Week three of my trip went by with a blur. I suffered through my first real scam of the trip. I booked a three day jungle trek for cheap through Kunt Travel right by my hostel, the living place. He offered me the trek for cheap as long as I also booked a zip line tour the next day, at which I would have t allow the company to use pictures they take of me in their brochure. What's too good to be true, just may be. My trek was 1500 baht instead of 1850 baht, and my zip line tour was 500 baht instead of 1750 baht. That's a deep discount, right?! Well the catch was I actually spent the entire first half of the day being a zipline model, and it was 4 hours of preparing and shooting with 3 other people. One other traveler and two locals. Obviously had I realized what the deal was, I never would have gone, and I definitely would not of paid for it, I should have been paid. In the end, I asked the owner of the zip line company for my 500 baht back, explaining the situation, he gladly compensated me. He also let us cruise around the zip lines for three hours. So in essence I paid nothing for that experience and only had to suffer through a couple hours of photos.... well worth it.
The trek the following day was excellent as well. We hiked through the jungle for 2 days; sleeping at a local village, bathing in a waterfall, eating fresh bamboo soup, freshly harvested chicken, riding elephants, swimming in a river and bamboo rafting. Hiking through the rainforest reminded me of home for sure, but all the other activities made it well worth it. Still, don't book through Kunt Travel if you ever find yourself booking tours in Chiang Mai.
I next traveled to Pai with two travelers from the UK. We spent two solid days riding scooters around this mountainous town. Its a trekking dream, Pai is. Rather then paying to see all the things we saw, waterfalls, canyons, memorials, temples, waterfalls, rivers, hot springs, we rented the scooters for $6 a day including zero liability insurance. It was great, and I was sad to leave Pai. I stayed in an excellent 8 bed dorm right in the heart of town called Ville de Pai at a grand cost of $2.66 per night.
Of course as is true with every town or village or city you love, one must move on. After three days in Pai I headed of for Chiang Khong via the miserable 3 hour mini van to Chiang Mai. Miserable only because not girls next to me got sick, one spewed in a bag, the other onto her neighbor..... not me, the other neighbor. But it was disgusting and took all my mental power to not get sick along with them. Caught the Green Bus to Chiang Khong and arrived just in time to have dinner in tuck in for bed. All in all, 9.5 hours on the bus for the day.
The next morning my group, now four travelers, crossed the river into Laos. Most disorganized border ever. Everywhere in Thailand was organized, with English signs at all major points of interest for the tourists. Nothing here. You just grab three sheets to fill out, hand em to a guy, who hands them to an official, then wait for your name to be called... easy enough, but there is no direction and one must really know what they're doing to get it done quickly.
I'm now sitting in Pak Beng at the dirtiest guest house ever, listening to the gardener hack up a lung, while I write this. Pak Being is the necessary stop along the river from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang. I took the slow boat yesterday along the majestic Mekong. The slow boat is definitely a rite of passage for Laos travelers, but having to sit in the back near the engine is a new extreme. It is loud, a relic, and nearly flooded the boat with is cooling system as it overheated while the mechanic took a smoke break.
Nonetheless I'm still enjoying this lifestyle, and it is time to board the slow boat for another 9 hour journey along the Mekong, which flows faster then the Columbia by the way. Cheers.
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