Laos day 10, Thailand Day 1 & 2 – Border crossing & Chiang Mai

Despite the fact we had to be up and about to pack, get stamped out of Laos – catch a longboat across the Mekong, get stamped into Thailand and find the bus station neither of us remembered to set our alarm. I woke up at 8:45am, immediately concerned about how good I felt from all the sleep – as soon as I saw the time I shook Lisa from her slumber and we hurried to get our shit together.

Smiles hiding the panic

It was a bit unlike us, but we’d done absolutely no research about crossing this border – having been too preoccupied with the bus ride on the other side. We walked with all of our bags to where we thought the immigration office was – just across the road from the hotel at the top of the jetty we’d arrived in - however it soon became apparent we were in completely the wrong place. We got waved away and told to go into the town centre itself – brilliant. We trudged to the top of the street, and saw no signs of a tuk tuk. It was now 9:30am and we were sweating.

After 10 minutes of trying to find a ride, a guy was leaving his house and fortunately also owned a tuk tuk… but spoke zero English. We asked a local to translate but she didn’t know what the hell we were going on about for ages – until the point where I was just stood there, passport in hand making a stamping gesture with the other and Lisa was pointing over towards the river repeating ‘Thailand, Thailand!”. At last, the penny dropped and we were on our way! We got there, had to pay the driver in Thai Baht (he got a pretty good tip, roughly 8 times the fare as I had no small notes) and we skipped towards immigration.

There were massive queues and we thought we were sunk – until I spotted a free window no one had noticed yet, barged our way past a couple of frail looking old women and thrust the passports into the window. By 10am we had our exit stamps and were looking for a boat – we walked towards the river. We were shouted at, and sent to a ticket office (read: shack with table and one chair), obtained a couple of river crossing passes and proceeded to the end of the jetty where it looked like a guy was about to leave.

Us and a couple of locals got on board – we kept our backpacks on, and clambered aboard the longboat. I think the reason they call them this is because of how skinny they are which in effect makes them look long – there is only room to sit one on each row. We set off and it felt amazingly unsafe – the engine sounded like it would give out any moment, there were HUGE barges going in both directions along the river which we were threading our way through and it was also raining – but at least it only took 5 minutes!

Light dragon boat thingy

 We scamped up the ramp on the Thai side, and quickly found the immigration office. It was fortunately much quieter going into Thailand than the other way and we only had one guy in front of us. After a quick form, we had our Thai visas and were off again – 10:25am now, we were still hopeful of making the bus! We had no idea on how to get there however and it was a couple of kms out of town. We were immediately approached by people offering us a minivan to Chiang Mai – we dubiously asked them when they could take us, they said 11am no problem! Then made the phonecall, and said we’d actually have to wait until 4pm. They did however offer a transfer to the bus station – we could see no other options, so followed the guy to his truck.

Much to our surprise – we were in the back, no seats – the trailer hitch didn’t work and it was also pretty dirty. At least it had a roof! The ride took 10 minutes, we paid him $2 which seemed like a pretty good deal for him – but we arrived at the bus company’s office with a full 25 minutes to spare! Not bad going – we even had time to grab a coffee, and stock up on snacks from the 7/11 which sold some amazing treats.

We boarded the bus and breathed a huge sigh of relief – it turned out to be a fairly luxury coach, and despite the trauma of getting onto it we were actually a little relieved to not be flying around in a minivan driven by a maniac. The journey was uneventful, but comfortable – we managed to watch some TV and do a bit of blogging.

We arrived in Chiang Mai at the bus station and had no idea how to get anywhere. We wandered outside and ended up getting into the first tuk tuk that offered us a ride – I was so exhausted I couldn’t even be bothered to haggle on the price, so it was only just cheaper than the 7 hour trip we’d just been on! The traffic was mental so it took a while to carve our way through, and it seemed the festival was still taking place (it goes for a few days apparently) so loads of roads were closed off.

We made the hotel just as the sun was setting – checked in to what seemed like a palace compared to the last couple of places, and both lay on the bed for a while not moving. We were determined to not waste the evening however – and we ventured out about an hour later to check out the festivities, since they were still in full swing.

