Nico and Jo’s Excellent Adventure

We are in our final days in Chiang Mai. It’s been a very active and
full visit! On Wednesday, we are taking a bus to the Thai/Laos border
and then taking a boat down the river into Laos. The entire border
crossing will take about three days, with a night’s stay in a border
town on the way.

Mimi, Eddy and Valerie: Don’t worry. The trip is a set trip we booked
through a travel agent. The bus is a two decker air conditioned bus
and the one night stay is already booked within the package — so it’s
hardly going into the ‘vast unknown’…we’re simply riding a bus,
getting on a boat, getting off a boat, sleeping, then on the boat
again and getting off at the Laos border. 🙂

We’ve had some marvelous adventures so far. [I still can’t believe we
rode an elephant for an hour!!! The ox pulled cart I could have done
without though…I think my bum is still numb…]

We’ve also had some hilarious ‘adventures’ that can only happen when
you’re travelling in a place you’ve never been before.

Musings/random thoughts:

– Cooking School: It was hot and humid in the kitchen…but so much
fun! We cooked about 7 dishes…and ate what we cooked after each one!
After the third, Nico and I were soooooo full! But we still had so
much to cook and therefore, eat. Even the group of German students and
one from Greenland were moaning along with us! Lesson learned: No
eating before a cooking class.

– We had decided that the guest house we were staying in was too
removed from the ‘action’ of the city. Today, after spending 4 nights
there, we decided to check out. After looking the map over…we
realized we had been GOING THE OTHER WAY. The ‘action’ we had been
dying to visit? [The Night Bazar, the bars and clubs, ‘cool’
restaurants] RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER. Lesson learned: Always double
check how you read a map.

– Went to see a Thai Boxing [Muay Thai] match…actually, we saw six
last night. But at the beginning of the first match, we already wanted
to go home. Why? Not because of the heat, or the geckos hanging out
on the ceiling…we wanted to leave because we were getting eaten
alive by mosquitos! It took about a 20 minute walk and lots of miming
on Nico’s part to find a pharmacy that carried mosquito repellent. I’m
allergic to it, but allergies be damned! I wasn’t going to itch for 4
hours! Lesson learned: Always have insect repellent with you while in
Asia. No matter what. Even when you think you won’t need it, bring it.

That’s it for now. We have 4 more days in Chiang Mai and then off to
Laos. We’ll try and connect one more time before we leave and as soon
as we get to Laos.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 7th, 2005 at 10:28 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.