Chiang Rai

Rice Field 1
see all photos »

March 13, 2006

Leaving Laos was easy enough, and the friendly border guards only charged us $10 for taking too slow a slow boat.  We paid our fine and boarded a smaller craft bound for Thailand only 400 meters away.  The stuffed longtail made it across the river and dumped us onto the shore at Thai immigration.  A hassle and fee free visa on arrival and we were back in the Land of Smiles.

Back in The Land of Smiles

Rice Field 2
see all photos »

On our heavily laden haul through Chiang Khong to the bus station we found a handy roadside ATM.  It had been some time since the availability of such modern conveniences, and we fumbled with the keypad for a while trying to get it to speak English.

We enjoyed a peaceful bus ride through the Thai countryside that seemed to involve many consecutive, sharp left-hand turns, somehow, and made it to Chiang Rai by noon.

We spent a nice afternoon wandering the busy streets of Chiang Rai, and it was a good reacquaintance with the much more advanced and Western Thai cities, of which there would be many in our near future.