Huay Xai, Laos

I made it to Laos! Quite exciting but the whole border crossing was a little too easy and quite the non event.
My day started badly by me falling on my face in the bus station at 7am. I tripped on the stair and landed front first on the tiles in a station packed with Thai's who just stared blankly at me as i flayed about on the floor before picking myself up. Hugely embarrasing. Huge.

An easy journey by air conditioned bus for 3 plus hours took me to Chiang Rai and i was going to hang around but there was a bus leaving for Chiang Keong 10 minutes after i arrived so i jumped on it. No air con and the bus had definitely seen a few miles but it had character and on both buses i was the only 'farang' (white person) which was nice. The second bus was actually very worse for wear but i was encouraged by the sight of a monk sitting in the first row.
The scenery here is spectacular and so i find that i am not sleeping much as i want to soak up everything so i just sit and watch Thailand pass by out of the window.

Once in Chiang Keong i met an Irish girl outside of a store who asked me where i was staying. What is it about me that attracts the naive and innocent ones? She hadn't a clue where she was going and approached me so i said she could tag along but informed her that i didn't have a clue either but i must be good at pretending as she thought i had an air of confidence about me and knew what i was doing. She also thought i was about 26 or 27 so what does she know! I kid, she's grand as she would say. Her name is Tasha and she's from Dublin, 2 months into a year long trip. She is travelling with friends who flew to Laos and she wanted to go the long way round. Good on her!

Immigration was a booth by the Mekong river, where i simply got a departure stamp and was told to go. nice. We then took a long boat across the river for about $1, it took 5 minutes and we were in Laos! Not officially, they had another booth on the other side which took more paperwork and a whole lot of ink was used in the stamping of the passports which was a ridiculous comedic procedure and then we were official.

We got a cheap room and spent a few hours walking around Huay Xai, finally getting some sun. What with the travel and having to dress so modestly for the temples and the villages i looked like i'd spent the week in my cupboard.

So now i'm in Laos and have picked up a roommate in the process...along with a crazy Spanish hairdresser and dutch cyclist and we are all booked on the slow boat to Luang Prabang tomorrow. Slow because it takes about 8 hours the first day, we stop over night and then another 8 hours the next day, getting there on Tuesday.

We all hung out and drank too many beers as we watched the sunset over Thailand just across the river. It's a good day to be me.