Wednesday 11th - Tuesday 17th May
Royal Langkawi Yacht Club
We're leaving for a backpacking trip around Northern Thailand and Laos next Wednesday so we'll spend this next week sorting out a few jobs on the boat, booking flights etc. Royal Langkawi Yacht Club has a wireless internet connection which works from most of the marina so we bought the bits we needed to take advantage of it. Accessing the internet from the boat certainly beats trailing into town and hoping the internet cafe is going to be open when you want it.
Some of the jobs included repairs to one of the awnings where the fabric was wearing, trying to find out which particular part of the aft aircon had failed so that we can buy a replacement part, and giving the boat a good wash. On a very wet day we spent a lot of time on the internet researching places in Northern Thailand and Laos and investigating SailMail. Sail Mail allows you to use HF radio to receive low-volume text emails. Could be handy when we go to Chagos next year since we'll be out of contact of anything other than radio or sat phone for about 3 months.
We plan to return to the UK for August and September so another job was booking the air tickets. We tried booking through the internet to see if we could find cheaper flights but the tickets were either more expensive than the travel agents or they couldn't be sent to Malaysia.

Wednesday 18th May
Langkawi to Bangkok
We caught the 9:30 a.m. ferry to Satun - it was a lot more upmarket than the rickety boat we took 15 years ago. The port area for Satun is at Thammalung which now has a large white concrete building for immigration with a proper pier and a taxi stand instead of a dilapidated pier, a wooden hut for immigration and the occasional motorcycle taxi to get into town. The next stage was a taxi to the airport at Hat Yai on the east side of the peninsula. Hat Yai doesn't have much going for it except for being a transport hub for Southern Thailand. Our 2:00 p.m. flight left at 3:10 p.m. so we arrived in Bangkok late afternoon. Stayed at the Buddy Lodge in the backpacker area at Khao San Road and found an efficient travel agent there who organised Laos visas and 1st class sleeper tickets to Chiang Mai for us. The Laos visa takes a couple of days to process so I guess we'd better do the tourist thing.
Khao San Road is closed to traffic after about 5:00 p.m. and fills up with street stalls for the evening. It's full of restaurants, bars and accommodation.

Thursday 19th - Friday 20th May
Bangkok
Today we're going to be tourists and visit The Grand Palace and Wat Pho. The easiest way to get there is on a ferry along the Chao Phraya River. While waiting for the ferry we were startled to see a European guy stroll down to the river, hand his bottle of beer to one of the ferry staff and jump in the river and start swimming across to the other side. The Chao Phraya in the middle of Bangkok isn't the place I'd choose to go for a swim.
Unfortunately when we arrived at the Grand Palace we found it was closed until the afternoon. We visited Wat Pho instead and by the afternoon it was raining so we gave up on the Grand Palace and visited the National Museum instead. In the evening while we were having a quiet drink in a bar in Khao San Road an American evangelist showed up and started haranguing the people in the street many of whom were local people not tourists. Given that Thais are either Buddhist or Muslim we thought it was pretty arrogant for them to be told they were all doomed unless they followed this guys religion instead of their own.
The next day we had another go at the Grand Palace having donned suitably respectful clothing and footwear. It was just as impressive as I remember it from 20 years ago and still maintained in beautiful condition. Took a river boat in the afternoon. These ferries run a regular service up and down the river and assuming your start and finish destinations are fairly close to the river are an awful lot quicker than fighting through Bangkok's appalling traffic.

Saturday 21st May
Bangkok to Chiang Mai
We'd booked the overnight sleeper to Chiang Mai which didn't leave until the early evening so we whiled away a few hours at Chatuchak Market on the north side of Bangkok. This is a massive weekend market covering about 30 acres where you can buy just about anything. The last time we were in Bangkok about 2 years ago we'd seen in this market a statue which we'd both liked but thought it would be too difficult to transport so hadn't bought it. Ever since then we'd been wishing we'd bought it so the reason for going to the market was firstly to try and find it again, then to decide if it was as nice as we'd remembered and if so work out how to get it back to the UK. Well it was and we did so we decided to buy it on our way back through Bangkok and work out the transport later.

