Sawathee ka!

The roads are all paved, there are ATMs everywhere, buses have empty seats, and the lady that runs the Internet place was definitely not born a lady.

I must be in Thailand!

I crossed from Laos about 5 days ago. As sad as I was to leave Laos, I have to say that's its really nice to be in a (relatively) modern country again. The trip out was a totally appropriate way to end it too. We had been told by a very reliable source that the road from Luang Nam Tha to the border was newly paved, smooth, perfect; only a 6 hour trip. But others had said that the road sucked. Chosing to be optimistic, I decided to go with the first opinion, although in Laos it is much more likely that the second is true. And it was. The road was NOT paved at all, in fact, they had recently cut through the jungle to make it, and were still working on it in parts. At one point, we had to wait for 30 minutes while a bulldozer cleared away the rubble so we could pass. At another point all the passengers had to get out and walk because the bus could not make it up the hill with too much weight. It ended up taking 8 hours to get to the border. 8 bumpy, dusty, hot hours. Not the most pleasant of bus rides, but not the worst I've had by any means.

Once we got there, the adventure continued. We arrived at about 5:30, and the border closed at 6. Hop in a tuk-tuk, race to the Lao immigration, pay the stupid fee for "overtime," get the stamp, blah blah blah. We actually could have stayed the night there and crossed in the morning, but neither myself or the friend I was traveling with at the time had enough money to pay for a hotel. That's the problem with Laos -- there is only one international ATM in the whole country, so you frequently find yourself running out of money. And this border town was not going to have much option for getting money in any other way, we would have just had to hope that some place would cash a travelers cheque, or else borrow money from another traveler. Either way, we really didn't want to take the risk of getting stuck.

As it turns out, we used almost the last of our money to pay the damn overtime fee, which left us just a tiny bit short for the pitance needed to take a boat across the river to Thailand. We had to actually borrow 1000 kip (about 10 cents) from other backpackers in order to make it. And then we didn't even have money to pay a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the ATM that was 2 km away - he had to wait while we took out the cash to pay him.

So after that debacle, it was great to be in Thailand. Now that I know I can take out more money whenever I want, I've been a little bit, um, more free with my spending. The shopping here is wicked (can you tell I've been hanging out with Brits and East Coasters?), and I have full intentions of replacing much of my wardrobe. After being in Korea for a year, a hopeless place for anyone above a size 5, I can totally justify it.

So as of now I am in Chiang Mai, where I'm settling in for a week or so. Then I'll either head to Pai or down south to Bangkok, then to the islands.

Ok, I think I hear a bowl of Tom Yum Gai calling my name.