Thank you for being so patient with me. I know my updating of this site has been really slow but I’ve finally got December all wrapped up and online. I’m working on the rest of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, I swear! It’s hard to stay in my hotel room and write when I feel like I should be out seeing sites and eating fried noodles. I’m in Bangkok at the moment, weighing my options and looking into plane tickets. I’m not quite sure what the future holds for me on this trip but I will keep you updated as soon as I figure it out myself.

Ideally I would have taken the 6 am bus from Chiang Rai to the border town of Mae Sai to enter Myanmar. Instead, I got on the bus around 8 am and didn’t arrive at the border until midday. Both sides were teaming with stalls selling everything from souvenirs to spices. Lines snaked out of the Burmese border control booth, meanwhile people jumped over the fencing and crossed the river by foot–right under the nose of uninterested guards. The Shan State of Myanmar is the largest state or division in the country. It was ruled by the Sao pha long (Sky Lord) until 1947 when it signed an agreement in 1947 granting the state semiautonomous status from Burmese rule. Since then there has been a lot of tension between the state and Yangon. An active military remains intact under a ceasefire and warlords operate in the opium growing regions including Kengtung–considered “the capital of the golden triangle.” As recent as 2001 fighting nearby has closed the border. If you look on a map it is clear to see why this area where Myanmar, China, Thailand and Laos converge is strategic for trade
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I was sitting very comfortably in Chiang Mai, Thailand eating ice cream and pizza when I looked at a map. I suddenly realized that Myanmar was only 1.5 hours away! The next day I was on standing in immigration wondering if it might be possible to get a 5-day visa. After four offices, three photos of myself, two hours and ten U.S. dollars I was free to visit Myanmar. Except for the fact that I was only allowed to go as far as the city of Kengtung three hours away, that I had to surrender my passport at the border and that I had to go out into the city, find a driver and bring him back to get verified to drive me.

Although the journey there and back was filled with red tape and no less than five police checkpoints (to register the foreigner’s movements), it was worth it. The people in Kengtung were happy and smiling and excited to see me. Old women in the small towns I bicycled to as well as little kids appered giddy to see a foreigner. One woman even invited me in to eat with her friends. I’ll write a little more when I get the photos ready but I’m back in touch and heading over to Chiang Mai tomorrow morning.

The border at Huay Xai, Laos was hectic with people of all ages crossing from Thailand into Laos. Most people use Thailand as a base and cross over to Laos for a few days. I used my entire one-month visa and felt like I rushed through. After stamping out of Laos I walked down to the river and paid a small boat to ferry me across the Mekong to the Thai side. Visas for Thailand are free for just about everyone and the process was easy. I shared a tuk-tuk (3-wheeled taxi/motorcycle) to the bus station and literally ran and hopped on the bus leaving as I arrived. The bus was almost empty and was hauling no produce or livestock–shocking after one month in Laos.