Sunday 22nd - Monday 23rd May
Chiang Mai
The train was ok. We'd booked a 1st class sleeper so had our own compartment. It was very compact with a grey on grey colour scheme which would definitely have been improved with a splash of colour but it was fairly comfortable and arrived on time. In Chiang Mai we stayed at the Ban Jong Come Guesthouse where an air-con room with it's own bathroom with hot shower cost us about 450 baht (just under 7GBP)  a night. We planned to travel around the Mae Hong Son loop west of Chiang Mai Thailand and decided the best way to do it was to hire a jeep for a few days since buses in that area are not so reliable. We spent a day around Chiang Mai to make sure there were no problems with the jeep and drove out to a woodcarving village. It was full of shops selling everything imaginable carved from wood but since many of the shops stocked the same carvings we assumed there was a factory somewhere nearby turning them out. We were tempted by a wooden statue similar to the one we'd seen in Bangkok but decided in the end that the one in Bangkok was much nicer.

Tuesday 24th May
Chiang Mai to Mae Chaem
The first part of the Mae Hong Son loop takes in the Doi Ithanon National Park. It's a lush hilly region with some spectacular waterfalls. Even now at the end of the dry season there was still water cascading down steep granite slopes. We had planned to stay at the park accommodation so that we could do a short walk the next day but it was fully booked so we had to drive on to Mae Chaem village outside the park. We did find another 'resort' inside the park but it was basic in the sense of a hut in the middle of a field with no power, no bathroom and not much of a bed so we declined it. On the way to Mae Chaem we visited the 'Twin Chedis' near the summit of Doi Ithanon. These were built by the Royal Thai Airforce in honour of the sixtieth birthdays of the King and Queen.

Wednesday 25th - Thursday 26th May
Mae Sariang
From Mae Chaem we drove to Ob Luang which is a river gorge where some prehistoric sites have been found. The surrounding area is very hilly but any trees have been cleared and they all seem to be cultivated. The hillsides are quite steep and the only sign of mechanical aids to cultivation that we saw was one tractor and lots of people with hoes. Mae Sarieng is a small town close to the Burmese border with a lot of Burmese influence in the style of the buildings and Wats. From Mae Sarieng we drove to Mae Saem Lab on the River Salween which forms the border with Burma. A very scenic drive on a steep windy road with potholes and the road broken away here and there. The people of Mae Saem Lab are of the Karen tribe. Houses are made from split bamboo and the roofs made from layers of leaves. From Mae Saem Lab we took a trip by river to the next village (Sop Moei) and back. The only access to this village is by boat so they don't often see westerners. The children all gave a very polite Thai bow to us and the school teacher gained a lot of face by being able to speak to us in english.

Friday 27th - Saturday 28th May
Mae Hong Son
The road between Mae Sarieng and Mae Hong Son also wound steeply through lush hills. On arriving in Mae Hong Son a took us a while to find accommodation we liked. Basic was very basic - mattress on the floor, no fan, certainly no air-con and mainly shared bathrooms with cold water showers. Had to stay in a more expensive hotel since there didn't seem to be any mid-range guest houses. Had a look at some Wats (Buddhist temples) and found the style here in the border area quite different to Chiang Mai. The Burmese influence was very obvious with lots of carved wood and Burmese style white-painted Buddha statues. The Burmese style buddhas look far more severe than the Thai ones. We drove to the border village of Mai Aw. The people in this village are descendants of Chinese Kuomintang refugees although they don't appear to be any different from people of other villages. They grow tea on the hillsides and sell it in the local shops.

Sunday 29th May - Wednesday 1st June
Pai
From Mae Hong Son to Pai we drove through more steep hills around hairpin bends welcoming the roads in good condition and bumping over those in not so good condition. We stopped at a famous site called Tham Lot to visit some caves. You are obliged to take a guide with a lantern since there is no lighting inside the caves. Our guide didn't speak much English but she was very good at smiling and giggling and knew her way around the caves. Access is by bamboo raft then on foot. The entrance area is full of bats and swifts. There is an extensive cave system with many varied rock formations from quartz 'waterfalls' of rock to high pillars where stalactites and stalagmites have met and thickened. There are also many sinkholes mostly cordoned off. There are 3 caves altogether and the third cave contains some ancient wooden coffins the contents of which are now in the museum. The river runs through all three caves. There are small beaches in each cave where the bamboo raft can put it's passengers ashore to allow exploration of the caves each side of the underground river.
Pai is far more of a backpacker ghetto than either Mae Sarieng or Mae Hong Son. There are innumerable guesthouses, restaurants, tour operators, massage parlours and motorcycle hire shops. There are lots of places that teach massage or Thai cooking and also a meditation/yoga centre. We decide to spend a few days here and learn about Thai cooking. We can get a bus from here to Chiang Khong on the border with Laos so Steve drove the jeep back to Chiang Mai and returned by bus. Lyn spent 2 days enrolled in Bebe's Wok & Roll cookery school learning the basics of Thai cooking. We spent time in the market learning what some of the more unusual ingredients look like then set to cooking Thai curries, stir fries, soups and salads. Steve sampled the results and pronounced them good so all we need to do now is practise.

