And yet another painful journey!..

At 7am, our alarms went off to see torrential rain outside; great start to the day… So, considering we had been carrying our yellow ponchos around for 3 months we decided to give them a try so we wouldn’t be drenched all day.

Chris really not happy!

Well, they weren’t exactly ponchos, and more like yellow thin carrier bags, so before we had even left the guesthouse Chris had managed to rip a huge hole down the back,

Chris on the bus with a monk

and the same happened to me as soon as I put on my backpack.

On the boat

When we got to the bus stop we were happy to see a sawngthaew waiting, but the bad news was that the

Crammed in the tuk tuk

driver refused to leave until it was full. As there were only 3 of us there waiting we knew this would take a while as ‘Full’ for them is 16 people!, which we thought was impossible to cram that many people inside until 2 hours later when we finally left he achieved it!

Monks in the rain

What a squeeze! I can’t say it was the most comfortable ride I’ve ever been in but it wasn’t too bad. We hit the border crossing at Chiang Khong and passed through easily into Laos,

Crossing into Laos

We decided to change our plans and head direct to Luang Prabang. We waited in the bus station for 4 hours and were on our way. It was supposed to be a VIP bus but it was pretty uncomfortable and not helped by really bad roads; it was a painful night that even the sleeping pills purchased by a 10yr-old local boy didn’t help…

And yet another painful journey!..

Chiang Khong, Thailand