Not much happening today. We grabbed the 10AM bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong for a whopping 65 baht / person. The bus was open air, small and packed! Plus there was some super weird western dude in the back of the bus shouting out how he went to Laos 15 years ago or something. He was also fondling his little Asian lady who did seem very happy about it.
Made it to Chiang Khong and walked a about a km before finding a super nice place with A/C rooms for 500 baht. This may have been the nicest hotel we've stayed in since we got to Thailand. Huge room, soft bed with clean sheets, balcony, water bottles, bathroom with soap AND toilet paper and the coolest part ... A shower curtain!!!!! Luxury! Had lunch at a cool little place that actually had whole wheat bread!!!!!!!
Rented a scooter in the afternoon and drive around the countryside a bit. The scooter had seen better days so we took things a bit slow. We rode along he Mekong river and were treated to some great scenery. The river is pretty wide with all sorts of large rocks in it. I guess you could say we saw how the locals live away from the tourist areas but it really didn't look a whole lot different.
So later on we got some provisions for our trip since the boat will take about 8 hours and there isn't anything to eat on it. The seven-11 next door had all the goodies we needed .... Chips, cookies and water. We also decided to get a small loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly ... Our own sammiches for the win!!!!!!
So tomorrow we make our way to Laos. Thai immigration opens at 0800 and we're told the boat to Luang Prabang (Pak Beng) will leave around 1030. So we're planning to get to immigration about 0830. There's no bridge to the Laos side so we have to take a small ferry after Thai immigration and go to Laos immigration after that. Our visa should be about $35 per person plus a $1 'overtime' fee since it's a weekend. Apparently if it were during the week there would still be a $1 fee but it would be called something different.
Ok last night in Thailand, sleeping in a great bed with a great room and a beautiful woman by my side. Hopefully Laos will be amazing but I think our standard of living will be going down from here. But we could be surprised.
Pics: 1st one is our room, 2nd is looking over the Mekong into Laos and the 3rd .... Well that's me on our little hog.
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