Thursday 2nd June
Pai to Chiang Khong
We took a minibus from Pai to Chiang Mai (3 hours) then another from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong. The second leg should have taken 5 hours but took 6 because the minibus collided with a motorbike. No-one was hurt but the bike was damaged and the driver and the villagers were in conflab for quite some time. The driver looked pretty unhappy at the end so we assumed he had to pay the owner of the bike some money. We arrived in Chiang Khong around 6:30 p.m. and stayed in a beautiful old guesthouse made almost entirely from teak.

Friday 3rd - Saturday 4th June
Houayxai to Luang Prabang
From Chiang Khong we took the ferry across the Mekong to Houayxai in Laos then took a slow boat to Luang Prabang. The boat takes 2 days so we spent the night at a village called Pak Beng. About 90% of the passengers were young backpackers so it was quite a lively trip. The river, and as we were to discover, almost all the other rivers in Laos was brown because there is so much silt in the water. It runs very fast and near Houayxai there were quite a lot of sandbanks. It runs through steeply forested hills with a few villages here and there and quite a lot of goats, cows and water buffalo on the shores. Occasionally the boat stopped to pick up passengers and cargo. At one place a smaller boat came alongside with 4 or 5 enormous circular pots (about 1 metre across) which were loaded onto the roof of our boat along with a few mattresses and quite a lot of wood.
We arrived at Pak Beng just before it got dark. Finding accommodation was chaotic but we managed to get a room with mosquito nets and it's own bathroom.
The currency in Laos is the kip although they seem to accept Thai Baht and US dollars quite happily. The kip seems to have lots of zeros, the exchange rate for 1 US$ is about 10,000 kip.
The next morning the boat was supposed to leave at 8:30 a.m. but it didn't want to leave any passengers behind so waited for the latecomers. An official was trying to count heads but people were moving around so eventually he gave up and we left around 10:00 a.m. Amongst other things we saw a working elephant along the banks hauling logs and some pink water buffalos.
We arrived in Luang Prabang in the early evening and went to a guest house we'd picked from the guidebook. It was raining so we didn't really want to trail around looking at guesthouses so we stayed there for one night. It was quite expensive and the outside and common areas looked pretty run down although inside the room was fine.

Sunday 5th - Tuesday 7th June
Luang Prabang
In the morning we had a look at one or two other guest houses and found a really nice one overlooking the river. It had only been open 2 months so everything was fresh and clean. It had polished wood floors and wall panelling, air-con and a tiny restaurant on a terrace overlooking the river. It was half the price of the other place so we moved there.
The town has 23 Wats. There have much less colour and glitter than those in Chiang Mai and most are in serious need of maintenance. Unfortunately Luang Prabang reminded us very much of China where uncaring government employees collect disproportionately high entrance fees for visiting some of the Wats and the money goes into government pockets not into maintenance of the Wats. The monks and novices on the other hand were very pleasant and friendly.
We took a local tour to visit the caves at Pak Ou which are full of Buddha images although both the caves and the buddhas could have done with some money spent on them. On the way back we visited a village making Lao Lao which is distilled rice wine - a fairly evil beverage in it's raw state. It's blended with something else to make it more palatable and quite often sold in bottles also containing snakes and scorpions. I think it's supposed to be an aphrodisiac but we decided not to try it. Another village produced silk from breeding the silk worms through spinning the silk, dyeing the threads and weaving the fabric.
That afternoon we saw another waterfall with some impressive falls and places part way down the falls where you could swim. On the way back we stopped at a Hmong village where the one guy who got out of the car was mugged by 8 year old girls trying to sell him bracelets - not really a true picture of Hmong village life.
We thought we'd rent a couple of push bikes to explore. The rental was 1 US$ for the afternoon for each bike which didn't sound too bad but then the vendor wanted US$50 as a deposit on the bikes which didn't sound reasonable so we didn't rent bikes.