First we walked to the Three Kings Monument which was just around the corner – there was a big display of lanterns, lights and a huge dragon. It all looked very pretty and was drawing quite a crowd – so much so that we only stayed a few minutes before grabbing a tuk tuk and heading to the night bazaar markets.

They were sprawling and sold all manor of tat. From t-shirts to samurai swords and everything in between – plus a few items we’d not seen before so it was actually interesting wandering around for a change (a lot of the markets get a bit same same after a while). As we were walking around, you could see vast numbers of lanterns being lit and floating into the night sky – we followed the road around towards the edge of the old city walls (the centre of Chiang Mai is a big square, surrounded by a moat) and stumbled across a big parade taking place for the festival. There was an epic crowd that we had to battle through to get past, and ended up on one of the bridges across the river – here it was fireworks central. During the festival you can get away with anything firework related it seems, so all the local kids had hundreds of them and were shooting them off the bridge either into the sky, at the water or at eachother. Every minute or so one would fizz overhead and scare the crap out of us. Every five minutes a HUGE one would go off somewhere nearby and sound like a bomb had been dropped.

Fireworks and lanterns over Chiang Mai

We soaked up as much atmosphere as we dared before heading over to check out the riverside restaurants for some food. Unfortunately with it being the festival they all had a queue to get a table and were packed – so we retreated back across the bridge, through the parade and back to the night bazaar which had a food court somewhere in the middle. It was late and options were limited, but we found a place doing woodfired pizzas and beers – sold! Our expectations were low, but it turned out to be one of the best pizzas we’ve ever had!

After that, the days events had taken their toll and we were exhausted – we caught another tuk tuk back to the hotel and basked in the glory of the air conditioning.

The next morning we met up with Seth – who I used to work with in Brisbane at the AIBN, but has been living in Chiang Mai for a couple of years. We hired a scooter via the hotel (Seth got jealous as his rental was falling apart and ours was fancy – although my helmet was teeny so I looked a bit ridiculous) and set off to a place outside the city for lunch.

En route, we planned on buying our train tickets down to Bangkok for 2 days time – we were going to get a sleeper, then catch a flight from there to the coast and head to one of the many Thai islands for some beach relaxation time. We got an immediate spanner in the works though, as the trains were all full! Clearly they were all busier from the festival – and we were a bit stuck, unless we waited an extra couple of days for the trains to free up.

We decided to plan it out over lunch – Seth led the way to a lake/reservoir about 20 minutes away. It was quite a maze of backstreets and highways initially as we crossed back through town – plus Seth rides like a local now, so he was tough to keep up with! Riding the scooter in Thailand was easier than other countries though as they at least drove on the left. The place we went to had bamboo huts facing out over the water – really basic, and really quiet which was a welcome change of pace from the city.

Lakeside lunching

We ordered a right old feast – including a whole deep fried fish which was delicious, and also a couple of spicy things which kicked our faces off but in a good way. It was good having Seth for the inside knowledge of getting around town and also down to Bangkok as he does the trip fairly frequently. We figured out that we could catch a couple of flights and leave Chiang Mai a day later and it would cost about the same as if we’d left a day earlier on the night train and ended up staying in Phuket or Krabi overnight.

We retreated back to the hotel to book our onward travels – and would meet up with Seth later on. It took us over two hours of relentless internet research, price comparisons and guidebook reading but we eventually settled on an itinerary for the next week – and managed to book two flights, two hotels, a speedboat and a ferry all in advance. Now all we had to do was show up on time for everything!

That night, Seth and his mate Craig were having a leaving party as they are both departing Chiang Mai soon – so it was good timing for us to go along and have a drink with them. We also met Seth’s girlfriend Nui and a whole bunch of other ex-pats, the fact that we were also in an Irish Pub made it all feel a bit surreal! After three pints I was hammered (it’s been a while since I’ve had to contend with a pint!), and we were both exhausted again – so let the others continute into the night and we strolled home – we’d booked something else a little exciting for the next morning that we had to be up at 6am for, so wanted to get an early night.