Flying out of Seattle September of 2023 on the Eleventh. (Yes, we knew) We flew down to San Francisco to catch our fight on China Air to Taiwan, a 13 hour flight. We were very impressed with the airline, puts US flights to shame, free meals and drinks, better leg room and service. Even Leiann’s wine was free! After a three hour lay over we boarded our last flight to Chiang Mai Thailand, a four hour flight. All in all it was not a bad experience, both flights had great seats which really helps with my back. We were able to sleep and felt rested when we got there. We grabbed a taxi to our lodgings with no issues (some times taxis in foreign countries try to take advantage of stupid tourists, but not here, cheap taxis yes!). Leiann had booked a room for $38 a night and we were surprised at what that bought you in Thailand. We walked up the grand entrance to a very large foyer with a grand stairway and our first example of a Buddhist shrine! Impressed we headed up to our room and unpacked our stuff and our brains, safe and home for awhile. The next morning we went down to the restaurant in the hotel for breakfast, it was our first taste of mango smoothies, along with a plate of fresh fruits with bacon and eggs, yum, life is good.

Our friend Colin was still in Laos but was coming to meet us and introduce us to Thailand. We met Colin several years ago when we both were sailing down the coast of central America. We both sold our boats and began land travel, staying in touch and often meeting back up in foreign ports over the last ten years. He actually inspired us to come to Asia as he had posted many pics of temples, elephants and monkeys on his face book site.

When Colin showed up we went out on our first day of temple hunting. We wanted to start with the smallest temple and work our way up. There are three hundred temples in Chang Mai and 30,000 in the country! Our first temple was just across from our hotel. Small but as it was our first we very moved by the art; it was over three hundred years old! This was not a tourist attraction but someones church, as are most we would see. Our first day I think we saw something like six temples. And every time we thought we had seen it all we were Wowed again, this continued for the next six weeks of Temple visits. Later that night Colin took us to one of his fave restaurants for our first taste of the national dish, Khoa Soi. It was so spicy hot we could barely eat it. We later found that most Thai dishes were too spicy for us even when we asked for NO SPICY, LOL.

After a couple days in our swanky hotel we moved over to the condo’s Colin was staying at. It was a bit dated, but a one bedroom condo with a city view, fully furnished for $20 US a day was a deal and worked for us for a week. We then found a really nice and new condo closer to town for $420 for a month, including a pool, gym, restaurant, coffee shop, great WiFi, great view of the city from 8th floor, nicely furnished, great deal.

We stayed in Chang Mia for the next six weeks, planning only to stay for a month. We explored temples a plenty, found lots of live music events in the evenings along with huge day and night street markets. The street markets are amazing going on for blocks, with lots of varieties of local foods and other goods, at great prices. Again finding NOT Spicy is difficult. One of the fave street foods is called Roti; it is a thin dough flattened and spun like a pizza, but thinner. Then put on a hot flat metal grill bathed with butter. It can be sweet with the typical banana, egg, sweet creme or savory with chicken or shrimp and egg. Had a few of these. Lots of sea foods, including cuddle fish, squid, octopus and unidentifiable stuff. Worms, bugs, pig snouts, pig feet, crocodile, duck, chicken and of course lots of veggies and rice. We always found something we liked at the markets and dirt cheap too. I got to play with a couple bands while there as well as a few open mics. We really liked Chiang Mai but it was time to move on.
We headed up north to the city of Chiang Rai. It was once the capital before it was moved to Chiang Mai. We had heard that the two temples, the blue and the white were a don’t miss while in Thailand. Chiang Rai is much smaller the Chiang Mai, but still has lots going on. Colin came up to visit us and took us out to see a couple huge night clubs. Not really our cup of tea, but the first performance was great with traditional Thai dancers and music. Then the music went up to about 120db levels and the disco started for the night, we headed out not long after and found a quieter place for the evening. The three of us headed up to the blue temple the next day. It is impossible to describe the blue temple, think Indiana Jones meets Vegas (see photos). Truly amazing. We spent several hours going though it. Colin left to head up to the mountain on his bike and we headed to the White temple the next day. The white temple again is impossible to describe briefly, think Snow White meets Alice in wonderland (see pics) We were nearing the end of our second 30 day visa and needed to get out of Thailand. After six days in Chiang Rai we headed for the border of Laos.

We had made arrangements to do a two day trip down the Mekong River to a little town called Luang Prabang. We stayed at a nice hotel right on the Mekong, for a couple of nights on the Thai side to see a little of the town and be be ready to head out early on our boat. The boats that do this trip are called long boats, made of wood, of various design, SEE PICs. They are called slow boat tours as the do less then 10mph going down the river. The cheapest “the hippie/party” boat is only $20 US. But it is way over crowded with lots of drinking, loud music and you can imagine what the bathroom would be like. So we took the next upgrade of $160 on a nice boat with about 20 others. We each had our own booth, breakfast and lunch served for us and included a hotel room of the evening between days. It was a great experience with sightings of water buffalo, some of which were PINK, elephants, birds, jungle landscape and we even got to visit a small village school. Leiann was taking pictures when she dropped her new phone in the river, she nearly cried. We saw local fishermen fishing the same way the have for many years, on small hand made wooden boats. Some throwing round nets into the air as they fell to the water. It was as time stood still on the this river up in the Lao Jungle.

We arrived in Luang Prabang and got a taxi to take us to our hotel, again not knowing what it would be like. And again to our surprise it was a great little place with a lovely couple who went out of their way to make sure we had what we needed. It was a small boutique hotel off the alley and only a blocks walk to the center of town and the night market there. Night markets are a normal thing in Asia as day time temps lead to folks staying out late at night when it is cooler. We were in Luang Prabang for a week and spent many nights eating in the night market. One of the interesting things we saw was the beginning of what we would find in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, the remnants of French Colonial buildings left behind from years past. At the turn of the century these countries were know as Indochina under Colonial French rule. As the English had control of India, parts of Africa and Burma, so the French had control of Indochina. We spent much time strolling along admiring the French architecture. The town is small and great for walking. At one point we rented an electric side car scooter with a Snoopy face on the front of the side car. We had a great time driving down the road and singing “Hang on Snoopy, Hang On” We had a guest coming to meet us in Cambodia to join us exploring Angkor Wat, the famous ruins of the Khmer People.