Viang Yonok Chiang Saen

... away to everyone and having much more room to move around unlike the last boat.

We arrived at our overnight stop Pak Beng after dark. As we got off we were immediately ambushed by people from the local guesthouses all trying to get us to stay at their places. To cut a long (tragic) story short we ended up drawing the short straw. In fact in probably wasn't even short, it was like someone saying pick a straw and ...

... quite low to begin with.

One thing I totally regret, is that I did not get my passport stamped. I could have done it when I made my purchase, but didn't realize it at the time. I had my passport with me and lost out on a cool triangle-shaped Laos visa stamp! Grrrrrr! Guess I'll just have to go back. :)

... with those foreign words.

My elephant was a female named, Lanna. She lifted her right leg which I stepped on then had to hoist myself up to get on her shoulders. That alone was a workout. I had to scoot forward with my knees on her head and my feet behind her ears. I guided her to an area with little bananas and the mahout handed me a whole bunch so I could feed her as we walked along. I found out early on that Lanna was a glutton and wanted nothing more than to ...

... strolling around the place without a care despite the restaurant dog being right by him and lots of people sitting closer to him than we were. After a tense 20 minutes or so we paid for the delicious dinner and headed back up the road for an early night.
The next morning we were catching the slow boat from Huay Xai down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. Its possible to do the trip by road but its supposed to be far more pleasant going by boat and I think might even be cheaper. Anyways, we ...

27 aout
Chiang Mai est fabuleuse... mais le nord m<appellait encore... alors, 6 heures de bus plus tard,e voila a chiang Saen (google map ne voulait pas me laisser inscrire ce village. En partant de chiang Khnon, regardez un peu plus haut, a la jonction des frontieres du laos, du Myanmar et de la thailande - bref, en plein dans le fameux et tristement celebre triangle d<or).

Chiang Saen est un village tranquille (disons, d<une ...

... br>As we sat there recovering, two ponies and their owner came slowly up the hill after us and a motorbike came down the hill toward us. The bike driver told the guide that the 4x4 would be here soon...yeah right! The ponies were there to pick up some food stuff that was on board. Well we waited for another ten minutes or so an sure enough the oh so beautiful sound of the 4x4 could be heard getting closer and then we caught sight of it. How happy ...

... four of us decided to go to Hut 5. This was the magic One Hour away and Anloch didn't feel up to it. The four of us said our good-byes and zipped off into the forest. Just over TWO hours later, half a dozen zip lines, loads more slippery up-hills and after shedding ten tonnes of sweat, the canopy opens out on the last zip line. Hut 5 is revealed to us for the first time. It's simply awesome. The tallest tree for miles, maybe 60 or 70m high and ...

... couldn't see them at all. We stopped off at a large Tesco store to buy another stash of porridge (2 actually) as it's the best thing we've found that we can sort out easily in the morning before we set off, and, it keeps us going for a long time. We don't cook it, we just use it 'raw' with fruit and soya milk, as Dave has developed an intolerance for cows' milk over the past couple of years. In India we used fruit and curd, but ...

... apparently the spritis help them on their way. There are a couple of sweeping hills to climb, but nothing particularly steep or difficult. We lunched in Lamphun and decided to take the old road into Chiang Mai, and it was there we bumped into Dave another cyclist from Texas. Dave had cycled from Bangkok also, but had done it in 6 days, very impressive. We cycled together into Chiang Mai where we tried to get into Julie's Guesthouse, but ...

... from Thailand as soon as you crossed the border - obviously a much poorer country. Apparently the minimum wage in Thailand is $10/day compared to $2/day in Myanmar, so there's been a big refugee issue in Thailand (many checkpoints along the road to the border, where cars are searched for refugees). Lots of Thais were heading into Myanmar along with us (big holiday weekend) - in addition to being a great place to buy cheap cigarettes and other cheap stuff, it's apparently a big gambling ...