I got here from Laos, as an alternative to doing a ‘visa run’ and staying in Thailand, traversing northeastern and northern Thailand to get here. It was the New Year celebrations when I visited, so everywhere I went I had water thrown at me and a white chalky-substance smeared across my face.

To get to Chiang Rai, I had to make the following stops:

Oudom Xai

This was a fairly short bus ride from Luang Prabang. I actually wanted to go directly to Luang Nam Tha, but I had missed the morning bus by about 30 minutes and the only other bus was at about 17:00, so I decided to wait the 2.5 hours for the next bus to Oudom Xai.

This was the first bus that had water thrown at it, as it was the Thai New Year and as the windows were open, a few people got soaked. Once in Oudom Xai, it was getting dark and I walked around until I found a hotel. Surprisingly, for such a small place, the best one was full and the biggest one was far too expensive. I settled for a cheaper one across from the station where there was a mother breastfeeding when I came to collect the room. I asked them to give me a new bed sheet as the existing one was filthy and I got woken up early the next day by the son of the family banging on my door, asking for the room money. I gave it to him but made it very clear that I didn’t enjoy being woken up.

Luang Nam Tha

I got on a smaller bus in Oudom Xai to Luang Nam Tha, that seemed to be occupied mostly by French people. I sat next to Francois, who ended up talking to me about his previous job in an oil company. I found this fascinating and learnt a lot and me and all of the other French tourists ended up getting a tuk-tuk to the centre of Luang Nam Tha as soon as we arrived.

On arrival in Luang Nam Tha, I went in search of something to eat. The place was a little touristy, so I thought I would try something different and go for one of the street stalls. I had no idea what they were selling but asked for one of them, eventually getting it as a takeaway. It was a load of vegetables and noodles mashed up in a big pestle and mortar and I ate it outside my hotel. This may had been a mistake, because after eating this, I was the sickest I have been since the start of my trip.

I decided to go for a wander over a bamboo bridge to a local village later in the day and saw the local people washing and playing in the river along with weaving and winding cotton in other places. As I was walking around I didn’t feel very well and decided to go back to my hotel room to lie down. Later on, I was sick out of both ends many times and was going to the toilet every five minutes at one point. I tried to rough it, but after taking multiple packets of Dioralyte and not feeling any better, I decided to down some Ciprofloxacin and some Immodium and get on a bus to Huay Xai.

Huay Xai

On the journey to Huay Xai I went to the toilet at every stop. The Immodium helped keep things under control until we were able to stop, which was luckily pretty regularly. I was going to ask when we were stopping at one point, but we pulled-over not long after me thinking to myself how long I was going to wait before asking. We got to Huay Xai without any problems and I got in a tuk-tuk with about 3 local women. As we were driving down the road, someone threw some water from the roadside and almost all of us got drenched. About 2 of the 3 women got a proper soaking and much of the rest of the journey was spent screaming and laughing. The women got dropped off early and I got driven in a loop to make the town centre seem further away than it actually was. I was feeling pretty weak at this point so tried 2 hotels, took the second one and went to sleep.

Chiang Rai

I got up early the next day and got a boat across the border (between Laos and Thailand). I had to sit down at the immigration office as I wasn’t feeling very well, but this was only temporary and I got a motorbike and a bus to Chiang Rai not long after.

In Chiang Rai I walked around until I found a hotel, which didn’t take very long. After looking around the first place, I left my bag there and had a wander around, getting my first proper drenchings. The best one was a Thai girl who came up behind me as I was trying to avoid the water from 2 western people. This got me properly soaked, which wasn’t too bad in the heat and after not finding anywhere better, I walked back to the original hotel, getting white talcum powder smeared across my face.

The next day, as it was the official Songkran festival, I had a walk down one of the main streets. I spent most of the day doing this and ended up dripping wet, with every part of my clothing saturated with water. It was very good.

Even though Songkran went on for another 2 days, I felt like I had got the point after day 1 and got on a bus to Lampang.