Chiang Rai, Thailand

Options getting out of northern Laos into Thailand are limited. I mentioned the speedboat option in my Luang Prabang post (this wasn't an option for me). The ONLY other option is an overnight sitting bus. My stomach turned when I heard this, with memories of the now famous 20 hour Anjuna to Varkala trip in February. As I have no other option I booked it anyway. It costs 200,000 Kip to get to the border  overnight, arriving at 6am. I didn't sleep much (I never can sitting up) but the journey wasn't bad, just a little cramped; there were so many people on the bus they put little plastic chairs down the centre aisle and to get out to the toilet everyone had to clamber over them! So we arrived at 6am to a large, new, empty bus station. There was just a man in a kiosk. He said that I can book a taxi to the border, a boat across the border, a taxi to the bus station in Thailand and a bus to Chiang Rai all through him; total cost: 105,000 Kip. I paid the man and had to wait around for an hour for the taxi (?!). While waiting I photographed all my visas (exciting) and had a wonder about. I found one tiny shop selling pot noodles. The owner had just moved in to the plot and very kindly gave me some of his bread and coffee for free! Eventually the taxi arrived and took me to the river and I switched into a boat for a quick jaunt across the Mekong. Goodbye Laos, hello Thailand!

Deserted bus

Deserted bus station

Re-charging the phone while waiting for the taxi

On the boat across the Laos / Thai border

Arriving at the other side it's a remarkably quick process. My passport is stamped with 30 days, much to the annoyance of the others on the boat, who all got 15 days (which is standard for land-border crossings). I still have no idea why I was special! On leaving Thailand the customs official made a confused grunt noise, looked at me, but stamped the passport anyway. A dash in a taxi and a 4 hour bus journey (I fell asleep) and I'm in Chiang Rai.

A friend of mine from London, Anna, is already there and has sorted a nice room out in Jitaree (200 Baht). On arrival we catch up on each others trips, I re-bond with Hunkie and she introduces me to the dogs, the little Myamar lady that works there, the oracle-like Australian man who's been there for an eternity and also the delights of 7eleven iced coffee.

Hunkie

Lacurl

As my first impression of Thailand it certainly has some impressive looking temples; shinier and better kept than Cambodia or Laos they're blinding in the afternoon sunlight.

That evening we had a cook-your-own BBQ at a pleasant little local eatery near the hostel with a couple staying in the same guest house then walked to the street with the bars. Chiang Rai's not known as a party destination so there's just a handful of bars and massage parlours containing a sprinkling of ex-pats and tourists. We drink outside the cat bar with the fattest dog (Chien de la rue) I've possibly ever seen in my life; before heading in for a few games of pool and some weird free drinks while the owner, Sam, plays some rock classics (You can also Jam with Sam).

Anna beating me at pool 

Sam jamming

Cat bar ornaments 

Don Det, Laos

Saying goodbye to beautiful Cambodia we pile into another minibus (which had some strange smoking mushroom graffiti on the windows) and head off to Stung Treng, a nice little border town perched on the Mekong, where we have to wait for the next bus. We have some noodles from a street stall while hanging about for a couple of hours then our minivan turns up. By now there's far more people than seats in the van. Taking up the back two rows are some bags of things heading to Laos; the seats in front of that contain Talitha, another girl and two guys from Denmark; in the front is the driver then me and a Monk sharing the passenger seat. Although not comfortable in any way it was certainly another journey to remember.

We pull up at the tiny border post - there's no-one else at all here, just a few police in small buildings and a few sitting around in the shade. We fill out a quick form and give it, with our passports and two photographs, to the hand in the window. They shuffle the papers about for a while then hand the documents back, gesturing us to the next hand in a window. The visa costs $35 for 30 days. There should be no other charges but they decide they're going to charge us $2 to stamp the visa! Not wanting to pay this unofficial fee out of pure principle I tell them that I only had enough for the $35 entry, so they tell me I should go back into Cambodia! What can you do?? I root about in my pocket, produce $1 in change, put it on the counter in front of the hand and tell him that is all I have. He takes the change and stamps my passport. I head over the border and into the waiting minibus with a ridiculously BLUE roof.

Our Cambodia minibus - Monk having a quick smoke

The Cambodia / Laos border

The customs windows 

Access granted

The BLUE roof of our Laos minibus

On the road again we get settled... for 10 minutes then we stop in a little town. The driver ushers us out to walk but doesn't really explain where we're walking to. The road in the town is under repair, and is non-existent, so we assume we're walking to another minibus at the other side. We dodge the building materials and the residents dodging the building materials, walk a little further and there it is, the Mekong, flowing lazily around 4000 little islands, one of which is Don Det.

Our little long tail boat nips through the islands and lands on a sandy shore framed with quiet restaurants. We jump out and have a quick drink in one of the restaurants, admiring the beautiful Mekong. I'm approached by a tiny kitty when leaving the restaurant, possibly the smallest cat (that's not a kitten) I've ever seen. I name him Oscar and promise to see him later with some food (I never found him again). There's no roads on Don Det, just dusty paths between shops and bungalows down each side of the river bank. You can walk from the eatst to the west side of the island in under five minutes. We look for accommodation on the sunrise side, but find nothing. We find the kind of place we're looking for on the sunset side; two little bungalows right on the river in a resort called Tena, for 30,000 a night. Extremely basic, literally a bed in a hut, mosquito net, a fan and a hammock on the balcony; toilets are in a separate block. Talitha only stays one night and moves to a nicer place, preferring to have a toilet in the room. I'm a tramp, and will sleep anywhere (as long as there's a mosquito net). We dump the bags, have a shower and relax in the melting sunshine. That night we meet a Canadian guy, who's wearing a t-shirt with a logo that later becomes a big part of my life (keep reading for more on this ;) - he's travelling with a half-Vietnamese girl who puts to rest the little mystery of the little question-marks on some Vietnamese characters. We laze about drinking with them for ages. Later we come across a little cinema where you slob out on the floor with a beer and "happy" chocolate brownie; we watch Pineapple Express; which was extremely entertaining! (because of the brownie?). You can get anything "happy" here: shakes, cookies, brownies, pizza - you name it. It just means it's had a liberal sprinkling of cannabis when made. Take it slowly though they're pretty strong; half a brownie each was more than enough!