Two hours later I arrived in Chiang Rai, a city in Northeast Thailand. Most people skip this city but I felt the need to settle down in Thailand and get some Western culture in my system before going any further. Walking from the bus station I stopped and asked a man sitting outside a Belgium restaurant for recommendations on where to stay. He suggested I walk out of the town center to a particular hotel. I found it overpriced and grungy but nearby another hotel which turned out to be great. There was a restaurant and courtyard with tables and hammocks but the best part was the rooms. I stayed in two different rooms–one was a private building with a mirrored vanity decorated with animal heads and rifles. The second had a small gravel patio and huge bunk beds. Both had their own bathrooms with gravel floor and plants growing around the fixtures. Although it might sound strange, I was really happy to be surrounded by decoration. The brightly colored walls were enough to make my day after five months of white walls.
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There is one bus a day from Luang Nam Tha to Huay Xai–the border town near Northern Thailand. Keeping in mind what happened on my last trip, I went to the bus station one hour early. The bus was almost full by the time I arrived. Before we left more tourists arrived and locals were kicked off the bus. Sometimes I feel bad when we get preferential treatment, but we do pay a lot more money for the same service so I understand the motivation. I thought I had done really well by securing a window seat. I couldn’t have been more wrong. In addition to being a window seat it was also over the rear wheel. The round hump raised about one foot above floor level. The space between the seat in front of me and the front of my seat was less than 12 inches. This meant I was sitting with my knees at chest level with one knee wedged into the small gap between seats. Every bump on the road pushed the metal of the seat into my knee–I had bruises later. It wasn’t too long before I felt a stabbing pain in my back from this horrible position.
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Muang Sing is known for it’s market because of the many tribes who trade there. Some people had told me it was amazing and others had told me it wasn’t worth the trouble. I decided to go and find out for myself. The Australian was back from her hike and decided to come along. One of the negative travelers had told me that the market starts very early and wraps up by 9 am. We decided to take a songthaew in the afternoon, stay the night and see the market in the morning because the first songthaew of the morning wouldn’t get us there in time.
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We got up early in Udomxai and had a fairly uneventful ride up to Luang Nam Tha. This time the bus was actually a bus–four sides, widows and a door. After we arrived my Australian friend and I walked around town trying to find reasonable accommodation. Everything seemed to be overpriced, hovering around the five dollar range. This certainly was a lot compared to the $1.50 I had spent only a few nights before in Munag Ngoi. Perhaps because I had a few hours left of sunlight I was incredibly stubborn but eventually found a place with a nice family and the promise of hot showers. It turned out that although there were heaters for the shower it makes no difference when there is no running water. Every time I went to take a shower I was met with a little dribble out of the shower head. I was willing to deal with cold water or even dunking my head under the sink but there was no water at all. Usually I’m happy going around for days without taking showers but you really work up a sweat walking around the dusty roads in Laos. The nights are cold (around 60 degrees) but the days are very hot under the blazing sun (around 90 degrees). Add road dust, exhaust fumes and touching things in the market to the sweat and you end up in a pretty disgusting state. It wasn’t long before I figured out why the large bucket of standing water was sitting next to the sink–so I used it for my incredibly cold, acrobatic showers.
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Northern Laos isn’t the easiest place to transverse quickly. The roads are narrow, hills are tall and potholes numerous. A large group of people left Muang Ngoi at the same time as me and my friend. He left for the city on the first bus while I stuck around Nong Kiaw to wait for the songthaew Northwest to Udomxai. Three other Westerners were waiting with me including an older South African couple who I mistook for Australians–not many people start drinking at 8 am. They were in a hurry to get up North to Luang Nam Tha, where I was heading. When the husband asked why the 8:30 bus wasn’t leaving at 8:30 the driver explained that it wasn’t 8:30 on his watch. It turned out his watch was twenty minutes late. We tried explaining this fact to him to no avail. Surprisingly, this was the most on-time bus ride I took for the remainder of my time in Laos.
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North of Luang Prabang is a less-touristed area of natural beauty–mountains, caves and rivers. The roads in the north are either dirt tracks or poorly maintained one-lane drop offs snaking around the sides of mountains. I left Luang Prabang early in the morning to catch one of the two daily buses to Nong Kiaw–the closest town accessible by road. A friend I had made in Southern Laos decided to tag along before he had to head back to civilization.

Although we arrived an hour early we were confronted by a typical bus in Northern Laos, a songthaew, which is basically a small pickup truck with a metal carriage with two benches welded onto the sides. The back and sides are open and by the end of even a short ride the passengers are covered in dust and sweat. The buses in Northern Laos were the most crowded I have experienced so far. Not only is every place on the bench taken (passengers have to sit for hours with their torsos rotated at a 45 degree angle to accommodate more people), plastic chairs were also placed in the middle of the truck where everyone’s feet were supposed to go. I rode on one of the plastic chairs for the first two hours. Although I had more shoulder room, the level of concentration required to stay on the non-anchored chair throughout the ride was significant. Frankly, I was also worried that the legs would break–I’m heavier than even most Lao men.
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As far as tourism in Laos is concerned, the town of Luang Prabang is it. It’s the only real attraction Laos has and many people fly directly into town from Thailand or Cambodia. My bus arrived in the late afternoon on the outskirts of town. The taxi I shared dropped us off on the outskirts of the main tourist area and I started walking. The first hotel I walked into had one large room covered in spider webs for $7 a night. Considering I hand’t paid more than $3 in Laos so far I promptly left to find something more reasonable. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything more reasonable–atleast in the old town area where the night market, restaurants and attractions were located. Carrying my huge backpack door to door, the first 15 hotels I tried had no vacancy. When I finally found a hotel room, even though it was $12 a night, I took it. Atleast it didn’t have spider webs.

The town has received a large amount of funding from UNESCO for maintenance and beautification. Many of the smaller streets have been re-laid with brick which adds to the beauty of the numerous wats in town. The old town is a peninsula formed by the Mekong and Khan Rivers which beautifully frame the mountains surrounding the area. Luang Prabang is famous because of it’s 32 wats. The number of wats is surely due to the fact that it was a royal city up until the 1975 revolution, when the royal family either fled Thailand or was sent to labor camps. I started my tour at the royal palace which is actually quite small. Determined to do some drawing I sat down in front of the King’s bedroom to recreate the interesting three-headed elephant bed frame. Five minutes and half a drawing later a guard came by, waving her hands and shaking her head until I stopped drawing. Photos of the interior of the palace are forbidden but I would never think that I would not be allowed to draw. I was so angry that I stomped through the rest of the palace, retrieved my shoes from their locker and left.
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