We hung out in Chang Mai for a while, its a nice sleepy city you can walk all over. The food in the north is so good we took a cooking class. They took us to the market and showed us how to shop and stuff. We also got Thai massages which was fun because we got to talk to the masseuses for an hour, but the actual massage is a cross between passive yoga and losing at jujitsu. I think Mandy may have liked hers.

We were going to take Laos Air to Laung Prabang from Chang Mai until we found out they use a lot of old single hulled Chinese planes without radar. They circle around looking for a hole in the clouds and go back if they find none. It would have been exciting, but we were worried about time and went with Bangkok Air.

Laung Prabang is a nice little jungle town, much like Iquitos in Peru. We took a boat down the river today to a whiskey making village and an old cave where’s there’s a shrine. Looking out of the cave you can see these great mountains through the mist that make up the river valley. The people are very friendly and there are tons of cute babies. The geckos go “gek-o! gek-o!” very loudly. They also have a lot of water buffalo here, any many are albinos. We’ve spotted some birdwing butterflies and lots of birds we can’t identify. The Mekong is sourrounded by lots of  jutting sandstone mountains, some of which have temples or statues on top of them. Giant stone cats and nagas (half woman half snake) seem to guard a lot of things.

There are 9,000 kip to the US dollar and the bills only go up to 5,000 kip. We think of prices in kilo-kip and the locals are more than ready to accept dollars even though I think its illegal. They’re just much easier to carry and their value is a lot more stable. The Laos Peoples Democratic Republic is anything but, and I think they try to filter the net as best as they can. I heard a lot of locals call long distance to Thailand to get real access which is also illegal. Visitors have to register with the local police if they intend to stay the night.

The language is very very similar to Thai and we’re having fun discovering the differences. There’s a big French influence as Laos was partitioned by the French as a buffer to Thailand for French Vietnam. We ate in a great little French cafe the other night and stayed too late. The locals go to bed a 9pm sharp, everything shuts down and we got locked out of our guest house. We’re making an effort to be more polite tonight. We plan on seeing a bunch of temples tomorrow and figuring out how to get down to the capital, Vantien so we can get back to Bangkok for our flight home. See y’all soon, Lao gong.

Look! Here’s some pictures of us that Cee took.

Mandy and I are in Chang Mai. We flew here today from Bangkok. Life here more sedate than frenetic Bangkok with its Asian ultra- modern skyscrapers sprouting out of open air fruit and meat markets. Gleaming chromium steel and gold everything with people sleeping on the steps. Much of it is more modern than American cities, selling Japanese electronics that will show up in the states next year or maybe never as the technology evolves. Bangkok is filled with Europeans and Japanese. Elephants shoulder aside Toyota land cruisers and tuk-tuking taxi-trikes on the street. Six lanes of traffic on the city streets all drive on (mostly) the wrong side and fill the air with smelly haze. Long live the king. The Thai’s truly love their king and his grand palace is amazing and resplendent. You don’t know it yet, but you’re looking forward to pictures of it.

I am physically afraid of the ride home. It took us 36 hours of travel to get from BOS to BKK after the engines cut out on the 747 over Alaska.

We’re hanging out here in the north where the food is amazing on our way to Laos. We might get a day back in Bangkok when we return. The major Thai cities are fully bilingual absolutely everything is in Thai and English (and often in English and then Thai). All the Japanese and Europeans speak English to get around. Things should be even more interesting farther north or in Laos as we get away from the monoculture and away from English.

Its nice that all the wildlife is different. I wish we had some bird books or monkey books. We’ve been pretty bad about pictures, but we’ll try to be more snap-happy.  Cee’s website has a lot of pictures of the grand palace and Bangkok. They’re a great preview to our physical snapshots, and faster than the developing time we’ll need. Pippin and Cee lived in the south on the islands for a while. We haven’t been there, but we’re gonna go see a night market and I hear there’s a giant water-fight holiday called Songkran coming up. We’ll try to write soon.

Pictures Cee took of us in Chang Mai.