Safe to say, Lao’s internet availability is not on par with Thailand’s. I’ve booked a hotel for a night however and now have a lot to share, which I’ll split over two posts.
Pai in northern Thailand is a small town which was taken over by hippies sometime in the 80s and is now the very definition of chill. I loved it. I was there a week, and was gutted to leave, but knew I had to as I’d started unironically talking about people’s energy and spirit.
In all honesty I didn’t do much there, but was with a great group and we just pottered about, went to some hot springs, but mostly just spent our time enjoying the scenery and hanging out in hammocks in our incredible hostel.
I really truly loved Pai, its somewhere where you can slow down and forget about the world, and many of the people I met regularly went just to escape the stress of their 9-5 for a while.
Moving on…
After a week, it was time to leave, and take the slow boat to Luang Prabang in Laos.
Laos is not an easy place to get to, and all options involve multiple days of travel. The cheapest and best way is the slow boat. This involved a day bus journey from Chiang Mai to the border town of Huay Xai, a night in Huay Xai, a day by boat to a very tiny town called Pakbeng and then a final day on the boat to Luang Prabang. Thankfully I had good company.
Me and a friend left Pai together to go to Laos, and picked up a couple more people on the bus, so the boat experience was fine and not the lonely 48 hours it could have been.
The boat is primarily a local boat, but of course, tourists have found out about it. We were very lucky to have been on the boat with a Dutch family with 4 young daughters. They had come prepared with entertainment and let the rest of the boat join. The first day saw the boat, westerners and locals, transfixed with making scooby bands (a craze that was very big when I was in year 4)
Childhood fun aside, the best thing about the boat was the scenery and brief insight into life along the Mekong river
It was a long 3 days of travel, but really worth it, I’ll admit I was a bit too busy chatting and just enjoying myself to take enough photos, but I hope this gives a bit of insight.
As for Lao, it is even more beautiful than Thailand, and I’m really enjoying myself so far.
El goes backpacking 
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