Laos, the Mekong and back to Thailand

I've been too lazy to blog ever since we left Laos, but I'm still alive and well.
We left Luang Prabang on the 30th of May, on a slowboat up the Mekong to Huay Xai; a two day journey. We were told it would be hard on our behinds, so we all bought either pillow covers or big lao bags from the night market that we stuffed with clothes to prepare ourselves. The boatride turned out to be pretty comfortable though, compared to what we had imagined. It wasn't at all crowded as we had been told, in fact, the only foreigners on the boat were Malin and I, Krishna and Yushan, Jenny and Grace who we met climbing in Vang Vieng, and Nanna and Bjarke from Denmark who we had met the day before at Big Brother Mouse (a children book publishing place where Krish, Yushan and I went to help teenagers with their english. http://www.bigbrothermouse.com/ We played scrabble and had fun for half a day).
The two days on the boat were some of the most realaxing days we've had on this trip. There wasn't really much to do but read, listen to music and watch the scenery. We spent the night in Pak Beng, at a hostel run by women who took us to a restaurant where we all got free LaoLao (local rice whiskey) after dinner. It's a disgusting drink, it really tastes aweful, but Grace, Jenny, Malin and Bjarke stood up and finished it, though in the slightly strange combination of LaoLao, sticky rice and mashed potatoes. All at once.

We also had to spend the night in Huay Xai (no LaoLao here), Malin and I had planned to do the Gibbon Experience (http://www.gibbonx.org/gibbon_rehabilitation.php), but after visiting the office we decided it was too expensive for us, so we joined the others back in to Thailand instead. Once there, we made our way to Chiang Rai, where we walked around and found nothing to do but buy t-shirts, and then on to Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai is in my opinion a too big small town, though it's still nice and quiet (and full of temples). We spent three lazy days there, and two sort of productive days. The lazy days were spent mostly in the many bookstores, just walking around, consuming food or hanging out in coffee shops and what came to be our "regular bar", The Wall. There we played pool and drank colorful alcoholic drinks (almost) all named after Pink Floyd songs.
Krish, Malin and I went to the Doi Suithep Temple one day. It lies on top of a mountain right on the outskirts of the city, and it's said that you havn't been to Chiang Mai before you've visited Doi Suithep. Unfortunately we were there on a cloudy day, so we didn't get to see the view that I'm sure is beautiful when the sun is out.
On our two last days in Chiang Mai, Malin and I did a massage course. Mainly thai massage, but also a little oil massage. It was interesting, getting a thai massage is kinda like stretching without having to do anything yourself. They don't actually walk on you, but it's not far from it. It's good in a strange way.

From Chiang Mai we took a bus to Sukhothai. We spent a day there biking around the historical city, which is an old capitol, like Ayuttaya (sp?), and it was nice to see all those temples that were so well preserved.
We got on a night bus to Bangkok the same night, got no sleep at all and were almost falling asleep standing up when we arrived at the northern bus terminal at 5 a.m the next morning. We managed somehow, by using the international sign language/hand gestures and pointing, to order some breakfast; fried noodles and vegetables, from a woman who didn't speak a word english. Then we got a taxi to the southern bus terminal, booked tickets for another night bus further south, left our (by now) big-ass, heavy backbacks there and jumped on a city bus headed for Lumpini park. We were both unable to stay awake, but the nice ticket lady woke us up at the right stop, and we went straight to the nearest tree and fell asleep for two hours among other people taking their Sunday nap on the grass.
After sleeping in the park, and in Starbucks, we went back to the bus station and got on a more comfortable night bus. Woke up in Surat Thani and took the boat to Koh Pangan where we'll be living an extremely laid back life until the 17th.
:)