Wednesday 8th - Thursday 9th June
Phonsavan
We caught the VIP bus (VIP is a very loose term in Laos) to Phonsavan. The trick when catching buses in Laos is to get to the bus station early to make sure you get a seat. The bus was pretty full when we left with quite a few backpackers on board. It was reasonably comfortable. It stopped at a small town about halfway where there was a street market that you could buy snacks from for lunch. There was the usual fish on a stick, rice and something wrapped in banana leaves, meat on a stick, fruit and one or two things we didn't recognise. We arrived late afternoon and went looking for a guest house. We seemed to end up at the same place as all the other backpackers which again was fairly basic but ok. We were getting used to extra firm beds. The guest house was run by a youngish guy called Kong Keo who turned out to be a fascinating guide to the area.
We organised a tour with Kong Keo which we thought was just going to be a tour of the Plain of Jars which is what this area is famous for but it turned out to be far more interesting. We learned some history we didn't know about how extensively Laos was bombed by American aircraft during the Vietnam War. About 3 million tons of ordinance were dropped. Much of this was cluster bombs many of which didn't explode at the time so the countryside is littered with unexploded bombies. Many people are maimed or killed each year while plowing their fields or building their homes. Many of those killed or injured are children who don't realise the danger of playing with the bombs. Our guide showed us an area where there are many bomb craters and even now some unexploded bombs lying on the ground. Local villagers use spent cluster bomb casings as fencing or supports for other buildings. If a villager finds a bomb on his land and he wants the bomb disposal people to get rid of it he has to pay US$22 to have it exploded safely. A newly qualified teacher earns about US$20 a month so most villagers can't afford to pay US$22 for each bomb so they don't get exploded.
In the afternoon we did visit the jar sites. There are 3 sites with stone jars up to 2 metres high. Apparently it's not known what their purpose was but some experts have speculated that they may have been used as funeral urns.

Friday 10th - Monday 13th June
Veng Viang
Took the bus from Phonsavan to Veng Viang and found a nice comfortable guesthouse by the river. Veng Viang is somewhere people spend a few days. The river is fun to kayak on, there are some nice walks and caves and it has quite few relaxed bars and restaurants. We spent a day kayaking on the river. There are a few easy rapids and the river runs quite fast so it was good fun. The trip included a visit to a cave used by the local people to shelter from the American bombing raids. There were many large caverns going deep into the cliffs. Some people lived in these caves for 9 years while their homes and fields were bombed.
We also visited a cave by underground river riding in tractor tyre inner tubes.

Tuesday 14th June
Veng Viang to Vientiane
The next stop is Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. By this time we'd got bored with buses so we decided to go to Vientiane by kayak. The kayaking company transport you and your backpack to a convenient spot on the appropriate river then drop you off with some kayaks and guides and meet you further down the same river with your luggage and transport you the rest of the way to Vientiane. The rapids on this river were a bit bigger, we submerged the kayaks going through them this time. Steve and I managed not to capsize our kayaks but I think everybody else did at some time on the trip. We met up with the truck and the luggage mid-afternoon and were put on a songthaew for the last hour to Vientiane - except it only got halfway when the rear nearside wheel fell off. Luckily we were going through a town so were not going very fast but it gouged quite a long streak out of the road. We managed to pick up a local bus to take us the rest of the way.

Wednesday 15th - Thursday 16th June
Vientiane
Vientiane has a few impressive Wats but otherwise is just a fairly small quiet city. Again the Mekong forms the boundary between Laos and Thailand although here there is a bridge - the Friendship Bridge linking Laos to Thailand.

Friday 17th June - Saturday 18th June
Luang Prabang
We booked the Super VIP bus to go from Vientiane back to Luang Prabang. Everything was going pretty smoothly, the bus left on time. We stopped for lunch around 11:45. Soon after setting off after lunch on a windy road quite a long way from anywhere our jinx seemed to set in again and the back axle collapsed. A local bus arrived soon after (incidentally carrying a passenger from our bus that the driver had left behind) but our bus boys assured us they could fix it so we let the local bus go. Four hours later the repair was no further forward and another local bus appeared. This one we got on and left the crew of the Super VIP bus scratching their heads at the side of the road wondering what to do next. We arrived at Luang Prabang at 9:00 p.m. instead of 4:00 p.m. and headed off to the good guest house we'd stayed in previously where we were welcomed with big smiles.
We wanted to go by boat up the Nam Ou River to Nong Khiaw. This used to be a normal passenger route but then they built a road so the only people who go by river now are tourists. This of course means it's a special boat for tourists at special tourist prices. The boat only goes if there are at least 5 people so we trailed round travel agents trying to find one who already had people booked so we could more or less guarantee that the boat would go. We found one who promised his boat would go tomorrow so we'll see if it does.