Everyone out the minibus! walk this way.. 

Arrival at Don Det

Laos Laos (Whiskey) and coke and some mint and lemon drink

I'm going to take you home

This is where is spent most of my time in Don Det

Laos sunsets are spectacular

  The next few days for me are spent reading, writing and relaxing; literally doing nothing. Don Det had a strange effect on me: I'm not sure I've ever been that lazy in my life! Talitha was, on the other hand, in party mode, so she darted off here and there! One day we hired some bikes and cycled to the waterfall on the next island down, paying a small charge on the bridge to cross. The waterfall's not like any I'd seen on the trip so far, it was a powerful Mekong monster crashing over sharp rocks. You can't get particularly near it for the "DANGER" signs! Truly awesome; and this is in the dry season; it must be scary in the wet season. After this we ride over and check out a viewing spot for the rare Mekong dolphins. We didn't see any, despite the many suggestive, badly photo-shopped pictures of tourists frollocking with them, so we head back to Don Det.

That evening we tried a little tubing, with one tube. We tried on the west side of the island, attempting to swim upstream with little progress; constantly aware of the raging waterfall 5km down the river! We leave the water and walk up the north side, hoping we can get into the current at the top point; and float with the current down the west side, to our bungalows. This also failed as the fast current splits on the north west side pushing us east around the side of the island with no places to exit the river. Still, it was great fun splashing about for a while, and at least I can say I did a little tubing in Laos! 

Our last few days together before we part company

The beach a little further down from the waterfall

FROLLOCK WITH THE DOLPHINS LIKE THIS!

Deforestation

 

Totally tubular

Here's the sunset from our final night - no words can describe it, and these pictures certainly don't do it justice.

Amritsar, India

Punjab: home of tandoori chicken. Ahh yea! Rudely woken up at 5am we're ushered off. The four of us bleary-eyed are immediately surrounded by eager tuk-tuk drivers, do these guys ever sleep? Fighting our way out and trying to work out where we are from the lonely planet map we head off down the road to the "tourist lodge hotel". We wake up the night person, who agreed that it's fine for me and Bryan to sit in a room for two hours until the manager came in, which we did. The room hadn't been cleaned from the previous people, we sat around reading then got changed, into exactly the same clothes.

Twins

After some discussion we decided not to take a room for that evening, and head straight out after sightseeing. When the manager arrived he wanted to charge us the FULL amount for the room which we'd only sat in until he'd arrived. We eventually agreed on paying half the amount stating our annoyance at the night-staff who said it was fine for us to relax for an hour. 

We went to see the amazing golden Sikh temple - very very beautiful. We hit this temple on a Sunday and it was SO busy. There were people everywhere. To get into the temple (which is in the middle of a lake) we squeezed into a bottleneck with thousands of Sikhs for 2 hours! The prayer is maintained 24/7 from within the temple where there's almost a full band, and some holy men. Out the back we "drink" some holy water then head back to the mainland past the still queueing hoards. 

Golden temple

After a quick stop in cafe coffee day (India's premier western style coffee house) tandoori chicken enters the hunger arena. A policeman highly recommended the Hotel Anand, a very quick tuk-tuk drive away. A soul less dark air-conditioned place but the chicken was absolutely fantastic, with a garlic naan and beer on the side. 

After some investigation we realise we're not going to be able to get a train/bus out of Amritsar today so we get tickets for tomorrow. We also realise that we're going to have to go back to the hotel and tell them that we are now staying - which was fine. We ended up in a dormitory to ourselves, however we weren't able to get him to knock off what we'd paid for the room earlier. Nil points for customer service.

There's a hilarious India/Pakistan border closing ceremony every day around 5pm. On either side there are huge seating arrays, thousands of people, massive sound systems and even a cheerleader man to whip the crowds up into a frenzy! It's like being at a football match. Once the dancing and cheering is over the border guards come out and march to and from the border - someone likened it to the Ministry of Silly Walks. The Indian and Pakistani border guards taunt each other with fighting stances, the flags are lowered and the border closed. Quite a spectacle!

Indian guard kicking self in the head

Trying to get a bus back a tuk-tuk already full with 6 people stopped and gestured us to get in. Bryan sat next to the driver and me and an Irish guy we'd met jump in the back for the 30km journey to Amritsar. Everyone on the road was in party mode: cheering, waving, honking and generally driving dangerously! People on bikes, tuk-tuk's and cars would come so close we could put our feet on their front bumper and swap drinks. The funniest thing was overtaking Mimi and Steve who'd decided a cycle-rickshaw would be a good mode of transport to travel 30km!?!?

 

The next day was spent lazing about in the hotel garden drinking beer and discussing quantum mechanics, waiting for our respective overnight modes of transport. This is where me and Bryan parted company (for now)

You can see all of the photo's here