Sasha:
We left Pai on a Monday. Thanks to the bedbug infestation, we were VERY ready to leave. I had some anxiety- we were headed to a different country, new words to learn, new menus to navigate. . . I had heard some very bad things about trying to eat gluten free in Laos, so I was nervous that I'd be eating nothing but sticky rice and bananas for a few weeks.
We had reservations on an Aya travel agency minibus for the 6 hour drive from Pai to Chaing Kong, next to the northern Thailand/ Laos border. The schedule had us leaving at 8pm and arriving at 2am, which turned out to be more like 3am. We arrive at a grim guest house, and turn down the first bedroom after we see a cockroach skittering under the mattress, and are put into a room with two beds. After seeing a hair and a few crumbs in the bed that were not our own, we pull out our sleep sacks and hop into them. We had sent them to the laundry to be washed and dried, but our skin was crawling within within minutes. It could be they were still infested, or it could be that we were tired and paranoid. Either way, we didn't fall asleep until at least 4am, and were told to be ready to get up for breakfast at 7, and off to the border at 8.
We thought about sleeping through the border transport, but Ra was awake before 7, and the other people on our bus stirring woke me up shortly after. We threw our stuff and ourselves into the back of a pickup truck, and went 5 minutes down the road to a guest house for a breakfast. As it turns out, this guesthouse was the place that Aya told us we were actually going to stay, and seemed to be nicer than the place we ended up. We paid 50 baht a piece for eggs, watery tea, and toast. From the guesthouse, we jumped back into the pickup truck (I rode in front cab with the driver this time) who took us to the border crossing.
The Thai-Lao border is relaxed, to say the least. You fill out the departure card on the Thai side, then walk down to the Mekong river where you pay 40 Baht (about $1.30) for a boat to ferry you to the other side. From there, you fill out two arrival cards, hand them $30 for a visa-on-arrival, and voila! We have arrived.
At this point, I realize that there is a problem. Which is to say, I reach into my bag to pull out my camera so I can get a shot of the Mekong River, when I realize that my camera is not in my bag. I sit on the ground, pulling everything out- and it isn't there. This is especially bad because it is the second camera I have lost on this trip-the first one was pulled out of my bag when I left it in my checked luggage on the flight from Goa to Mumbai. Ahhrgghhhh. It must have fallen out of my bag on the minibus ride from Pai to the border.
Between the camera, the bedbugs, the ominous clouds, the lack of sleep, the food anxieties, Laos is not yet our happy place.
We left Pai on a Monday. Thanks to the bedbug infestation, we were VERY ready to leave. I had some anxiety- we were headed to a different country, new words to learn, new menus to navigate. . . I had heard some very bad things about trying to eat gluten free in Laos, so I was nervous that I'd be eating nothing but sticky rice and bananas for a few weeks.
We had reservations on an Aya travel agency minibus for the 6 hour drive from Pai to Chaing Kong, next to the northern Thailand/ Laos border. The schedule had us leaving at 8pm and arriving at 2am, which turned out to be more like 3am. We arrive at a grim guest house, and turn down the first bedroom after we see a cockroach skittering under the mattress, and are put into a room with two beds. After seeing a hair and a few crumbs in the bed that were not our own, we pull out our sleep sacks and hop into them. We had sent them to the laundry to be washed and dried, but our skin was crawling within within minutes. It could be they were still infested, or it could be that we were tired and paranoid. Either way, we didn't fall asleep until at least 4am, and were told to be ready to get up for breakfast at 7, and off to the border at 8.
We thought about sleeping through the border transport, but Ra was awake before 7, and the other people on our bus stirring woke me up shortly after. We threw our stuff and ourselves into the back of a pickup truck, and went 5 minutes down the road to a guest house for a breakfast. As it turns out, this guesthouse was the place that Aya told us we were actually going to stay, and seemed to be nicer than the place we ended up. We paid 50 baht a piece for eggs, watery tea, and toast. From the guesthouse, we jumped back into the pickup truck (I rode in front cab with the driver this time) who took us to the border crossing.
The Thai-Lao border is relaxed, to say the least. You fill out the departure card on the Thai side, then walk down to the Mekong river where you pay 40 Baht (about $1.30) for a boat to ferry you to the other side. From there, you fill out two arrival cards, hand them $30 for a visa-on-arrival, and voila! We have arrived.
At this point, I realize that there is a problem. Which is to say, I reach into my bag to pull out my camera so I can get a shot of the Mekong River, when I realize that my camera is not in my bag. I sit on the ground, pulling everything out- and it isn't there. This is especially bad because it is the second camera I have lost on this trip-the first one was pulled out of my bag when I left it in my checked luggage on the flight from Goa to Mumbai. Ahhrgghhhh. It must have fallen out of my bag on the minibus ride from Pai to the border.
Between the camera, the bedbugs, the ominous clouds, the lack of sleep, the food anxieties, Laos is not yet our happy place.
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