On our last morning in Laos it is swelteringly hot. Dressing for a long bus journey is always a risk, do we dare to hope that the air conditioning is on and moderate? Will there be none? Or will it be an ice box? These are the important questions that punctuate my life right now. I had optimistically banked on airconditioning and was wearing harem pants. Before the bus had even arrived I was a veritable puddle on the floor of the internet cafe, and no amount of pineapple smoothie could revive me. Fortunately, Laos is nothing but understanding in these circumstances, and I bought some fantastic shorts for the journey.
Our transfer bus rocked up. It was a rusty, 14 seater minivan. There were already 10 rugby boys in there, towels in hand (smart travelers actually DO carry a towel with them everywhere. thank YOU hitch hikers guide..) so Kem and i cautiously slid in beside them and prayed that this was simply a transfer bus to another one. Fortunately, it was. But only after two hours. At Vientiene we were dropped off and had to make our way to another minivan, this one was even more cramped, and sweaty. all the seats were gone, but where the aisle should be, a little shelf thing pops out and we had to sit in those. It was like a sweaty, hellish cinema, with absolutely no leg room and tired, annoyed travellers passive aggressively fighting for elbow room.
When we got to the border, we had to queue for about 40 minutes to get through, and when we had, we hopefully scanned around for some kind of luxury transport to get us to Chiang Mai. Our prayers were answered! There was a massive, double decker, pimped out air conditioned bus, with karaoke at the front and everything! It was bliss! As we reclined our comfortable seats and kicked out our footrests, I exchanged a smug look with kemi - this was the life.
Unfortunately, twenty minutes later, we stopped for food, and the coach driver shouted "CHIANG MAI CHANGE BUS." We felt a shiver run down our spines as we followed the direction he was pointing in, only to arrive at a dilapidated run down old minivan, with two french women standing outside smoking beckoning us towards them - haggard sirens dragging us to what we were sure would be our end. We clambered inside after a hearty meal of rice and vegetables, and there were 9 of us in the 12 seater van. Fortunately I had two seats to myself, but it only lessened the indignity of the following twelve hours slightly. For the first four hours, the driver played american rock music from the sixties, and then swopped to power ballads in an attempt to lure us to sleep. The second it hit midnight, he must have assumed we were asleep, so he changed to pure thai pop. If you've ever heard thai pop, it's one of those awful, uptempo genres with the singing on an eastern scale and a pounding electronic bass. Impossible to sleep to. I gritted my teeth, squeezed my eyes shut and tried to tell myself it would be over soon. Unfortunately, it was over in 8 hours. I maybe managed about 40 minutes sleep in that, Kemi tells me the driver kept pulling over to have a nap by the side of the road - i wouldn't know, i was certain that if i kept my eyes shut throughout i could pretend it was all a horrible dream. Unfortunately not.
We got to Chiang Mai and took a tuktuk to our accommodation, we are staying in a place called BMP residence - it stands for backpackers' meeting place, and it's kind of lovely. Ten minutes from the centre, and eco-friendly. The first night we decided to go to the Night Market. It was fantastic, so much useless stuff to be bought in so little time - we were also ecstatic to note the mcdonalds, burger king, starbucks and pizza hut all more or less adjacent to each other. The McDonalds here is A) 24 hours and B) delivers! I don't know which is more fantastic - and they have a DOUBLE BIG MAC. The mind boggles. Anyway, I digresss. Kemi and I bought some clothes and niknaks, and i bought my first bracelets of the trip - admirable restraint shown so far in that department! Then we followed a recommendation for ice cream and had one of the most fantastic lemon and mango cones i've ever encountered. We had a hectic day the next day so we decided to retreat and sleep.
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