Three Countries in Three Days

It sounds a bit mad, and wasn’t actually too hectic, but for logistical reasons we had to travel through Thailand to get from Laos to Myanmar.  Before we did this, our last stop in Laos was right up in the north in Luang Nam Tha.  We had travelled from the beauty of Luang Prabang to the jungles near the Chinese and Thai borders.  The reason was to go for a two day trek into the jungle.

The walking was quite tough as we crossed over hills and rivers to get to the local, indigenous  Chimu and Lantan villages.  We were with two guides who showed us the local culture and foraged for food while we walked.  On the first day we stopped in the jungle and had an open air lunch of grilled fish, peanut sauce and vegetables, which was fantastic.

We stayed overnight in a homestay with a local family, where we swam in the local river to wash, and sat outside for dinner.  There was no electricity which made a toilet visit interesting at night, by using a torch to avoid the large centipedes.  We had a great time, but we did walk six miles on the first day and nine on the second, so we were pretty tired afterwards, and in need of a good shower.

The next day we spent the whole time travelling across the border from Laos into northern Thailand.  This proved quite complicated as we ended up taking eight different vehicles and fourteen hours to achieve this.  We started with a tuk tuk to the bus station where we got on a very uncomfortable minivan for four hours to the border.

It was a strange border to cross as we needed to get another tuk tuk to the Laos border, followed by a bus over the Mekong to get to the Thai border.  After the Thai border we got dropped off by tuk tuk and got on an ageing public bus, which bumped and rattled along for two hours to Chiang Rai and cost the grand sum of £1.60 each.  We ended the bizarre day on a super deluxe bus to Chiang Mai, before taking a tuk tuk to the hotel, arriving at 9.30pm.

After a day touring round the centre of Chiang Mai we then took a flight to Mandalay in Myanmar.  We arrived on the night of the full moon, which was the end of Buddhist Lent and a big public holiday.  As many of the restaurants were closed, we ended up eating in a local restaurant for the grand sum of £1.70, with a group of people who had obviously never seen foreigners in their restaurant before.  We spent the rest of the evening on a rooftop bar watching the fireworks being set off and Chinese lanterns rising into the sky.

Mandalay is a bit of a sprawling metropolis, and is pancake-flat except for Mandalay Hill in the centre.  This made it ideal for exploring by bicycle.  We visited the royal palace and several temples during the day.  There are literally hundreds of temples and stupas on the city, so we just visited a few.

On the second day we took scooters and went further afield.  There are a few ancient cities in the area, as well as hills full of temples and stupas.  We took a ferry across the river, with our scooters onboard, and ended up at the longest wooden bridge in the world at 1,300 yards long.

It’s been an interesting start to our time in Myanmar, and we are now looking to heading out into the countryside.