On the Road Again

Well, turns out that Thailand is open again, or at least the British FCO has revised their travel warning to advise against non-essential travel to Bangkok only.  The rest of the country is, apparently, safe again.  Alas, we had already bought our overnight train ticket bound for Kunming, China when we got the news.  So, we are headed to Laos.  We may be out of touch for a few days as we are going to be in transit for the next few days and its unclear what internet access we'll have.  We checked out of our hotel in Yangshuo this morning and took the bus to Guilin and checked our bags at the train station. We then headed back to the pizza place we ate at last time we were in Guilin transiting through to Yangshuo. We were transported half-way here by a rickshaw driver who had no idea where we wanted to go and ended up charging us ten times what we thought we agreed to (apparently two fingers means not two but 20--we got out for 11 since he only took us half way).  The pizza place was only a ten minute walk along the river from where he dropped us, so now we sit here awaiting our pizza, sipping some juices, and updating our blog.

We will board an overnight train bound for Kunming, China at 5:00 this evening.  We splurged for the soft sleeper, so we'll have to report back on how luxury train travel in China is.  We arrive in Kunming at 11:20 am tomorrow.  From Kunming we'll take a nine hour sleeper bus to Jinghong, China.  We may decide to stay the night in Kunming.  This decision will likely depend on how badly we decide that we need a shower and time off of a moving vehicle.  Jinghong is supposed to be a nice destination as well so we may break up our trip with a couple days there before we board another bus for Mohan which is on the border with Laos--apparently the border crossing is at the end of the main street.  From Mohan we'll enter into Boten, Laos.  In Boten, we plan to catch a bus to Luang Nam Tha.  There is, apparently, only one daily bus to Luang Nam Tha and it leaves Boten at 8:00 am.  The border opens at 8:00 am. So, we may need to spend the night in Boten.  After all this we will arrive in Luang Nam Tha, where we can do some trekking and maybe some homestays.  We are also excited for the "Gibbon Experience" where we'll get to sleep in tree houses accessible only by cable lines, be awoken by the sound of Gibbons in the morning, and do some trekking.  

From what we've read, we are really excited to be heading to Laos, even though on our original itinerary we were supposed to be sunning ourselves on a Thai beach right now.  Turns out this timing may be even better, by allowing us to take more time in Loas/Cambodia/Vietnam, if we'd like to and if not, then we can spend the balance of the time in Thailand.  That, plus we aren't supposed to dive on our Malaria meds until we find out what side-effects, if any we experience (which, for those who are curious so far include insomnia (both) and nausea (Dyanne, but note that this could also have been caused by my cold that has stubbornly decided to stick around or some various amoeba or bug)).  So, we couldn't have been learning to dive now anyways.  

We'll try to update from the road, but if we don't, we'll let you know for sure when we get to Luang Nam Tha, which probably won't be until Tuesday or Wednesday.