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Our journey from Chaing Mai to Chaing Rai and Luang Prabang
We reluctantly left Chiang Mai to travel to Chiang Rai on another stylish VIP bus. Again the bus had its very own trolley dolley, (not so glamorous as the last one) but with the really nice reclining leather seats and DVDs (the film was a really random Thai film about ghosts, it scared me abit!), Sarah did say "we could definatley make money in the UK with a bus service like this, it's not like you get this with national express!", my only reservation would be me in a trolley dolley outfit! I'm not too sure I would suit it! Maybe I'll do the driving!
Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent... Back to the travelling.. We sat on the bus for about 5-6 hours to get to Chiang Rai. The Thai police stopped the bus too to get on and check everyone's ID cards - we weren't exactly sure what to do so we presented our passports and he seemed happy with that after checking our visas and photos! Once we got to the bus station we walked to our guesthouse - and I have to say I was very proud of Sarah, she managed to get us to the hostel from the bus station with no map, no directions just using her intuition and the sixth sense that shes clearly managed to develop (takes after her grandma)! Our hostel was down a bit of a back alley, but it was nice, ok maybe not nice but alright! We had a room with a small rotating fan in the center of the ceiling, (for those people that know me, you will know just how hot and sweaty I get, and a small rotating fan will do very little for me)! So I spent a while walking round the room and beds following the direction of the fan to attempt to get myself cool! I failed misserably! (I've gone off on one again, sorry)... Once we got settled we went into the town to have a look around the shops and the night market. The markets in Thailand are wicked, they have erverything you could possibly ever wish for in them! Loads of silks, tee shirts, wooden things (ornaments), jewellery and loads of other lovely stuff - I was in my element (Mum - you and I would have spent some serious money there if we were together!). We bought a few bits, then after such exhusting work (I'm laughing) we rewarded ourselves with a cup of coffee and a coke whilst watching a really bad singer on a stage in the middle of the market.
Next day we had a 'chill out' day (we have a lot of these, they mainly involve wondering places, eating and drinking). So are main objective of the day was to buy our tickets to cross the border of Thailand into Laos, making sure that we avoided the scams that we had been warned about . We bought our tickets to set sail the next day on the slow boat to Luang Prabang - it takes 2 days by boat to get there!
Ok so the boat..... Well the best way to decribe the rather lovely boat would be to call it a refugee boat. Apparently they are supposed to carry around 80 people, and we had been told that you have these really comfortable seats etc etc. So we obviously expected something similar to the VIP buses.. Well how wrong we were.. There was roughly about 150 people on the boat, with approximatly 50 or so wooden benches that seat two people and just to top it off there was about 40 or so life jackets! To say it was uncomfortable was an understatment! It was damn painfull after about an hour! On the flip side - the views were just simply breath taking. We sailed on the first day for about 6 hours down the Mekong River, we passed the time away by taking in the amazing views, listening to our ipods and reading our books. We had to stop the night in a place called Pak Beng, we like everyone else had no accomadation booked here so we devised a plan of action! I would stay on the boat and retrieve our backpacks (of which there was a mountain of at the back of the boat), whilst Sarah pushed her way to the front of the boat, so she could run up to the village to get the best guesthouse possible! She yet again pulled it out of the bag! Even though we had a 'Thai shower' (which basically means a cold shower), the place was lovely and only 3 pounds a night. Mean while I was still trying to negotiate my way off the boat down a small plank of wood with both mine and Sarah's b'packs! intresting to say the least..
The next day we up early to get breakfast (bagels, I was in heaven!) and then back on the boat. This time we strategically chose a place on the floor (a bit more comfortable than a bench)! 8 hours later (and more breathtaking views, and a guy that dropped his camera in the river, how we laughed!) we arrived in Luang Prabang! Thank goodness!
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