Thailand is so completely different from Laos. I knew this going in, but man. As soon as you cross the Friendship Bridge you know for a fact you are not in Laos anymore. Everything is so shiny and new, the roads are good, there are billboards and advertisements everywhere, the people are wearing clothing with company logos, there are western chain restaurants, it is just like we were home almost. But still in Asia. I knew it would be different, but for some reason I thought that outside the main, large cities it would be more like Laos. I remember looking into the hill tribe trekking outside of Chiang Mai and so I figured the countryside would be the same, but no. It was very jarring for me to suddenly be in a much wealthier country. I immediately wanted to go back to my lovely Laos, but we had all the food to look forward to eating so on we went (note - there will be a lot of food pictures in this post!) So a van picked us up from the bus station and took us back to the hotel
Chronicling our big adventures