der weg ist das ziel

our last night in vientiane (after having spent the day planning the rest of our 10-day stay in southern laos, and not being able to fit everything in, also thanks to the country coming to a complete stop thanks to mandatory celebrations of the national day in december 2) i couldn't sleep all night cause i was so sad we wouldn't be able to see everything we wanted in southern laos and it just seemed such a waste because i love laos so much. finally, around 3 am i had the idea: we leave the next day not for pakse (in the south of laos), but for thailand, specifically northern thailand - chiang mai - and spend the next 10 days there before heading to bangkok, from where i am actually flying to nepal for a week to visit sujata (even dodo has willingly allowed me this exception to our no-flying rule since i haven't seen my best friend in a year and it's likely to be another many months till we get the opportunity to see/visit each other....). so, given that i'll have then already seen the north, we can then skip this part of the country next february when we're en route to cambodia, and instead hop across the border to pakse/laos and spend two weeks doing all of the things we want to there, before crossing into cambodia from southern laos!

next morning we got up at 7 am - bought ourselves the thailand lonely planet and put together a quick plan to get to chiang mai by the next day. given our experiences with bus delays in laos we weren't so sure it would work, but - here we are in chiang mai!! it was one of the more travel memorable experiences, i must say. we'd planned to take the 3-hr 2 pm thai-lao international bus (crossing the mekong that forms the border there on the the thai-lao friendship bridge) from vientiane to udon thani, from where we'd take a night bus to chiang mai. first problem, the 2pm bus had a break-down, we'd have to take the 4pm bus. well, that'd be too late, so instead we took the "90 minute" 2:30pm bus from vientiane to nongkhai (the thai border town) and then take a bus from there to udon thani. we left on the minute at 2:30pm, but once we got to the border, the lines were endless for immigration. so by the time the whole bus had gone through immigration in laos and then thailand, and we finally pulled into the nongkhai bus station, the trip had almost taken 3 1/2 hours. we thought our chances were getting pretty slim now of making a nightbus to chiangmai, but i started asking around for a bus to udon thani and if we'd make a chiang mai nightbus. when i mentioned chiang mai a ticket seller said there was an 8pm bus from udon thani and ushered me to a departing bangkok-bound bus that could take us to udon thani. i ran back for dodo and our packs were literally thrown into the rolling bus and we jumped on board at the last minute. so far so good.

then we arrive in udon thani and realize we've got to get to the bus station across town for the chiang mai-bound bus. but as soon as we get off, the conductor from the bangkok bus had gotten us a tuk tuk driver for the other bus station who started running off with my backpack once i confirmed that we wanted to get to chiang mai. i had to yell at him to stop and ask if he was actually taking us to the other bus station and how much it would cost. (dodo had still had 190 baht on her from her stay in thailand last year). we agreed on 80 baht for both of us and as we sped off (as fast as one can go in a motorcycle-powered tuk tuk anyway), he suddenly motioned that the bus was leaving at 7:30 pm and it was already 7:10 pm. we finally pulled up to the station and alongside a bus that was just getting ready to leave. turns out it was the 7:00 pm bus, just getting ready to leave. so they put on our bags and i went to buy our tickets (hoping really badly that we could pay in US Dollars!). the ticket woman wrote out our tickets but when i said we could only pay in dollars it was suddenly "oh no, not possible, only baht". so we asked if we could change money anywhere but suddenly no one seemed to understand or listen to us. then the woman leaned over and motioned (as in secret) that we should give her the money quietly... as i pulled out my wallet a man came to the desk and he asked for our money, we said that we only had dollars and suddenly it wasn't a problem, some minutes of putting numbers into the calculator later, we had our tickets, were rushed to the bathroom, boarded the bus, and again off we were! we couldn't believe it. maybe there would have been a later bus and we needn't have rushed so much, but oh well. the bus, of course, was freezing cold (darn air-con!), and the blankets provided didn't prove to helpful. but thanks to some drowsy motion sickness meds and my lack of sleep the previous night we managed to sleep most of the time until arriving at 6:30 am in chiang mai.

now it's time for some relaxing in this town - after all, dodo raved so much about just wandering the streets here last summer - and then see what else there is to do!

it seems so strange that we are in a different country (i keep saying khob chai instead of the thai kap kun kaa, and sabaydee instead of sa wati kaa), since the writing, languages, and cultures are so similar (at least here in the north, i am sure it will be different in southern thailand) to those we just left. and although we're now missing the december 2nd lao national day, we'll get a different festive day here in thailand on december 5: the king's 80th birthday! we'll see how that goes!

with that, we're off to enjoy the day!