And Back Again (Posted 1/27/14)

Just a quick post to wrap up the trip and share pictures. Chiang Saen was the last stop on our motorbike tour, and after two nights there we headed back to Chiang Rai for a few days to enjoy the weekend "walking street" markets and plan our journey home.  One day, we rented bikes (ones we actually had to pedal - Matthias wasn't all too thrilled with that) and rode along the Mae Kok river.  The next day, we got motorbikes again and went to see the popular and strange White Temple and then went back down the riverside road a bit further than we could make it under our own pedal power.

White Temple outside of Chiang Rai

With just a few days left to our trip, we had originally planned to make our way to Chiang Mai and then Bangkok on the overnight train, where we would spend the last two days before catching our red-eye flight out.  That would have been nice, and certainly would have made our journey home a lot more pleasant.  Unfortunately, though, we changed our plans based on recommendations to avoid Bangkok and the anti-government protesters' efforts to shut down the city.  So, we booked a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok airport on our departure date to avoid the city.  This gave us a few more days up north, where it was business as usual.  On our way to Chiang Mai we decided to stop in a lakeside town called Phayao - a place popular with Thai tourists (but few Western ones) so it didn't feel all that touristy to us.  In Phayao, we rented motorbikes and rode around the lake, through a preserved wetland and fish farming area - and of course enjoyed some tasty fresh fish.

Our last two days in Chiang Mai were spent walking around looking at temples and markets and getting our fill of Kao Soi - a northern Thai chicken noodle soup made with curry and coconut milk - our favorite!  We had been to/through Chiang Mai a few times before, so we basically traced our old footsteps while lamenting that we wouldn't be able to get to Bangkok via the night train, which we remembered as being really fun. 

Kao Soi at the Chiang Mai Market

So, our journey home consisted of a quick flight to BKK airport, a seven hour layover at the airport, a five hour red-eye flight to Beijing with a nine hour layover, an 11-hour flight to Seattle, bus to Tacoma and three-hour Amtrak ride back to Portland.  There were some highlights though:  We were able to get the airport express train to downtown Beijing (they have a 72-hour visa-free visit policy), walk around a hutong (old neighborhood) and eat hand-pulled noodles - probably Matthias' absolute favorite (non-pork) food item. We also got to fly on the new Boeing Dreamliner plane from Beijing to Seattle and the scenery out of the (larger) windows was spectacular as we flew over Eastern Russia and Alaska.  The Amtrak ride along the Puget Sound and watching the sun set over the Columbia river at sunset made for a great finish - but I was done taking pictures at that point.

Enjoying freshly made hand-pulled noodles in Beijing

That's it.  Nothing else to say except it was a fabulous trip and the full set of pictures are online:

Click Here:  Laos and Thailand Photos