This is the plan – depends if i get a seat in the bus. This town is like Pai – only it is made for French tourists. All the nice original little pop & mom places are gone. They build and build and build – and everything looks the same.
It does not look to bad but very very artificial. And you should see what the night market looks like. Beer Lao t-shirts and other tourist crap. Well well there goes another destination…
At last a nice window to have a coffee, banana cake and free wifi…
One of my personal favorites on the lake is feeding the sea gulls. It is one of my favorite animal – nice build – form follows function, this bird has it all. I could do this every day – at Inlay at last 
Today i felt like having some Chinese food for lunch – this is easy as the border is only 50km from here. Went with my Chinese Honda copy to the border town – Boten – and – had a Dali Beer!! (great) and fried vegetables with rice. All for 1.70 € – i can not complain as it even was good!!!
BTW i do Couchsurf in Luang Nam Tha.
Went in the morning to the border – it opens at 8 am. did arrive at 8.05 – check out of thailand was smooth and quick. got to the 3rd boat over the Mekong and where with the 1st people to apply for a Lao visa.
Later the masses did get there and for some it took hours in the line.
Than to the boat – shared a taxi with 2 girl from Belgium. Got a seat in the 1st row!
Leg space!! Next to me a nice guy from Austria – so it was a pleasant boat trip with nice conversation.
In the evening a few of my new friends and i went to a local restaurant and had a nice evening as well. I took the next day off and today the bus to Udomxai.
Tomorrow i will go further north – not really sure how far but might go all the way to Muang Sing.
i told you (at last the Facebook friends of me) about the GH i booked in Chiang Rai. So i took the bus from Chiang Rai up to here. Of course they have a new bus station 9 km out of town (WHY oh WHY do all the Asian cities start to do that SHIT!!!!! The bus station in Stuttgart is next to the Main Train Station which is the center of the city!!!!!!!!!!!)
So i have to get a tuck tuck to the place or a pick up taxi and so on. What ever – i did get here at 3 pm – and not it is 9 pm. there is no manager – i sit in his office and use the Ethernet cable of his computer. i found a room which i gonna use and watched a movie. it is full of thai people that do not speak english – they are all nice. there is a shop with cold beer. lets see what is next…
ok found towels – shall get to sleep now – lotus guest house chinag rai – a lot of fun for a little €
found also a note of some french girls that left in the morning – hi manager – here is the key – cheers…
Did copy this one from the China Post – but you can find it elsewhere on the net.
LONDON — A Taiwanese whisky beat a trio of top Scottish blends in a connoisseurs’ blind taste test organized to mark Scotland’s annual Burn’s Night festivities, the Times reported yesterday.
The Taiwan-distilled Kavalan brand, described as a “Far Eastern incomer”, came top in a test against three Scottish and one English whisky in an historic hostelry in Leith, north of Edinburgh, said the paper.
“Oh my God,” author and whisky connoisseur Charles MacLean told the paper when the unexpected result was confirmed.
The newspaper organized the test itself, in what it called a “piece of mischief-making” inspired by the launch of an English whisky, “St. George’s” last November.
Its hope was to catch the experts out with the tipple from Scotland’s traditional “Sassenach” English rivals ─ but to their surprise it was the Asian whisky which came up trumps.
“It’s tropical fruits. Tropical fruit jam,” said MacLean, chairman of the panel, after Kavalan ─ which is not marketed in Britain ─ came out top with 27.5 points out of a possible 40 maximum.
Langs, a three-year-old Scottish premium blend, scored 22 points, followed by King Robert ─ also from north of the border ─ on 20 and the English three-year-old malt on 15.5.
Last came quadruple-distilled Scottish blend Bruichladdich X4+3, on only 4.5 points, described by MacLean as “not cooking oil. Not diesel oil. Sewing machine oil.”
In a commentary the Times noted: “Asians are not only some of the world’s most sophisticated consumers of Scotch, but have begun distilling malts that compete with the best Scottish distilleries.”
Burns Night, named after 18th century poet Robert “Rabbie” Burns, competes with St. Andrew’s Day as a focus for traditionally whisky-fueled celebrations in Scotland and by Scots around the world.
There are loads of “tourist” workshops on the lake – selling products that where made in the shop and elsewhere on the lake. at last most of them?? When you go with the boat you hear the weaving machines all over in the villages so i guess that a lot of the stuff they sell is really from here.
this one is a newer and big place. They make cotton, silk and lotus flower fabrics. You can than buy scarfs, trousers, blankets, shirts and what not.
This is the stem of the lotus leave. inside are a few very very fine threads – if you would not know better you would think it is a spiders work. Of course you need loads to have a thread ready to weave…
Here you can combine different colors or materials into one thread – if you like fabric that has a different shine than a single color one would have.
Grandma gets the material ready to use it in the machine.
This is where grandma’s work ends up – in the hand of the weaving machine operator (sounds good??)
With the pedals you can make pattern – the more pedals are installed the more complex the pattern can be.
Of course – i was waiting for that. The Long Neck do actually come from 200 km away. But now – took them quite a while – a few of the shops have “Long Neck products” along with original long necks. Guess still better than in Thailand where they have Long Neck zoos even in the south now…
Gabi – this one is for you. The Jumping Cat Monastery – where they have them jump every time there are enough visitors there. The last few years it where the monks that did the show. guess they are to lazy now – the boss monk rings a bell and than the boy does the show. now i do not see the big difference with a dog show here – and all the cat people tell me the cat has a mind of its own and all the bla bla
Enough for one day – lets get back home
Truck Engine Wash Center
Floating Garden
There are a few villages on the lake
Temples as well…
Raw material for the many tourist shops
The most important temple
And the 5 Buddahs in it. Over the years people put so much gold on it – you can only imagine how they looked
Num and Weo will drive to CHX at the 25th – Chris and me will share the ride.
Than something like 2 nights CHX. Up to Chiang Rai next – see the White Temple. Than Mae Salong to see why “the lost army” – Kuomintang’s 93rd division who fought under General Chiang Kai Shek’s Army – stopped here and founded the town. Further on towards the Laotian border and down to Luang Prabang with the Slow Boat next.
Marius – why not start a biz over here???
The lake is still misty – birds…
The famous Inlay Lake rowing
Different technique
Monk Express
attending the Vienna Calling CS Meeting!
If you are close – lets have a beer!!!
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