Well we’ve made it to Luang Prabamg, Laos. A memorable trip to say the least. We started our 24 hour adventure at 5am in Chiang Rai, taking a local bus to the Lao/Thai Boarder in Chiang Kong. It was a great ride with only a handful of locals and Sander and I enjoying the amazing Norther Thai scenerey.
We crossed the boarder, got our Lao visas (for some reason it costs more for us Canadians to get visas, 200 Baht or $6 ish, more than Americans or Europeans) In Laos we again were approached by a way to friendly foreigner, a German this time, who tried to recruit us into a mini bus to Luang Prabang. He just happend to need 2 more people for the journey. We had read about this scam in Lonely Planet ( they make up an excuse to stop in the middle of nowhere and either ask for more money or make you stay in thier guest house overnight). We declined.
Since the idea of dying on a fast boat or the shear bordem of the slow boat didn’t excite us, we decided to take the local bus, a 10 hour trip according to Lonely Planet. Wrong choice. It’s rainey season here, the roads are sharp winding climbing jostleing, scraping crazy roads. We bottomed out mrore times than I can count. The driver was hopped up on M150’s ( a more powerful version of Redbull) and was driving like a maniac hopped up on a more powerful version of redbull.
The first 12 hours was fine, this country is amazing. The jungle barely stops for the roads and rivers and steep hillsides and mountain tops surrounded us at every turn. We drove through village after village of subsistance farmers with thatched huts, waterbuffalo and naked children playing the streams. The rice paddies and corn fields covered the landscape where the Jungle had been temprarily tamed.
Hours 13-17 were awful. I wanted to sleep but everytime a laid my head anywhere I was beaten by the tag team combo that the bus and the road provided. We arrived in Luang Prabang at 5 am, managed to get to a guest house that would let us in and laid our heads on the pillows, quickly passing out.
We’re setting a plan for the next bit of our journey, no more 24 hour travel periods. Off to explore this amazing country in what is now very apparently the rainy season.
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I am very glad you guys are ALIVE!!!!!!!
now, go have fun, sit back kick your feet up and relax!!!!!
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