Head over heals for the Mekong River

Sabai-Dee!

So much to update, so little time (that is, I wish to spend so little time in this internet cafe so I can go back out and enjoy Luang Prabang...)

I will make it sweet and short! Jay and I left the comforts of Bangkok to go to Chiang Mai, which is a most beautiful city that we thoroughly enjoy for the two nights we stayed there. We took in many of the temples in the city, the Northern Thai cuisine (mmm fish cakes!), a Muay Thai match - note to self: a reasonably priced muay thai match will consist of prepubescent boys and soccer moms, er i mean muay thai dads - and the beauty of the hills.

We decided to make our way to Mae Sai, the northern most town in Thailand which sits on the Mae Nam Sai river, the dividing border between Thailand and Myanmar (aka Burma). The bus ride from Chiang Mai was about "four hours" - another note to self: hereafter quoted bus times will be altered on the assumption of straight roads, though the roads are never straight, see below - and after a good six hour bus ride we arrived in the small border town.

We found a beautiful guesthouse, which literally sat atop the river and looked over to Myanmar (a short swim away!). The farang (foreigner) to Thai ratio was ideal, that is there were very few farang and plenty of Thais and Jay and I spent three blissful days there...never once eating a bad meal. The owner of our guesthouse was a paternal figurehead and had several siblings, children, distant cousins, etc. running about and for that brief time they acted like our own large and insane families (chatting, feeding us, singing, feeding us, feeding us...). When it was time to leave Mae Sai, a most beautiful town nestled in a mountainous valley with its beautiful river, we were quite saddened. We hope to return there one day.

Onwards and upwards, as they say, and we ventured out to Chiang Rai (not to be confused with Chiang Mai), where we then moved on to Chiang Khrong, the border town for Thailand and Laos (hereafter Lao!). Of course, both bus journeys were approximated at a certain arrival time, and of course, both were off by about an hour...

We spent the night in a guesthouse where the main attraction was the view of the Mighty Meklong River, a most beautiful dominating body of water which runs through much of Southeast Asia. It was love at first sight...

The next day we made our way to the border and crossed into Lao hassle free, to the town of Huay Xai. At our guesthouse there, we met an interesting fellow who was seventeen and seemed to think he was the Lao Eminem. His name was "Loko", and his knowledge of oldskool hiphop was rather impressive and truth be told the kid has some talent when it came to freestylin. We told him to come to Toronto one day and visit us, he seemed pleased at the prospect...

Most people take the slow boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang but the prospect of two ten hour days shoved on a boat full of whiney farang did not appeal to us, so we opted for the "eight hour" bus ride to Luang Prabang. Twelve hours of gorgeous Lao countryside and lots of vomit bags later (not ours, thanks to Gravol. It seems a good fraction of our Lao bus mates had been drinking rather heartily the night before and the winding roads seemed to be little consolation for their hangover...), we arrived delirious and excited in Luang Prabang.

Here we have enjoyed Beerlao next to stunning scenes of the Mekong river, dabbled in Lao green tea in the french colonial tea rooms, perused the Lao goods in the night market and absorbed the incredibly easy going way of life here...in one of the most beautiful towns on the planet. A sort of mix of the 18th century french countryside but distinctly Asian all the same...

We are hoping all is well at home. It is time to escape the confines of this internet cafe and enjoy another day in this sleepy town of Luang Prabang.

Much love from Lao...

Maeve/Jay