Luang Nam Tha, Laos

Finally a chance to slow down a bit after what has seemed like three days running at full speed.  Got up early to cross the border from Thailand into Laos and almost missed my bus due to Laotian immigration's strange process of allowing tour groups to go to the head of the line (some bribery from the tour group leaders, perhaps?).  After a mad dash across town, made the bus with less than 5 minutes to spare and embarked on a 3:45 hour trip that was slow, but pleasant thanks to the beautiful scenery and an engaging conversation covering the state of the world with a seatmate from Munich.

Found a very nice room in the center of town for only $12.50 a night.  A/C, TV (no English channels), soso wi-fi (which is a lot better than I experienced in Lao nine years ago when it took up to 15 minutes to download a single email) and quiet.  Not too many tourists make it up here, so the town is relatively unspoiled, but not lacking in services and decent places to eat and drink.  Took what seemed like forever to get a SIM card, but a very nice local at one of the trekking agencies put me on his motorcycle, drove me over to the correct vendor and then interpreted for me.  The process involved cutting down a standard SIM card and making it into a mini-card.  Pretty low tech operation using standard household scissors, but it worked and now I can wander around on the other side of the world and never miss an email imploring me to send money to Nigeria.  I guess this is progress???????

With only nine hours of sleep covering roughly 3 days, I turned in early, but not before downing a couple of delicious Beer Laos and eating the best pork larb ever at the night market with a huge amount of sticky rice, a green papaya salad and one of the local sausages (hey!  I hadn't eaten all day) all for around $4.