i continued my tour of northern thailand. Left chiang Rai on the 16th and went to chiang saen. Got dropped off at a random bus station so took me a while to find out where i was and somewhere to stay. It was a very quiet place and i was one of the only tourists there but fantastic views of the mekong river. Left next day (17th) to go to Chiang Khong. No busses so had to go in a pick-up truck with benches down either side to sit on. Driver managed to squeeze 15 people in which was unbearable but fortunately people got off quiet quickly. It was a two stage journey so i was droped off halfway in a small town. i had no idea what was going on, no one spoke english and there were no other tourists but i managed to sort myself out and get to chiang khong. Amazing views on the journey up and down the mountains and along the Mekong. Chiang Khong was pretty poor as well. I found a cheap room to stay in but unfortunately didn't take in the state of the room until much later. Did nothing all day but went to a bar in evening and watched 'hot fuzz' and 'the spirit'. Any way my room was a state, Dirty walls, floors, cobwebs everywhere, no one had bothered to empty the bin either so i came back from a bar later to find an army of ants coming though the window and cockroaches in the bin so i had interesting dreams that night. On the 18th i went to Laos. I complicated my visa application by trying to use my NZ passport to save me $5 US, that didn't go down to well and i ended up wasting a lot of time and using my British passport.
The border crossing was a town called Huay Xay the other side of the mekong to chiang khong and from there i had booked a 2 day slow boat trip along the mekong to Luang Probang. This involved 6 hours of sitting on a wooden bench folwed by an over night stay in pak beng and the another 6 hours. A large group behind me turned it into a booze cruise and got wasted but i was content reading my book and watching the scenery which was just rain forest, mountains and hill villages. It was an uncomfortable journy but was definately worth it. Spent the day yesterday in luang probang. Rented some bikes with some other people and spent the day cylcing around to temples and waterfalls which was nice. Unfortunately, the river downstream also doubled as a car wash with people driving their vans, trucks, cars, tuk tuks and bikes in to be washed. It pained me to think of the damage that was doing to the river with all the diesil, oil and chemicals going into it.
I'm, now in vang vieng and off to do some tubing this afternoon.
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