Wow, so a lot has happened since my last chance for internet exposure. Starting from a few days past :

Our flight from Taipei to Bangkok went well, only a few hours and we got in around midnight. We had hotel arrangements in khao san road which is a pretty big tourist spot, but decided to veto the whole sleeping idea to save some cash. (We had a flight leaving the next morning at 10am, so we’d only be sleeping for a few hours anyways). Stored the bags and hit the town laced in humidity. Had some cheap drinks and green curry and got a tuk tuk to this place called Boss…. the name almost gives justice to how skanky this place was, but not enough. Basically a whore house/dance club, so it was a funny experience (no, nothing happened- thanks). We stayed there until 6 am, as did surprisingly a lot of other people, and headed to the airport.

Flight from BKK to chiang rai went well, i was pretty exhausted. We landed and got straight on a 2 hour bus ride into chiang khong near the Laos border. Really cool small town where we had a 2 dollar dinner (including drinks) overlooking the Mekong river. Slept here for a night and the next day crossed the river / the border into Loas to board a slow boat to take down the river.

The slow boat was a really awesome experience. It was a public boat so we got to sit next to locals who lived on random parts of the river and huge bags of rice for 6 hours the first day. We stopped in pakbeng, which is probably the smallest town we’ve been where the power turns off at 10pm. We went to dinner and ordered 10 plates of food and 18 beers for about 8 dollars a person. We all know how I like to save a dollar or two every now and again AKA im a cheap ass, so I have been appreciating it here.

Next day on the boat started around 9 am after an omelette and frenchfries and we shored (pun intended) up at 5 pm in Luang Prabang. Dad you would’ve loved this boat ride- basically the SF ferry but 24 oz beers for 2 dollars and a much cooler view. This city is my favorite so far. It’s an old french city with a lot of cool sites based around the local monks. You can tell its starting to get too touristy, but so far I haven’t really minded it. Last night we had a vegetarian dinner from a cart for 50 cents and it was amazing. We are staying in this amazing place with hard wood floors and AC for only 5 US dollars a night.

We are staying here for a few days and then heading to vang vieng to go tubing. I am loving Laos- it is a really cool place. I’ll try and put pics up soon…