Stivlo'st in Asia

Vientiane is a quiet town that seems is developing fast in recent years. New shops popping up and now most of the streets are tarred. Only one year ago there was a lot more mud around.

Yet, there are striking differences between different streets. It’s amazing that the picture above and below were taken in the same place, just turning around myself by 90 degrees but without moving.

Most enterteinment places close at midnight in Vientiane, although there is one or more disco closing at 3am. From what I saw it’s difficult to find food or shops open in the middle of the night. This is different from cities in Thailand where you’d find at least some 24 hours shops.

Looking in Laos for the same things you’d find in Thailand is however a mistake, I start to enjoy this diversity and I’m finding nice and enterteining people to talk, real travellers instead of Thailand holiday makers.

Now i’m sitting in a restaurant in Vientiane by the Mekong river sipping a mango fruit shake and using Thai gprs to connect to the internet. Vientiane is so near to Thailand that you can get thai mobile signal by the river. But as soon you go away from the river even few tens of meters the signal disappears.

My trip was ok, I flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, had to wait four hours in the airport to take a connecting flight to Udon Thani. Slept one night there and the morning after I took a bus to Nong Khai, the last thai town before the Laos border. I took the tuk tuk in the picture to go from the bus stop to the actual border a few km ride.

This is the bus crossing friendship bridge for a fixed fare of 15 baht (just to cross the bridge).

From Laos border to Vientiane I had to find another tuk tuk to cover the last 12 km of road. One year ago i took an international bus that took me all the way from Vientiane to Udon Thani.. probably easier. Every time you take a new tuk tuk taxi you’ve to spend some time to bargain the price they ask you. Sometimes they are not willing to discount, sometimes you can pay less than a half of what they originally asked.

After one night sleep in another guesthouse I moved to Chindamay Guesthouse that for 6 us $ for a fan room and 8 us $ for air con room is probably the best value in town, considering that it’s clean and good looking enough. In the low season you can have a little discount and I took the fan room for 5 us $. Now here it’s not hot at all, the windows have mosquito net and fan is enough. In early morning I had to stop the fan because I was feeling cold.

Yesterday night I was working connected with the internet in Chiang Mai when my friend Ettore told me to watch the news as tanks were on the streets of Bangkok.

A military coup was taking place but it was not sure if it was successful or not. At least it seems it happened without any violence at all. I heard on CNN that people in Thailand was probably unaware of what’s happening because local TVs were obscured and broadcasting videos about the royal family and BBC and CNN signal were taken off air.

This consideration is however completely false. First because many condos and houses have satellite dishes, including my condo. I could view CNN and BBC and many other international channels without any problems yesterday night. Further because even in small supermarkets they have TV with international channels.

The picture above is a shot of my room TV in Chiang Mai.

To help relieve my bad cough I took my motorbike and went to a V Shop Express, a 24 hours small supermarket around midnight to drink a hot ginger tea, a good remedy for cough. I hanged there talking with the shopkeeper and we watched together BBC and CNN in the supermarket without any problems. All the city in Chiang Mai was calm and normal.

This morning I went to Chiang Mai airport to fly to Bangkok. In the airport I noticed a few soldiers outside the entrance and exit doors, about 4-5 soldiers per door. But despite that, everything normal, inside all the flights were taking place as usual.

Now I’m sitting in a waiting room of Bangkok airport. I didn’t see any military inside and even outside Don Muang airport. I’m waiting for my next flight to Udon Thani, near Laos border, where I will go tomorrow. From Laos I will watch news closely and if it’s safe as it appears to be, I will back to Thailand.

I had lunch in a Chinese restaurant in the airport. Wonton soup and roasted duck. Good but not warm enough.

UPDATE: Mae Sai border with Burma (Myanmar) is closed. My friend Luca went there today and the gates were closed. He heard also that all land borders are also closed. I am going to Nong Khai (border town with Laos) tomorrow. Hope it will be open! It’s still possible to fly, but I am going to see myself since going to board into a plane to Udon Thani soon and I’ve already checked in my lugguage!

UPDATE: Nong Khai border with Laos was open today and it should be opened tomorrow too!

Now in september is the end of the rainy season and everything is bright green.

In Pai there are three waterfalls, I saw only this one.

A rice field with bungalows in the distance.

The hot springs in Pai used to be free but now they are charging 200 baht for foreigners and about 20 baht for Thai people. A better bet now is go to some Spa, charging 40 or 50 baht.

The water is about 80 C. Enough to boil eggs but too hot to bathe.