The Travelonians

Note: Just found this blog ready to go and with all the excitement of the trip never posted it so here it is. Better late than never!!!! Written on February 21, 2019. I can’t believe how lucky we are going down the mighty Mekong River. We cruised downriver for 6 hours to Pakbeng in a flatboat. They packed us in like sardines but hey that’s part of the adventure. The first thing you do is take off your shoes before getting on the boat. Forget about your assigned seat, it doesn’t matter. The younglings have already started to drink their beers and walking around the boat and as old-timers, we were a bit envious. We all know that our bladders wouldn’t be able to handle all that beer this early. BTW - we departed at 11:30am.  One of the interesting parts of this journey is that there are probably about 20 life jackets for around 150 people and the boat is cracking away as it is made out of wood. Yikes. The smoking section is in the back of the boat where the locals are sitting...

Before leaving on our trip, I had read many blogs which explained the process of getting to the border and that it was chaotic. Our experience was far from that. I’m sure that if you leave very early in the morning to catch the 11:00 boat leaving from Huay Xai it might be more hectic but for us, we had planned to stay 2 nights and take our times so we left a bit later. We started off leaving Chiang Rai on this rickety bus which was super uncomfortable for a 2-hour ride. BTW – I haven’t mentioned this in any blog, but every bus has 2 people, the driver of course, and an attendant. The attendant’s job on long trips is to serve you a snack and water and help with the many stops along the way, and loading local goods. On shorter trips, they are there to collect the money. They come to you and collect once the bus is in motion. I wondered how they keep track of the people that come on and off especially in the city buses like in Bangkok where the process is the same. No monthly passe...

Now time to move on to Chiang Rai as we are moving more north in Thailand , on our way to the border crossing into Laos. We took the bus to Chiang Rai, about 2 ½ hours, a comfortable ride with wide seats and rules about buckling our seatbelts. They gave us water and snacks, all in all, a nice way to travel. C hang Rai is a city of contrasts - See for yourself.  Beautiful markets for the locals. The temples  were different than in Chiang Mai but just as beautiful in their own right. The Clock Tower is unique as it comes alive at night with a light and sound show.  The flower show was just amazing with local dancers and musicians dressed in their traditional costumes. We went to two of their famous Temples. One is the Blue which was recently built. The Blue Buddha was very impressive, but the rest was kind of odd. Look at the pictures and judge for yourself. If you have been following us on Facebook and have seen the be...