Laos Border: Chiang Kong: April 20th

After all the excitement in Chiang Mai and the extensive travelling I have done in the last week I decided it would be nice to just chill out for the last days here in Thailand. I had a comfortable airconditioned room, the people were friendly; everything was just great.

I was just having a wonderful breakfast at my favorite bistro.(Mom, I hope you are suitably impressed by my choice to have fruit with the meal.) Then I made the mistake of sitting down to chat with the woman across from my Guest House who happens to be a travel agent.

The next thing I knew I'm in a minibus, hurtling toward the Thai border.

This is Jim from London. His accent is a lot like your Ted; Kings Crossing, London.

This is Peter, who is also from London, England.

We all stopped for lunch on the way. The Japanese couple are from a town near Osaka. The other guy is Simon from Singapore.

The country is lush and green. This is the same part of the world the Hill tribes come from.

This is Abba from the Ahka hill tribe who live right near where I am now. She gave me a massage a couple of days ago in Chiang Mai. When I told her I was coming to this region she was very excited. She grasped my chin just as this picture was being taken like I was some stray oversized Canadian puppy who had wandered into her store.

So now here I am in Chiang Kong, on the border of Thailand, waiting to cross the Mekong river to Laos. My room has a door lock that doesn't lock, the bathroom light doesn't turn on and I only have two settings on the shower; boiling hot and cold; but it's home. I will be crossing the border in the morning, then I take a slow boat down the Mekong River (a very famous river if you remember your Vietnam war history). I am planning to come back into Thailand on the 27th. If you don't hear from me til then it could be because Laos has restrictions on Internet use. When I didn't post a blog article for a while I had a massive onslaught of letters demanding a post (okay, well 2 letters, and one was my own sister...) So until then let me just say; Sawadee Cup and see you soon!