Well I'm three weeks into my travels but it feels like I've beeen away longer as I've packed quite alot in. I finished my few days in Chiang Mai last week with a day at the Chiang Mai Cokery school. We started with a visit to the local market where one of the chefs explained all the various ingredients we'd be using. I was a bit alarmed by 'snake head fish' but thankfully we didn't see any of the head. After the market we went by truck out to their school in the countryside, about twenty minutes from Chiang Mai. We cooked all day and I learnt Coconut Milk Soup, Spicy Chicken Noodles, Red Fish Curry, Papaya Salad and Banana Leaf Cake. I also ate what I cooked so felt a bit stuffed by the end of the day. I met a new friend at the cookery school, a girl from Amsterdam called Irene who is also travelling alone. We went out to the night market and the river bar in the evening and plan to meet up again in Luang Prabang.
The next day I began my journey to laos, after a lazy day in Chiang Mai hanging out in the garden at Parami Guest House and playing with the cats. I was evetually collected from the Guest House by a man in a truck and taken to a rather run down office where a woman in comical pyjamas told me to wait on for the overnight bus to the border. The bus driver she said would stop and yell 'Chiang Khong' and then I could get on. I wasn't convinced! An hour later, whilst the lady and her son drove their motorbikes in and out of the shop, there was still no sign of the shouting bus driver but eventually after a few frantic phone calls by pyjama lady a minibus turned up and and on I got.
After several stops and lots of crazy driving around hair pin bends we finally arrived at the border about 3am. I'd been told we'd arrive at 5am and go straight to the boat but actually we were herded off the bus into a guest house for a few hours sleep. Bleary eyed and confused I wasn't quite sure what was going on but after being cramped up in a freezing cold air-con minibus for the past six hours I wasn't complaining and crashed out.
In the morning we were woken by a singing guest house owner. He wandered around singing 'Good morning, good morning, breakfast' to his own peculiar tune.
The began the process of getting across the border. We were taken first in a truck to a booth where we could buy photos and american dollars for the visa fee, then to a 30 minute queue to clear Thai immigration, then to a longtail boat across the river - hooray I'm in Laos - then to another 45 minute queue to get a Laos visa, then another 30 minute one to get the passport stamp to enter the country, then to a cafe where a Lao man basicallty told ud we'd be robbed and murdered in our beds if we went on the bost to Pak Beng and how we should get on his bus to Luang Prabang, then the brave (or stupid) amongst us were taken by truck to the river where we waited for another half an hour for customs to check our passport again and get out boat tickets and then FINALLY we got to get on the boat, where we waited. We left the guest house at 8am and after 4 hours we finally left the border and made for Pak Beng.