrounded by overbearing mountains and hills covered in lush greenery.

    The van arrived at a hotel that I recognized from (horror story) reviews, but certainly did not recognize from the pictures of the trip we had booked. It was the Pink Prison - prison turned hotel - that saw everyone pile out of the van, except Jenny and me, according to our driver. PHEW! We felt for everyone who was staying there and ended up quite a bit happier when the van showed us down the road to our hotel. The only spot in Chiang Khong with a pool! Mind you, guest or no guest, you were expected to pay. The rooms were basic - fan, bug nets, no private loo - and located in a log cabin. Lots of bugs, so we sprayed ourselves and our room down with a toxic amount of deet.

    After a restless sleep on our cement beds and boulder pillows, we were up for breakfast and out the door to another van, which took us to the Thai Departure Hall. Luckily, our hotel had taken care of the Laos Visas for us so we didn't have to worry, unlike some. Bye bye Thailand and on to a coach bus to take us over the river and into Laos Immigration. Through there and into the back of a make shift pick-up truck turned 10-seater safari truck, with our bags on the roof! This time, we were driven to a stop to purchase any last minute snacks, make reservations, etc (none of what we needed) and 45 minutes later we were back in that truck....that had sent one gentleman's bag flying from the roof earlier. At this point it had started raining and we still had a 15 minute drive (in the opposite direction to our boat's direction) to get to the 'pier.' A line of 10 slow boats greeted us and we were all shuffled into one (all 60 of us), given a bag for our shoes, dropped our bags through a hole in the floor and Jenny and I found ourselves in the last row. By this point, both of our patience were being tested as we had set off at 7:30AM and it was now 11:30, but soon the boat was pulling out into the river, the breeze was blowing and we were sailing by all of the places we had been at earlier in the morning. The boat wasn't too bad. Comfortable seats that were likely originally seen in cars, a little bar at the back for purchase of snacks and drinks, a bathroom you would only set foot in if you were desperate, and at the way back, behind all this, what looked like the Captain's Quarters...aka the Captain's 24/7 house. He even had his washing hanging out the back!

Slow boats galore! 

    The cruise down the river was beautiful and unlike what I was expecting. More green hills and and mountains bursting out of the ground, tiny villages every few kilometres, random solo shacks in the middle of absolutely nowhere, water buffalo grazing by the shore, white sand beaches, and the most corn fields (on the slanted hills) that you ever did see! 6 hours and a few stops (to drop off locals) later, we arrived in the small town of Pak Beng. It was quickly evident that this town thrived off of the daily stops made by slow boats making there way to and from Chiang Khong and Luang Prabang. Restaurants' hours were designed around the arrival and departure of the boats (6AM opening for breakfast), a rep from all the hotels in the town were at the dock waiting to hassle people, and you could order things like take away boxed lunches for your next boat ride.

    Jen and I settled into our lovely private hut-styled hotel with a beautiful view of the river, and set out for dinner. With no Kip in hand, we wanted our first stop to be the one ATM, located at the edge of town. As we were taking the steps up to the ATM the power went out,  town-wide. Thankfully without either of our cards in the machine. The power came back on shortly after, and right back off again,  so we decided on dinner first. By the end of the night the power had gone off 6 times, we had induldged in a tastey Indian dinner, money eventually showed itself from the machine for one of our cards, and we were comfortably nestled into our bed, exhausted from the day's travels.

Mekong River Family

    6AM on day 3 came quick enough, but allowed us enough time to enjoy a well balanced breakfast, get our boxed lunch for the boat, pack up our stuff and score some much better seats on the boat. We were joined by Merry and Morris who were the beautiful Australian couple we had met in our first van from Chiang Mai. Sitting with them helped the this time, 9-hour boat ride pass by as we chatted away and sailed by more mountains, wildlife, and dirty river water.

    On arrival in 'Luang Prabang,' we fell victim to a scam I had read about online, where the boat will pull in to a stop approximately 20km ahead and claim it is Luang Prabang and that everyone needs to deboard. There were some passengers on board who had read the same stories as me or had actually taken the boat before and knew we were being tricked. We attempted to protest the claim and stay on the boat, with our bags, but eventually (after about 20 minutes) gave in to trekking up the hill to find a well oiled operation of tuk tuks and ticket givers, waiting to take our money and drive us into the city. A frustrating and dishonest way to be welcomed in to this beautiful city but once we arrived at our hotel, our previous troubles melted away. Home for the next 5 days will be a brand new, friendly, centrally located, clean and air-conditioned guesthouse. Jenny and I are looking forward to exploring what this city has to offer before we make our way to Vietnam! 

XOXO Nicky