Back to Thailand!

After the longest journey yet we are finally back in Thailand. We spent 3 nights in Luang Praboung, Laos, a beautiful city (more like a small town) that is one of the most charming places we've been. It's supergreen and lush with little cafes everywhere and riverside views. We saw tons of Wats and rented bikes to cruise around town. The night market was so beautiful and quiet, it's supposed to be one of the best markets in SE Asia. We really enjoyed it, no pressure and really beautiful things. The best part was the food! There were these tables of all kinds of vegetarian food and you could fill up a plate for 5000 kip! That's 50 cents. It was some of the best food we've had on this trip. We got spoiled..just before we had to eat baguettes and processed cheese for 2 days...

So there's only 1 ATM in Laos, and I cashed my last travelers check and lauren got a cash advance to get us to thailand, but we kind of underestimated how much we needed and bought stuff our last night...stupid stupid stupid. We had a 2 day long boat ride along the mekong and spent 2 nights in tiny little random towns along the way...it was very strange. The boat ride was really beautiful, i occupied myself by reading an entire book in 2 days...although it was LONGGGGGG. Basicly, to make a long story short, we crossed over into Thailand this morning with $1 in my pocket...that's it! Luckily there was an ATM at the border town in Thailand so we could get to Chaing Rai today.

So here we are, Chaing Rai...noone we met was coming here, and now we know why. This town is U-G-L-Y. We are taking the bus the Chaing Mai first thing in the morning. Even so, it feels great to be back in Thailand. After our little SE Asia tour, Thailand feels soooo developed! The houses are sturdy and the people have clean clothes on. There are no begging children and they all have pants!

It feels like this is a major turning point in our trip. The busride today was really beautiful and relaxing, it was good reflection time. I can't believe how many places we've been and cultures we've seen. In Vietnam alone we saw about 5 different ways of life. Each region seems so different now, even northern thailand. The people here look so much more Chinese than in the south. The southern people seem to be more Khmer influenced. Anyway, here we are...and FINALLY headed to Chaing Mai, the first place we were supposed to go! Cheers to that!