After a night of terrible sleep and freezing temps overnight we were up early to hunt down some breakfast. We managed to get to the bakery we had read about in time to get some breakfast but they were sold out of pastries and take away sandwiches for lunch so we found some other food to grab for lunch from a stall nearby and headed to the boat. It was a different boat but mostly the same people and we were able to spread out again so that I could sit and type on the computer while Michael tried to get in a little nap to make up for minimal sleep the night before. It was chilly again so we were layered up and ready for the weather. The boat ride thankfully wasn’t super eventful and we made it to Huay Xai, which is the border town on the Lao side. We then had to take a tuktuk 20 min down to the fancy bridge they built a few years ago and go through immigration, then pay to take a bus across the bridge, then go through customs/immigration on the Thai side and take another tuktuk back to the Thai border town of Chiang Khong. It used to be that foreigners could just get dropped at the Thai side of the river by the boat but now we all have to go over this annoying ‘friendship bridge’ that is a huge pain in the butt. Anyway, we made it to Thailand and got to our hotel, which was nice (yay for a nice shower and clean bed!) We had met another Colorado couple and two German siblings who were traveling so they decided to stay at our hotel too and we all went out for dinner together. We had amazing curry and noodles then headed back to the hotel where we were able to talk with the hotel owners (who had perfect English) and they organized a private van for the 6 of us to get to Chiang Mai. It felt great to be in Thailand with a bit more civilization, nicer roads, good cheap food, etc. We are so excited for the rest of our time here!
Mera and Michael Travel 