After a week in Luang Prabang, including a trip to a waterfall and a river trip down the Mekong to the Pak Ou caves, we were scheduled to fly out at 11:10am on Friday.

Arriving at the airport in plenty of time, we found that the flight was delayed and was now scheduled to leave at 6:10pm, so we had seven hours to kill. Only problem was we had spent down to our last dollar and had no money left on us. We went to L’Elephant for lunch as they took credit cards. Great food too. We then went back to Ban Pack Luck, the guesthouse we had moved to on the Monday and they were kind enough to allow us to use our room for the afternoon.

At 4pm we caught the very crowded minivan back to the airport and waited for the plane. It finally landed at Luang Prabang at 6:30pm, and took off with us on board 20 minutes later.

In Chiang Mai, we stayed at the Chiang Mai Gate Hotel, which was very good value ($18/night for aircon, TV, pool etc inc breakfast). We spent a lot of time there looking round shops and the night market, and did a bit of Wat-spotting (temple visiting).

Chiang Mai was really nice, quite busy but not as mad a Bangkok and there were some great shops and market stalls. As in Luang Prabang, the food was pretty good, even at Fatty’s, the market stallwhere we ate on the Sunday night.

We’re now in Sukhothai, further south, having flown in yesterday from Chiang Mai. Only 3 people got off the plane at Sukhothai and we were two of them.

We had a quick look round some of the Old City today and will venture back there again tomorrow, possibly with bicycles to get a better look. It’s very quiet at the Old City, hardly anyone about at all, completely different to Angkor.