And Back Again

Just a quick post to wrap up the trip and share pictures. Chiang Saen was the last stop on our motorbike tour, and after two nights there we headed back to Chiang Rai for a few days to enjoy the weekend "walking street" markets and plan our journey home.  One day, we rented bikes (ones we actually had to pedal - Matthias wasn't all too thrilled with that) and rode along the Mae Kok river.  The next day, we got motorbikes again and went to see the popular and strange White Temple and then went back down the riverside road a bit further than we could make it under our own pedal power.

White Temple outside of Chiang Rai

With just a few days left to our trip, we had originally planned to make our way to Chiang Mai and then Bangkok on the overnight train, where we would spend the last two days before catching our red-eye flight out.  That would have been nice, and certainly would have made our journey home a lot more pleasant.  Unfortunately, though, we changed our plans based on recommendations to avoid Bangkok and the anti-government protesters' efforts to shut down the city.  So, we booked a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok airport on our departure date to avoid the city.  This gave us a few more days up north, where it was business as usual.  On our way to Chiang Mai we decided to stop in a lakeside town called Phayao - a place popular with Thai tourists (but few Western ones) so it didn't feel all that touristy to us.  In Phayao, we rented motorbikes and rode around the lake, through a preserved wetland and fish farming area - and of course enjoyed some tasty fresh fish.

Our last two days in Chiang Mai were spent walking around looking at temples and markets and getting our fill of Kao Soi - a northern Thai chicken noodle soup made with curry and coconut milk - our favorite!  We had been to/through Chiang Mai a few times before, so we basically traced our old footsteps while lamenting that we wouldn't be able to get to Bangkok via the night train, which we remembered as being really fun. 

Kao Soi at the Chiang Mai Market

So, our journey home consisted of a quick flight to BKK airport, a seven hour layover at the airport, a five hour red-eye flight to Beijing with a nine hour layover, an 11-hour flight to Seattle, bus to Tacoma and three-hour Amtrak ride back to Portland.  There were some highlights though:  We were able to get the airport express train to downtown Beijing (they have a 72-hour visa-free visit policy), walk around a hutong (old neighborhood) and eat hand-pulled noodles - probably Matthias' absolute favorite (non-pork) food item. We also got to fly on the new Boeing Dreamliner plane from Beijing to Seattle and the scenery out of the (larger) windows was spectacular as we flew over Eastern Russia and Alaska.  The Amtrak ride along the Puget Sound and watching the sun set over the Columbia river at sunset made for a great finish - but I was done taking pictures at that point.

Enjoying freshly made hand-pulled noodles in Beijing

That's it.  Nothing else to say except it was a fabulous trip and the full set of pictures are online:

Click Here:  Laos and Thailand Photos

Tasty Thailand!

We've been in Thailand for about a week and it didn't take nearly that long to remember how much we love it here.  The food is fantastic (probably reason #1), people are friendly, it's relatively easy to get around and it's beautiful and interesting.  And the weather is perfect.  What's not to love?

Mountain Scenery!

We arrived at the Thai border on January 10 - entering via the new "Friendship Bridge" between Laos and Thailand that was opened just three weeks earlier.  We got a nice hotel in Chiang Khong, the border town where we had stayed a few years earlier on our way to (and from) China.  We weren't all that excited about it, but it was better than we remembered, and we enjoyed a nice dinner with Chris - a New Yorker we met on the boat from Luang Prabang.

The next morning, we took the public bus to Chiang Rai and checked in to our fabulous hotel (also recently opened).  We immediately took our clothes to be laundered and got some kao soi  (curry noodle soup with chicken). Delicious!  Luckily it was Saturday, and we were able to visit the market on the "Walking Street" which was packed with crafts, souveniers and general schlock (tons of tacky iphone covers and handbags) but the real draw was the food stalls - rows and rows of delicious (and sometimes weird) offerings, including satay, grilled meat and fish, salads, stews, dumplings and more!  Of course, Matthias was in heaven with his favorite: chicken butts on a stick.  I'm not kidding.

Matthias and his chicken butts

The next day we rented motorbikes and tried them out riding out to the nearby elephant camps.  This was really just pratice for our upcoming tour of the golden triangle, but we loved seeing the elephants and enjoyed getting to know our motor bikes before setting out on a longer journey.  And fortunately, that night there was another night market!

Matthias at the elephant camp outside Chiang Rai

First day on the motorbike

On 1/13, we checked out of our Chiang Rai hotel, leaving some of our stuff with our kind hotel host, and set out toward Mae Salong, a mountaintop village settled by Kuomintang Chinese and surrounded by hill tribe villages.  The ride was nice, and the scenery was breathtaking.  We were in heaven!

Rest stop after Mae Salong

The next day we rode through the mountains past the royal villa at Doi Tung and back down to Mae Sai, the northernmost city in Thailand and one gateway to Myanmar.  It was a typical bordertown, with lots of tacky shops, but did have some interesting food stalls serving all sorts of treats, including some we hadn't seen before (we didn't ask, but we think we ate a burmese soup - it was delicious so we didn't care). Our "hotel" was a bamboo cabin on the edge of town, on the river facing Myanmar.  Cute and quiet, but we were surprised the next morning when we awoke early to try and find some coffee and found our motorbikes locked together and the gate padlocked shut.  We were prisoners!  But it didn't much matter since when we did finally break out (someone woke up), we didn't find anything open anyway - except for 7-11 where we were able to get some nescafe.

By our cabin in Mae Sai

Burmese Breakfast
After the nescafe and shower, we headed across the border to visit Myanmar.   Granted, we only had a couple of hours to visit (just another) border town, so we didn't expect much.  However, we were struck by how diferent, and ethnically diverse the people were, and we enjoyed a hot breakfast at a burmese tea house, and then more mouthfuls, including a rich delicious noodle soup, from some street vendors.  Couldn't  bring myself to purchase any tacky souveniers, so we returned to Thailand with full bellies but not much else to show for it, but a few pictures.

Our Entry permits into Myanmar

Entering Myanmar

After that, we took a short ride to Chiang Saen, a lovely riverside town just past the "golden triange" (point where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet).  That's where I'm writing this now.  We're planning to stay another night here before returning to Chiang Rai and figuring our next steps.  We were planning to head to Bangkok and spend our last days there, but with the protests and all, we think it might be better to hang out here and just fly in (and out) of the airport.  By the way, if it weren't for the news reports, we wouldn't even know about any turmoil.  People around here just don't seem interested.  Anyway, I don't want to think about it because it means the end of this fantastic journey and I prefer to just live in the moment now....

I've got hundreds of photos to share,and although I'm working on it, I'm finding it's a pain to try and label them with a tablet (have I mentioned this already?) so the album will probably have to wait until after we get home   So, that's all for now!

Part III - Back Again (Click Here)