Sunday 19th - Monday 20th June
Muang Ngoi
When we got to the pier we had 8 people for a 10 seater boat which sounded pretty good but the boatman said "Oh, it's not full, it will hold 15 people so you have to pay extra."  Everyone refused on principle - if you start giving in to this kind of blackmail the prices just spiral until they get ridiculous. Eventually we moved to a smaller boat that still had 10 seats but with no price hike. The trip took about 6 hours with the most fabulous scenery. There were steep forested hills on each side with small rapids every now and then. As soon as we arrived at Nong Khiaw the driver of the boat alongside the dock shouted "Muang Ngoi, Muang Ngoi" which was about another hour upstream so off we went again. The landing at Muang Ngoi was a slippery muddy slope so by the time we got to the top we and our bags were covered in mud. Two of the guesthouses had inside bathrooms so we stayed in one of those. All the other guesthouses had a sort of tin shack 50 metres up a muddy path with a squat loo and cold shower in it.
Muang Ngoi is a pleasant friendly village. The only access is by river or foot, there are no roads. There is no mains power so electricity is by generator and is only on from dusk until about 10 p.m. Most village houses have no running water so it's a common sight to see people washing under the village pump. We tried to find a boat to go to the next village upriver but there was no boat so we decided to go back to Nong Khiaw then on by bus.

Tuesday 21st - Thursday 23rd June
Luang Namtha
We thought since the trip back to Nong Khiaw was so short that we would go by speedboat - just for the experience. We'd been told they were frightening, dangerous and noisy - but the locals use them all the time so they can't be too bad. They're actually longtails with 1200cc Toyota car engines mounted on a platform at the back. Silencers have been dispensed with. There are 4 rows of seats which take 2 westerners or 3 Lao each. You sit on a cushion on the floor of the boat with your knees tucked under your chin and off it goes at about 30 mph downriver. Not very scary but quite bumpy over the rapids. We arrived at Nong Khiaw about 9:00 and had to wait until 11:00 for a bus to Oudomxai. Had a look around Nong Khiaw and decided Muang Ngoi was much nicer.
The bus turned out to be a songthaew. There were only 5 passengers plus 2 enormous baskets of papayas, a large dustbin full of fish inside and 2 big boxes of fish tied on the back. That trip was far more frightening than the speedboat. It was another mountain road full of hairpin bends and the driver seemed to be in a real hurry. On every bend the 4 of us (the girl who put the fish and the papaya on sat in the front next to the driver), the papaya and the dustbin full of fish slid across from one side to the other and on the next bend we all slid back again. At the really steep bends one basket of papaya would fall over so they'd all be rolling around the floor as well and the songthaew would teeter on the edge of the drop off because it's brakes weren't quite 100%. It was a relief to actually arrive at Oudomxai.
There was a bus just about to leave Oudomxai for Luang Namtha which was our ultimate destination. We thought great, a bus at least will be a bit comfortable - but it was full so they found some plastic chairs and lined them up down the aisle for us. Shouldn't be too uncomfortable we thought - except every time the bus went round a bend (yes another mountain road) unless you held on very tightly to the seats on either side, the legs on the chair flexed and down it went. A not uneventful journey.
Luang Namtha turned out to be a very spread out sleepy sort of place where you could just relax and let the world go by for a day or two. We'd planned on spending a few days in the jungle booked into something called The Gibbon Experience but found the earliest we could get in was 29th so we had plenty of time to spare. We hired a couple of push bikes and explored the surrounding area. We visited a waterfall and climbed quite a long way up it when we spotted a bright green snake sunning itself on a rock in the stream. Many of the roads in the area are unmade and some are very muddy but you get good views of the rice planting and village life. Since we had so much time we decided to spend a couple of days in the village of Muang Sing recommended by the guide book as a backpacker haven.

