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Slept like a baby. We were absolutely knackered last night. We had a long day and have had a hectic week.
I made a quick trip down to the Stray office this morning, to sort out the c*** up with the bus yesterday. They were very apologetic and obviously refunded the cost of the mini-van that we had to get which actually cost more than the Stray bus. Plus they had been down to our guest house last night to pay for our room. So it wasn't bad because we saved $30! But at the same time we lost 3 hours of our time. We wanted to get back to Luang Prabang and go out to the Market to buy a couple of things like some cheap paintings we'd seen and to eat in the Market, then go down to Utopia bar. In the end we only had time for Utopia bar - glad we made it there though.
Therese wanted me to add that she has drunk less alcohol than me.
New country and new city today - Chiang Mai in northern Thailand!
We arrived at Luang Prabang airport, via tuk-tuk, at about 11.45am. We thought it looked bad at night, looks even worse during the day. It's tiny.
The check-in desk is just a high wooden desk with a board above it for the flight. They weigh the bags on a normal weighing scale - like the ones you sometimes find in a public toilet in a shopping centre. There's no complex conveyor belt taking bags all over the building. It goes through an x-ray machine, straight outside and sits on the runway.
Oh, and why is it that 9 times out of 10, the check in desk staff are as miserable as sin.
Then, turn around to go through security which is just a single, very old looking, bag X-ray and body scanner. And that's it, you're in the departure "lounge". I actually saw a sign for VIP Lounge...I would love to see that!
There's only two gates too, domestic and international. And at the gate, they just have a laptop which has a barcode scanner hooked up to it to scan your boarding pass.
If I wanted to run out onto the runway now, I could. The doors aren't locked...actually, they might be but the keys are in the door anyway.
We look like wrecks today. I've just realised that my shorts are mucky and full of dust, my t-shirt is all stretched and hanging off me, my flip flops are filthy and full of dust, I've got multi-coloured cotton bracelets on from tubing, I've still got ink on my arms from all the random writing people were putting on me the other night and tubing, my eyes are all puffed out...I look like a short haired hippy. Just checked and I smell fine though.
Therese said herself that she looks like a wild woman.
Random tip that I forgot to mention earlier. You can get copied Lonely Planet books for a fraction of the price out here. We've seen them in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand, don't remember seeing them in China. You just need to scan through it to make sure the text is on the pages and not all wonky. And sometimes they have the same pages more than once so you have pages missing. We bought one for Thailand for about £3.
Flight was delayed 45 minutes. There's only about 10 flights a day, how can they have a delay? I think actually they were waiting for a flight to come in from South Laos for people transferring to Thailand...I'd be surprised if those on the transfer also get their bags...
Propellor plane again. They're quite nice planes actually. And we even got a snack box with a few different fruits in. We hit a bit of turbulence towards the end but nothing much.
The worst scare was when we landed and were getting ready to get off the plane. I couldn't find my passport! We were looking under the seats, in our bags, pockets, everywhere. Then after everyone had got off the plane, I realised it was in my body wallet...I'm losing my marbles!
So, we made it through passport control no problems fir a change and got a taxi to our new home, MD House. First thing we could see was a pool! It was really warm and sunny and I could have jumped in there and then! This place is pretty cheap too, about £16 a night. The room is decent, breakfast is included and from 7.30 until 11.30, and there's lots of other little perks. There's even a gym to work off the rice and belly guts we're developing.
First thing we needed though was food. There's plenty of restaurants, bars and cafes around - we're in a really good location. We ate at this organic cafe type place. Really cheap too, even though it's organic. Therese had a huge salad for £2, and I had a sandwich with fruit salad for £1.30!
We went back to relax a bit and I also managed to get some more photos on Facebook. Couldn't get any onto here!
We're also having to start looking into where we're going to go next because right now there's bad rain in all the islands in Thailand - really annoying. Looks like we are going to go further north to a place called Pai which sounds really nice anyway - lots of hot springs and just a relaxing place. We still might even go back to Laos.
There's a festival starting today in Thailand called Loi Krathong (look on Google Images). It's where people let off lots of lanterns into the sky, and also down the river. We've been really looking forward to this too. It doesn't get into full swing until Saturday and Sunday night, but there's still a few things going off tonight.
We went out to have a look around the place and there were a few lanterns up in the sky, but tomorrow and Sunday there should be hundreds up there (apparently planes have had to be diverted before now!) so should be really good. At Thapae Gate, there was lots of colourful lanterns on the square which looked really nice and there was a beauty contest going on. I really didn't want to have a look because I didn't want to get caught out saying she's pretty only to be told she is actually he...
Chiang Mai is mega busy. There's loads of traffic, but thankfully very little beeping. There's tonnes of restaurants and bars too, and really good looking ones. We saw, for the first time in about 4 weeks, the golden arches - McDonalds. Not that we went in! It's like Bangkok, there's lots of western fast food chains etc.
We headed down towards the Night Bazar area, along a road filled with bars, with women/shemales sat on the edge enticing people in. I literally felt physically sick at one point because some of them look so bad. We also can't believe how many young westerners are sat alone with them...they're in for a surprise. There seems to be far far more of these go-go type places here than in Bangkok.
There's loads of markets here - along the streets, around every corner and then a load together. There's some really nice stuff too. We're waiting for the biggest of them all, and supposedly pretty much the best in Asia, on Sunday!
I was a bit if a party pooper tonight as I was really tired, plus my ankle has swollen up which I think is because of two mosquito bites - damn things. So we were back at about 10.30pm. And we had no alcohol...!
We just want to say thanks for all the messages as well! We love reading your comments and message board entries!!
- comments
Michelle Oh Leelee, I think you are losing your marbles, first the cam snd then you rpassport..I think you've had too much alcohol..its frying your brain!!!! The lantern festival sounds lovely..I bet its a spectacular site to see..get some pics! Hope the ankle is ok.....did you get some new trainers??? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx