Back to Bangkok

We just arrived to our hotel in Bangkok - A night train from Chiang Mai was pleasent with a nice dinner served on board as well. Unfortunately  we still need to wait a while before we get a key to our room, but that should happen shortly and then we are ready to enjoy last few days of our holiday. It really seems that this long holiday is about to end - what a shame. But in fact one starts to miss few things from back home - Who could have guessed...

Merry christmas

For everyone from a bit warmer temperatures than back home. Christmas is very present also in Chiang Mai but definetely this is quite different to traditional stuffs. So everyone have a safe and happy christmas!

Sweet condensed milk

In ice coffee in Chiang Rai is very refreshing. After succesful entry to Thailand a day to take it slow was a necessity. We did not remember incorrectly thai cooking skills :-) they make clearly best food in the region - curries, pad thais and cheese cakes are delicious. Unfortunate for traveller S that she cannot enjoy cakes but at least I can tell her about how good it tastes ;-) she claims that it is not sufficient. Only thing to complain is weather. Just 25 and sunny feels so cold for us - I wonder how we can survive in Finland... Luckily our Starbright hotel is very japanese. Rock hard mattress and tiny room but extremely clean = very good. Additionally day was suprisingly good for birding or maybe my judgement is not appropriate to thailand as these people dont eat everything in sight as obviously was happening in poorer countries. Anyway tomorrow plan is to reach Doi Inthanon national park for which we managed to book a room as well. So probably next update will not happen until thursday when we are supposed to be in Chiang Mai.

to thailand

It is time to start moving towards Thailand in order to be there by christmas. So today plan is to take bus to Huay xai and possibly cross the border. Lets see if it succeeds...

to thailand

It is time to start moving towards Thailand in order to be there by christmas. So today plan is to take bus to Huay xai and possibly cross the border. Lets see if it succeeds...

Birthday petanque

Thanks everyone for birthday wishes. There were not internet available in Nong Khiew so the answer is a bit late. Most important thing was to find my first lao petanque game and I succeeded! At the local bus station group of men were playing doubles and after a while watching they invited me to the game. Great. So we played doubles and I was playing as a placer (not sure if this is english word for a player trying to place the ball as close as possible to target ball). Well it took a while to understand each other as they did not speak english and I did not master lao. Eventually roles were sorted out and I did decent play but eventually we lost by couple points. Damn. But to our defence local guys were truly magnificent at shooting - I assume that in this small town bus station people have lots of free time :-) Now I am already looking forward for new games. Hopefully we find some from Luamg Nam Tha which is next destination from Oudomxai where we are now staying.

Relax

We are still in LPB :-) now relaxing with the papaya drink by the mekong river (turn your head to see picture correctly). Life is good when you dont need to work. It seems that we are stuck (intentionally) here for a bit longer than expected but no problem we still have 2+ weeks to reach thailand.