Chaing Kong - Almost in Laos

Well we are in Chaing Kong tonight. Right on the Mekong river. Just over the river is Laos. Tomorrow morning we board a small boat over the Mekong and go through Laos immigration. Then go to the pier to get a better boat to go down the river to Pakbeng. I guess we will arrive in Pakbeng at 4pm. Then onto Luang Prabang the next day. Two days on the Mekong river should be fun. We will be on a wooden boat with a squat toilet and nothing else. We will get a packed lunch box of the usual fried rice and veggies. We are currently shopping for snacks. I will see if I can find one last diet coke here. There was no diet soda in Myanmar and there will be none in Laos. So water it is for a bit (which will be good for me). I need to get rehydrated again anyway. The long car rides I try not to drink water since they really only stop at designated areas. We left Bangkok a couple days ago on the overnight train to Chaing Mai. It was much nicer then the train in Myanmar, no mice or cobwebs even. They had servers that brought coffee and dinner orders. The bed were great. An upper bunk and lower bunk. The rocking of the train was annoying but besides that very comfortable. My only problem was they woke us up for coffee at 6am which would have been fine if we had arrived at the designated 7am but the train was slow and we did not get in until 10am. So a bit more sleep would have been good. We decided to do a Thai cooking course in Chaing Mai for the day. Similar to the one I did before with Joanne. It was great. We make Tom Yum soup, Pad Thai, Green Curry, Stirfried rosemarry and bannas in coconut milk for dessert. Lots of good eating and finally some spicy food (they always tone down the food here for white people). At the end of the course the instructor took us to the local market to teach us about the foods and what they look like. At night we went to Wat Suthet (the large temple on the hill overlooking Chaing Mai). I have been there before but it was amazing to see the monks perform their nightly chants. We got blessed with holy water by another monk and enjoyed the experience. It is still one of my favorite spots. Last night we did not sleep too well since someone at the hotel woke us up at midnight banging on the wrong door. Then some drunk morons next store started screaming and playing caps against the wall at 2:30am. I was a real pleasure this morning and when they put meat in my lunch and I had to send it back again. However, I cheered up when I saw the temple (I think it was called Wat Rang Khun). It is an all white temple an artist in Chaing Rai is currently building. I have seen pics in the past and really wanted to see the place. There are amazing skeleton hands reaching out of hell with crazy faces and really elaborate details on the temple. We actually saw the artist and went through his art gallery too. Of coarse I bought a print to support the temple. The cloudy backdrop of today was perfect for pics of this temple. I will try to post one later. So I was happy after lunch. We arrived in Chaing Kong around 4pm. We are having group dinner and a briefing before we head to Laos tomorrow. Take care... Sonya:)