Friday 24th - Saturday 25th June
Muang Sing
Transport to Muang Sing was the usual songthaew. It looked full when we got in but they still squeezed in a few more after us. The guy sitting next us was learning English and wanted to practise so we chatted for a bit and he told us about his life in his village. We found some pleasant bungalows to stay in but there wasn't a great deal to do. Muang Sing isn't really set up for tourists. There are a few very run down guesthouses and one or two basic restaurants. We went walking along the road towards the border town of Xieng Kok and just enjoyed the scenery.

Sunday 26th June
Luang Namtha
Back to Luang Namtha and the Boat Landing Resort. This resort is set a few kilometres outside Luang Namtha and has very pleasant wooden bungalows overlooking the river and a superb restaurant. Our original plan was to go by bus to a tiny village called Baan Donchai where the Gibbon Experience truck would pick us up on the morning of the 29th. We thought 8 - 9 hours on a local bus on an unmade road didn't sound much like fun so decided to hire a boat to go down the Nam Tha then the Mekong to Houayxai and go to the Gibbon Experience from there. The boat trip takes 2 days and you spend the night in the boatman's house in his village about halfway.

Monday 27th - Tuesday 28th June
Luang Namtha - Houayxai
We found there were now 8 people going down the river. Since these are small boats and don't hold more than 4 passengers comfortably there would be 2 boats going. You sit on a bamboo mat in the bottom of the boat. There are some roughish rapids so there are 2 extra boatboys on the bow with paddles to help push the bow in the right direction. The river runs through steep hills and limestone rocks. There are a few villages here and there where all the children would rush into the river cheering and waving. At one point the boat suddenly pulled into the bank and the driver stripped down to his underpants and started to climb a tree. What strange ritual was this we wondered. It turned out he had spotted a pangolin (a type of large lizard) in the tree and was determined to catch it. Eventually he came back down with the pangolin trussed up and put it in the bottom of the boat. At the boatman's village we stayed in his house with his family. The children sat with us and laughed and smiled when we tried to communicate and every lady in the village dropped by to try to sell us bolts of fabric they'd woven. The house was fairly bare with just some mats on the floor and a loom at one side. It was on two levels and the family slept upstairs and we slept downstairs in the main living area on mattresses on the floor. The cooking area was to one side of the house and the toilet underneath. There was no running water so it was a case of washing under the village pump.
Had an early start the next morning and were away by 7:00. It was a most enjoyable trip although the floor got a bit hard to sit on towards the end. We arrived in Houayxai about mid-afternoon we gave us plenty of time to let the Gibbon Experience people know we were there.

Wednesday 29th June - Friday 1st July
The Gibbon Experience
6 of us plus provisions plus one or two staff piled into the truck that would take us to the forest reserve. It took about two and a half hours along an unmade road to get to Baan Donchai where the last two of the party were waiting then another hour on an even more unmade road to get to the path we would be walking along. We walked for about an hour into the reserve to reach the access point to Treehouse 1. The Gibbon Experience comprises 3 treehouses with access to and between them by ziplines and forest paths. The treehouses themselves can only be reached by zipline. The treehouses are all about 40 metres off the ground and the ziplines vary from about 100 to 400 metres in length and up to 200 metres above the forest floor. So once we'd reached the kitchen and staff area we were fitted out with harnesses and carabiners, given some basic instruction then whizzed down the zipline to treehouse 1. After an orientation chat we went for a tour. What an amazing experience!!  Each successive line was higher and longer than the previous one. At one point there is a junction halfway up a very tall tree on the top of a ridge. There are 2 lines in and 2 lines out from a tiny platform with no guard rails - not a good time to suffer from vertigo. The longest line was about 400 metres long and passed way over the tops of trees in the valley below with a magnificent view across the hills. We slept in treehouse 1 which was on 3 levels. Right at the top was a sleeping area, on the bottom level was another sleeping area and a bathroom area. The middle level was used as a sitting area and for zipline access. The food was cooked in the kitchen hut where we'd first arrived then carried to the treehouse on the zipline by one of the staff. Treehouse 2 was a lot smaller with just a single platform with a small platform below for showering. Treehouse 3  was another single platform but larger than treehouse 2.
We had been told that it was unlikely that we would actually see gibbons in the wild but we would be able to hear them sing in the early morning. The best place to hear them from was Treehouse 2 so at about 5:30 the next morning we set off along the ziplines. Skimming over the mist in the valley below as the sun was rising was a magical experience. At Treehouse 2 we sat and listened to the forest then the gibbons began to sing. They sing long high notes and respond to each other - it was entrancing.
I say we didn't see gibbons but Treehouse 1 has a resident baby gibbon (about 2 years old now) who was rescued from the market in Houayxai. His mother had been killed by poachers and he was being kept as a pet by one of the stallholders. JF, who set up the Gibbon Experience, found him and since there is no gibbon rehabilitation centre in Laos decided the best thing to do was to take him to the reserve and care for him until he grew a bit older in the hope that he would eventually make his own life in the forest. He lives in the trees around the treehouse but is very tame and spends a lot of time playing with the guests and trying to steal the food so it's difficult to know whether he could ever revert to living fully in the forest again.
All too soon we had to return but the memory of flying over the treetops will stay with us for a long time. We arrived back in Houayxai in time to cross back over the Mekong into Chiang Khong in Thailand. We planned to spend the night in Chiang Khong then go back to Chiang Mai the following day.

