Slowboat to Thailand

The trip to Thailand was an adventure for sure! We took the slow boat (as fast boats run with a mortality rate of about 10%)

There was some lovely scenery on the way, and plenty of time to play cards, catch up on diaries and books. It takes 2 full days from Luang Prabang to make the border. It’s a really cruisey affair up until the last 30 mins of the trip!

Oh, Matt (an English friend of Canadians (Julie, Leilla and Mia) that Chris and Emily had made somewhere along the way! – anyway Matt totally terrified the poor boat people by pretending to dive off the boat. It *was* kinda funny though.

So.. in Luang we’d booked all the way through to Chang Mai. Knowing it was going to be a slight rush as our boat got in at 16:30 and we had 2 hours to clear customs and get to the bus depot.

Our bus got in at 17:20 ish… there are horror stories about people getting bags knicked and I can see why. It was a mad dash to make it to immigration before it all closed. Then a boat across to the Thai side where the official wasn’t super happy about 8 people arriving 5 mins before he had to close, but still, we were stamped and let through – and found that our bus would leave when we were ready.. so in the end all was well…

That evening as we arrived into Chang Mai there were fireworks going off all over the place. We’d arrived at the end of a festival and everyone was letting off these lanterns – the sky for miles was dotted with these things.. it was really really beautiful. However, after 62 hours of travel we didn’t make the most of it perhaps.

Oh, the pic of the lantern, and most of the ones on the boat trip were Chris’ – and of course the one of him discovering the real use of the jars.. so thanks to him for those.