Lao, Thailand: Part 1

From Hanoi I crossed into Luang Prabang, Lao.  Unfortunately Haley couldn't come with me, as planned, because a Lao Airline flight attendant was on a power trip regarding the validity of Haley's passport (it was valid, in case you were wondering).  We said a said goodbye as she took a plane to Cambodia, but luckily I met a really great Chinese-German-British girl who I ended up rooming with and spending time with in Luang Prabang.  LP is a sleepy little town, very laid-back and a nice change from the craziness of Vietnam. I spent the first full day in town, going to the museum, a whole lot of temples, and generally meandering around.  The next morning we took a tuk-tuk out to a beautiful series of waterfalls, which were much bigger than the ones in Mondulkiri, Cambodia.  We spent the afternoon swimming in the (freezing) turquoise pools that flowed from it.   After one more day of hanging out with monks and strolling by the river, I flew down to Vietnaine, the capital of Lao.  Although bigger than LP, Vientaine still had a laid-back air to it and I spent my days checking out wats (temples), going to the night markets, and enjoying the riverside area.  

On Sunday I took a bus from there to Thailand and spent the day in Udon Thani, a concrete jungle of a city, before flying to Chiang Mai on a propellered plane painted to resemble a parrot.  Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand but is less urban and has more character than Bangkok supposedly does.  Chiang Mai is surrounded by moats and has more than 300 temples in it, which means that the entire town looks like a postcard waiting to happen.  I spent my time in Chiang Mai going to more temples, markets, and stuffing my face with delicious food. After a few days there I took a bus down to Sukhothai, the former capital, where today I spent the day checking out the ancient city and hanging out with some local kids, after it turned out that the mini-bus/pick-up truck I was on was actually a school bus.  Now its time for some more noodles (I eat noodles 3x a day now, which is a change from the Cambodian diet of rice 3x a day) and meandering about town.

Traveling like this has been an exhausting, amazing, complicated, fun experience and I'm excited for the next two weeks, which will see me tackling southern Thailand and Malaysia.  I've met some great people, both locals and foreigners, and seen some wierd and beautiful things (a monk in the back of a pickup truck surrounded by spare car parts; the sunrise over a wat in LP) and done some strange stuff (ride on the back of a bicycle in the middle of the night in a town in the Mekong Delta).  These are the experiences I will no doubt remember forever.