Thailand Adventures and more: Finally our travels begin!!!

The morning we were to leave on our travels and have James and Pat take us to the bus station, they tell us that we need to talk to the director first and tell him our plans. We couldn't have done this a month ago? It is interesting to me how much "power" this director has. He is really put up on a pedistal. To make a long story short, we ended up waiting 6 hours until they finally took us to the bus station! I told myself, that if this journey doesn't teach me patience, God help me. I just don't think it's in the cards for me! We finally got on our bus and arrived in Chiang Mai 9 hours later. Unfortunately we only got to spend the night there because of our delays the previous days and the fact that we were meeting our friend Chelsea from Holland there, and she had already spent 2 weeks there. Next we stopped in Chiang Rai for a day and then headed to the Thailand/Laos border. Northern Thailand is beautiful and I hope to get back there. I ran into a gentleman there who asked where I was from and then what state I was from. When I said South Dakota, his first response was, "Where all the Indians are?" Is that all people think about South Dakota!

It was quite an interesting and simple process getting our Laos visa. Our bus took us to this lady in a small shop on the Thailand side and we filled out some paperwork. Then they took us to the river, where we took a short ride to the other side, to Laos. We handed in our papers, gave them some money...and in about 10 minutes I had my visa! In a few hours we were off for our 15 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang! It was a CRAZY ride! The roads were insane. They were ridiculously curvy and a normal person would have driven quite slowly...but not our driver! Also the road itself was in very bad shape, so it was a very bumpy ride. It was strange because I was so used to people driving on the left side of the road for the past 3 months, but here they are on the right! What makes people decide which side to drive on!

The landscape in northern Laos (which is pronounced Lao) is absolutely breath-taking. There we were on this incredibly narrow little pavement road laid between these gigantic and glorious mountains and hills and deep valleys of lush forestry and jungle.

It was truly stunning. Unfortunately I couldn't enjoy it the whole time because it was an overnight bus and then I had a bit of motion sickness! After a while the bus stopped and I saw this young boy and lady get out...and run into the woods and "pop a squat!" A few hours later, in the dark of the night, the bus stopped again, and about 50 people got off and each found themselves a "spot!" Another interesting aspect of this culture, which was prevelant in Thailand also, but not near as much so, is paying to use the toilet. The best part about it? That there is almost never even toilet paper! And only at a few spots can you actually buy TP. It would be an interesting job to be the cashier in front of the toilets collecting money.
Just a few days prior to this bus ride, I was commenting about how much I missed a good thunderstorm...and I was happy to awake from sleep hearing rain on the window and cracks of thunder! It gave me goosebumps! Once the morning hit we were able to see this eye-pleasing landscape again and got to see more of the small villages speckled amidst the mountains. They consisted of little bamboo huts with thatched roofs. At one point we saw about 30 villagers all crowded around this one small TV!

Dad and brothers....I don't know if you can clearly see the fence work that is in the foreground of this next picture but I was wondering how it would hold up next to your fence work!