Saturday 2nd July
Chiang Khong - Chiang Mai
Our bus left early in the morning so we'd told the hotel we'd like to have breakfast around 6:30. At 7:15 there was still no sign of any staff in the hotel so we left the money for the room and the key on the desk and went for the bus. We got a local bus to Chiang Rai then an air-con bus to Chiang Mai. We wanted to be in Bangkok the following Saturday to pick up our statue from Chatuchak market so were going to spend a couple of days in each of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya on the way down. These both have some interesting ruins from the time when they were the ruling cities of Thailand up to 7 or 800 hundred years ago. We found a travel agent to organise a flight to Sukhothai and an overnight train fro Bangkok to Hat Yai.

Sunday 3rd - Monday 4th July
Suan Bua Resort, Chiang Mai
After roughing it in Laos for a month we spent a couple of days relaxing in the peaceful Suan Bua Resort just outside Chiang Mai. We had a large comfortable room set in beautifully landscaped gardens full of trees, shrubs, flowers and a small river flowing through the grounds.

Tuesday 5th - Wednesday 6th July
Sukhothai
We flew to Sukhothai rather than spending another 5 or 6 hours on a bus then hired a couple of motorbikes to travel the 60 kilometres to the ruins at Si Satchanali. We'd been to the main ruins at Old Sukhothai about 2 years previously but wanted to see the smaller ruins at Si Satchanali. The ruins are the remains of temples and the site is very quiet and gives a sensation of timelessness. We spent a peaceful day amongst the temple remains and serene looking Buddha statues there.

Thursday 7th - Friday 8th July
Ayutthaya
We travelled on to Ayutthaya by bus. The bus seemed to drop us in the middle of nowhere but there were the inevitable motorbike taxis and tuktuks close by. We realised afterwards that the local bus station was just across the road although at this point the road was two carriageways wide in each direction with a sliproad and a wide central division so we could be forgiven for not spotting it straightaway.
We found a comfortable guesthouse then hired a couple of push bikes to get around. The main part of Ayutthaya is an island bounded by rivers and the main ruins are on the west side of the island. Many were partly destroyed by the Burmese invasion in the late 1700s but it's easy to imagine the original grandeur by what remains today.

Saturday 9th July
Bangkok
We travelled from Ayutthaya to Bangkok by train, a journey of about 2 hours for the astonishingly cheap price of 15 RM each (about 20 pence in UK money). We were able to leave our backpacks in the left luggage office while we went to the Chatuchak market to buy the statue. We arrived about 10:30 and our train to Hat Yai left about 3:15. It's about an hour altogether to the market so we had plenty of time. At the market we found the stall and decided we definitely would like the statue. It stands about a metre and a half tall but is very slender so wouldn't be too difficult to carry.
Arrived back at the station with plenty of time for lunch and to buy a few snacks for the train.

Sunday 10th July
Langkawi
We arrived at Hat Yai about 7:15 a.m. Outside the station was a taxi booth so we hired a taxi for the trip to Satun to catch the ferry. The ferry was scheduled to leave at 9:00 a.m. and we arrived at the ferry terminal about 5 past 9. No problem, ferries run on Thai time so it didn't actually leave until about 9:30. Arrived back at the boat about mid-morning. Everything was fine, just as we'd left it.