Chiang Rai

Going from Pai to Chiang Rai involved a minibus through treacherous mountain roads and then another bus and fortunately no vomit. Chiang Rai is not as big as Chiang Mai, and the place we were staying at didn't look like it had been cleaned for a good while, there were holes in the wall, and the bathroom had several types of mould spread over the walls. Still, it was cheap, and it wasn't too far from town so it was easy to escape the legions of flying ants that inhabited the bar after nightfall.

We decided to hire a scooter again, as the stuff we wanted to see was a bit outside of town, and once again we managed to have no problems or accidents. Yay.

Highlights of the day included the White Temple; a relatively new building that also had the most beautiful toilet building I have ever seen...

The Baan Dam Museum (which we had to go to after seeing one TripAdvisor review say "This was the worst Exposure of inner demons along with actual Exposure of the darkness of the artist if you could even call it art. Do Not waste your time or money for this..."

And it was awesome - like a set from Game of Thrones that got built and then rejected for being too weird. Loads of weird stuff, all the work of one artist that took 50 years or so to build.

Then we hit the Oub Kham Museum that had loads of information about old royal families and tonnes of artifacts, and after this exhausting day of culture we hung out for a while at a Cat Cafe.

Asshole cats that weren't very social, but still. Cat Cafe.

We left the next day - I didn't get a picture of it, but imagine two stupid white girls on a tiny scooter with two massive rucksacks and some extra bags and that was us.

We were heading to Laos and had two options - take a two day river trip with an overnight stay in a tiny town, or get an overnight bus that left at 5ish and arrived at 6am.

We chose the bus. We were pretty much passed out for most of the journey, and we also got snacks and a blanket. The only downside was the stench of human excrement that began 7 hours in and stayed in my consciousness for the next 3 days.

Luang Prabang

We really liked this place. So did thousands of other tourists apparently, as everywhere we went we were surrounded. Beautiful waterfalls, magical sunsets and cool riverside bars. Also a lot of french bakeries.

So strong...

We also went on a kayak trip, saw some a cave full of Buddhas and a few shots of Rice Whiskey.

It was 50%. And yes, some of those bottles contain snakes and scorpions

I'll admit a lot of the 'kayaking' involved just floating down the river, expending zero effort and generally just chilling out.

I'd read somewhere that watching the sun set from a temple on a hill in the middle of town was pretty cool, so we did that. I wasn't anticipating this romantic idea to also involve about 200 other travelers but we rolled with it.

New friends. Not even half of them.

We were especially charmed by the 20 teenage schoolgirls from New Zealand singing Vance Joy's seminal classic 'Riptide' loudly, off key, and without regard for rhythm, lyrics or timing, while we walked back down the hill. So nice.

Next stop, Vang Vieng.