Chiang x 2 & Into Lao

After a lazy 17 hour over-night train ride Claire & I arrived in sunny Chiang Mai - the train being 3.5 hours late. Overnight the seats are converted into beds and are overall comfortable, in fact I would have liked a bit longer of a lie in.

Claire & I found my favourite guest house in Chiang Mai, which despite a change of name and ownership has found its way into the hands of an equally (though less quirky) Thai proprieter. (Siri Guest House, $14, really nice). We took a couple of quiet days in Chiang Mai with little done but reading and relaxing.

From Chiang my a hair-raising bus ride took us to Chiang Sean. Whilst the average speed of the bus looked respectable, it varied between very slow (1st gear - gravity x heavy bus) up steep hills to very fast (6th gear + gravity x heavy bus) on the mountaneous terrain. The north of Thailand is particularly beautiful, full of bright green forest/rain forest as the rainy season's just begun.

In Chiang Sean we had probably the best meal yet - the local delicacy roasted/baked fish or chicken cooked with a marinade of chilli and corriander inside a bamboo tube over coals. The town's very quite, but sits right on the Maekong river. We did, however, stay in a nightmare guest house (Gin's Guest House, $10) that should be avoided at all costs.

A sang taew (sort of a bus, more like a ute with benches & a roof) took us to the border crossing into Lao PDR. Tomorrow our adventure's in Lao begin after a night in a very nice guesthouse over looking the Maekong (BAP Guest House, $14).