I'm still sick. I've done to Chang Mai what I did to Kunming - hang around and be sick. Will spend the rest of the day in bed reading, sleeping, and watching Thai tv. Thinking maybe I should even see a doctor...it's been one week now and I'm really struggling to breathe, and I have no energy at all.
I remembered Sam told me I could claim sick leave if I'm sick while on holidays. Then I remembered, I took leave without pay :D
Bangkok tomorrow. Will check out the book stores and see if I can join a riot. I never heard how all that go resolved...did the prime minister step down? Which reminds, the bus I was on from Chang Rai to Chang Mai was stopped for a police check...and also, the minivan I was on to Houayxai in Laos was stopped in the middle of nowhere by men who didn't look like police, but certainly acted like them. The actually searched through the van as well as checking out if the passengers looked suspicious. Unlike the Thais, they didn't actually look at people's IDs (do Lao people have these?) or my passport.
Which also reminds me...on the tuk tuk/taxi from the Chinese border, as we went over the hills, we went through lots of little, very poor, villages by the road. I took a few photos but I missed out on the best two sights.
The first was a huge pile of fruit - they might have been coconuts still in their complete husk. Each fruit was wrapped in one of those foam things they wrap bottles of alcohol in at duty free. There were a dozen guys standing and sitting around, and more than half of them had put the foam thing totally over their heads. They were just sitting there totally indifferent to how silly they looked.
There were a lot of kids in these villages. The second highlight was a skinny brown kid, riding a bike too big for him so he had to stand up on the pedals, and across his eyes he was wearing a scuba diving mask! Special effort. I think he thought it was like a bike helmet. He was probably the coolest kid in the village because he had the scuba mask! Good luck to him.
I took a motorbike, 2 buses, and an expensive gaudy tuk tuk to get to Chang Mai from Chiang Khong. Total cost, $16AUD.
A tuk tuk/taxi, then a minivan from the Chinese/Laos border to Houayxai, cost $140AUD.
Fuck Laos is expensive.
The first bus from Chiang Khong to Chaing Rai was a local bus. Lots of fans attached to the ceilings and doors (front and back) and windows open. Pretty relaxing actually, and I was tired enough to fall asleep sitting up. The bus from Chang Rai to Chang Mai was a luxurious coach with air con and a crazy Thai martial arts movie!
Ok, so getting a minivan in Laos is expensive. That evil woman claimed it should cost 3000baht and so $80US was actually a good deal, but am I going to believe a single word she says? Normal buses in Laos are cheaper. 110 000 kip (um, still $14US) from Houayxai to Luang Phabang, but they are in shit condition, have to go over really bad roads and lots of mountains, and are full of English tourists.
I stopped a night in Jinghong (after a 9 hour bus ride down from Kunming), intending to cross the border into Laos.
First of all, there are NO more flights from Jinghong out of China - you have to fly from Kunming if you want to leave China. Ok, I found that out the hard way.
Next, the thing they - being both guide books and the genuinely helpful dude (Alex) in Banna (not Banana unfortunately) cafe - say is, to cross to Laos, take a bus to Mengla (somehow pronounced mulla, weird), stay the night there, get up early and get a bus that goes through Mohan (the border) and onto Luang Namtha. But I decided that was a night I didn't want to waste in Mengla (according to the guide book, super boring, and it looked it), so I got a bus from Mengla straight to Mohan (about 1 hour, but lots of stopping), and then just jumped out of the bus, exited through Chinese customs, and got a tuktuk to Laos customs. You can buy a visa there (looks like it's a pretty permanent thing, but who knows with Laos).
On the Laos side, things turned shit for me (see next post). Do NOT pay 200RMB to get a shit tuktuk to Luang Namtha - it's too much money.
Oh, I had my first chicken on a bus experience. Surprisingly it was China and not Laos. It was on the quite nice bus from Jinghong to Mengla. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and these really brown Chinese people got on with bags of vegetables and a live chicken (soon to be eaten I suspect, after they got off...).