Northern Thailand Part 3 (Slightly delayed!!)

This post is well over due as when we were coming to the end of our Northern Thailand trip, the laptop got a virus that took us over a week to get fixed. That along with me forgetting how to set the bloody thing to receive wifi (doh) needing a few days in bed due to mammoth hangovers and then staying in a guesthouse with no plug sockets delayed it further! Anyway at the end of our last post we were still in Pai which we continued to enjoy for a few more days.

Pai

Andy getting a hug from an elephant

I wasn't quite so brave!

Our lovely elephant Padnum

Frolicking in the river

After spending a week in Pai we began to notice that Pai is obsessed with Love. Everywhere you look there is some reference to the "L" word in some shape or form.

Pai can only be described as colourful and quirky.

Upside down house.

Complete with the road sign we love to hate!!

With many cake/ice cream parlours...

Where the chairs wear socks!

Or tennis balls!!!

So after nine days in Pai we decided to bite the bullet and head back to Chiang Mai.

Only 134km to go.

Plus 762 hair pin bends!!

Leaving Pai we were slightly concerned as it was so foggy we couldn't see the tops of even the smallest hills. Once we got to the top though it was very clear and there was a beautiful sea of fog covering the city. By the time we found somewhere safe to stop on the twisty roads most of it had lifted.

Six hours later and with very sore bottoms we arrived in Chiang Mai :-)

Where we enjoyed a well deserved drink or two!

And ended up slightly worse for wear, having spent our full weeks budget on alcohol in one night. Not learning our lesson, we did exactly the same two nights later.

We also found someone with worse parking skills than Greg

Whilst in Chiang Mai we decided to visit the Zoo here too.

It's a beautiful Zoo, set into the side of the mountains so it's very green and lush with beautiful landscaped gardens. As it's up in the hills it requires a great deal of fitness to get around it. We opted for the shuttle bus!!!

Me enjoying feeding the baby elephant...

Until the adult bullied it's way in!

We then went to see the Pandas. It was the cutest thing ever when he came out of his den...

 and sat down at his table and chair to eat his lunch!

Me and Andy feeding the Jaguar

Our first reminder that it's almost Christmas, hard to remember in 34 °C heat.

After meeting some guy in a bar, he suggested as we were already in the North we should cross the border and visit Laos. It wasn't in our original plans but we thought why the hell not.

In order to get to Laos we had to travel slightly further up North and then cross the border North East of Thailand.

First stop was Chiang Rai. Home to the stunning white temple.

Hands reaching out from the depths of Hell!

One of the few things not white at the temple, and I must say, has to be the most fanciest toilet blocks I've ever seen.

Other things not white were the references to Hell for smoking...

and drinking!!! oops

Oh yes, and a random figure from Predator

Not sure what these heads were representing, but were kinda creepy!

Chiang Rai is a small town and we only spent two nights there as we wanted to get on our journey to Laos. The only other thing of interest in the town was the clock tower.

Normally just a huge gold clock tower, but as it was the start of a festival each evening it turned into a sound a light show.

So after an early start, we left Chiang Rai at 6:30am and headed to the border town of Chiang Khong, with Thailand on one side of the Mekong River and Laos on the other.

 

Where we said goodbye to our driver, a crazy character who shared with us with many funny stories on the way. And goodbye to our beloved Northern Thailand....

took a longtail boat across the small stretch of the Mekong...

 

and said hello to Laos!!