Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong (+Photos)

Posted on July 24, 2007

We took the 8:30am bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong on Friday. It is the only direct ‘1st class’ bus that does the trip. We got some of the last tickets, and ended up in the last row. It was pretty cramped and bumpy. There was also a TV and they insisted on playing Thai karaoke at blaring volume.

All in all a pretty uncomfortable 7 hours.

Part of the road the we took is quite new and shaves a good amount of time off the journey, which used to take significantly less direct route. The new road was over the mountains and was pretty hairy in stretches, though definitely well constructed. Thailand is a country that seems to have it’s act together as far as infrastructure is concerned. The roads are still a bit unruly, but I’m sure Thai drivers would be equally overwhelmed by the I-80 I-880 merge in Emeryville.

In Chiang Khong we stayed in a guest house recommended by both of our guidebooks (Rough Guide and Lonely Planet.) It was our first real backpacker type establishment, at $9 for our room. Still, it was really cute, and the guide book promised the best mexican food in Thailand, which we were keen to try.

After an hour or so looking around town, sampling the street vendor food and availing ourselves of the tubes in the internet cafe we headed back for a beer lao or two and some of the famous mexican food. The menu read ‘thai food only sorry; mexican chef on vacation.’ This was a huge disappointment since we’d been mulling over the concept of mexican food with Thai ingredients all day. (On a side note, tonight here in Laos we had some minced pork stuffed in lemongrass which was a lot like a tamale, corn-meal and all.) We ate the chicken fried rice, enjoyed the view over to Laos and then headed for our very uncomfortable bed, we had an early start in the morning to get over the Mekong to Laos.

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5 Comments so far
  1. shade July 24, 2007 2:16 am

    c@g,

    I’ll digged your photos!

    azul ~

  2. shade July 24, 2007 2:29 am

    C@G,

    I dig your photos!

    azul~

  3. Monika July 24, 2007 8:01 am

    …my people, they are everywhere.

  4. Matt July 24, 2007 10:02 am

    Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand
    Just like that river twisting through a dusty land
    And when she shines she really shows you all she can
    Oh Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande

    i know its not the rio grande but i couldn’t resist.

  5. Kim July 28, 2007 1:55 pm

    Bummer about the lack of Mexican food~that would’ve been so fun, and what an interesting talking point! Hmm…maybe Thai/Mexican is a concept we could bring to the Bay Area???