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| The White Temple in Chiangrai |
We first took a minibus
out of Chiangmai to Chiangrai and this took about 4 hours, we stopped
in Chiangrai briefly to take pictures of a white temple, and at some
point, whilst doing this, I either lost or had my precious mp3 player
stolen :( It wasn't an expensive one, but it was more the fact that
it had all of my round the world songs on that I'd collected from the
start, and I now had to do a 22 hour coach journey with no music or
any form of entertainment!! :( I think it may have slipped out of my
pocket on the minivan and the driver stole it when we got out to go
to the toilet but I will never know.
So, we carried on with
our 22 hour journey, with nothing but Jemma's mp3, which she rarely
ever cracks out, and was given to her by her mum in haste just before
we left. It has nothing but songs from musicals on it, which is not
my favourite genre of music, but beggars can't be choosers.
When we got near to the
Thai – Laos border, we all got herded off, waited outside a wooden
shack for a bit and then got herded onto a rickshaw, which took us to
the border. We queued at the border, got our passports stamped and
then were directed onto a little wooden boat, which crossed a river
(the Mekong) and hey presto,we were in Laos. Whilst on the boat, a
snake slithered along side us in the water and I was scared it might
slither into the boat, but luckily it didn't.
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| Snake in the Mekong |
At the other side of
the river (about 30 metres from the Thai side), we got our visas for
Laos from a little office. We paid about £35 for them, which was a
bit steep, I thought. Good job we had US dollars because those who
only had Thai currency had to pay more. We waited in the boiling heat
whilst the whole group got their visas, and then a woman came and
directed us up a street, where we were put onto a little bus, that
looked like those trains you get at Disney Land. She said she hoped
we all had Laos money because there'd only be on stop for food on the
way to our destination and they would only accept Laos kip. I was not
happy to hear this, as I'd not eaten since breakfast and we hardly
had any Laos kip on us, which meant I'd have to go hungry for another
22 hours. The Disney bus dropped us at a bigger 'VIP' bus (a normal
coach) and on that we sat for the next 22 hours. It was a very bumpy
journey, not too dissimilar from what we had experienced in Bolivia.
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| Laos is mainly rainforest |
I took my last remaining travel sickness tablet, which really helped
because the roads were very windy. We were worried when one girl told
us you can't buy sickness tablets in Laos and that we should have
stocked up in Thailand. Schoolboy error. After about 5 hours of
listening to Billy Elliot and Wicked songs, the battery ran out on
Jemma's ipod(hooray!) and we stopped at a cafe for food. (When I say
cafe, I mean a hut that sold pringles and sandwiches). Luckily, the
accepted Thai Baht, so I gorged on my first Lao tuna baguette and
crisps. We paid 30p to go to a squat toilet in an outhouse near the
hut, and then we all got back on the bus, ready for the 18 hour
journey ahead. I was very happy for the sickness tablets at this
stage, as there were locals all around us throwing up into plastic
bags (they're not used to riding on buses, and the Laotian roads are
windy by anyone's standards). Another advantage of the sickness
tablet, was that it more or less knocked me out, so I slept better
than I ever have on any overnight bus, despite the uncomfy seats and
bumpy roads. I woke up every hour to look at the clock, until finally
it was 5.30am and we pulled into our destination; Luang Prabang. We
arrived just in time to see the daily procession of monks, walking
through the town collecting food off the locals who had gotten up
early to offer them. We could tick this sightseeing activity off our
list. The bus kicked us out at the bus station, and at first, nobody
got off because I don't think anybody clicked that this was Luang
Prabang, I for one, had been expecting somewhere a little bigger,
seeing as it is Laos' second city, but it just seemed like a town in
the middle of nowhere. We were all so sleepy, we stumbled off the
coach and into the first tuk tuk that would take us.
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| Where we got dropped off |
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