Hello from Chiang Rai, about three hours from the Thailand/Laos border. I am enroute to a guesthouse up in the hills as this town doesn't offer much more than the usual hustle and bustle of so many recently-overdeveloped Thai towns. After Laos, I feel spoiled and wonder how much time I will want to spend in countries that seem to be catering mostly to tourists... even if I am one. Driving through some stretches of Laos, especially in the north, you can go hours without seeing a single manmade object other than the beautiful bamboo hut villages the locals live in. No powerlines, so paved roads, no stores, nothing but natural beauty. I loved it.

I wanted to get more down about the trek. First off, the hilltribes are ethnic minorities not assimilated to the culture of the country in which they live. The two I saw originated in Tibet and China and speak their own tribal language, have their own customs of dress, religion and beliefs (they are not Buddhist), social customs, educational systems, and are for the most part living in another century.

The children I met gave me some of my best photos and memories of the trip. Every village we visited was aswarm with them, all so excited to see Westerners since organized treks to the hilltribes is a new thing and a foreign face is still enough to elicit giggles and stares. Some of the more curious and courageous of them hung around our bungalow and the morning we left, I had an audience of about 10 children, mouths agape as they watched me put in my contact lenses. And you should have seen their faces when they saw my digital camera! One look at themselves onscreen and a line formed for individual portraits. It was so much fun to have something to break the ice and make them smile.

During the trek, our guide Ye Pao invited Susana and me to her cousin's wedding reception that evening back in Muang Sing where the trek had started. We got as dressed up as we could in our limited backpacker wardrobe and went to the reception where we imbibed copious amounts of Lao whiskey, ate some real Lao food complete with sticky rice in plastic bags (anyone planning a wedding, take note on cost-saving measures), and danced to bad Thai and Lao pop music while surrounded by young Lao boys gyrating and gesticulating to try to communicate with us.

The next morning, Reinder the Dutchman and I were both headed to Xiang Kok on the Myanmar (Burma) border as we both had visas about to expire. There's a boat trip down the Mekong to Thailand that sounded like a nice alternative to the 8-hour pick-up ride along one of Laos' worst roads from Luang Nam Tha to the bordertown of Huay Xai. Unfortunately we were the only tourists and the rate quoted was extortionate, so we opted to leave the next day and head back to Luang Nam Tha to catch the pickup. I knew I'd be overstaying my visa and be fined for doing so, but I easily put it out of my mind when I saw the guesthouse's charming bungalows perched on a hill overlooking the Mekong snaking into the horizon and the lush, sparsely inhabited coastline of Myanmar not more than 50 meters across the river. On a small beach, we could see Burmese people panning for gold and milling about a crude beach hut and it occured to me that these people have quite possibly never seen Westerners. They live in remote villages with no electricity in a government-protected area (i.e. closed to tourists because there is all sorts of crazy shit going on in there, the least corrupt of which is the cultivation of a large part of the world's opium supply). I wished I could swim over, say hello, get my passport stamped and stay for a bit.

I finally made it into Thailand after four different pick-up journeys of varying degrees of discomfort and had to pay a $30 late fee for overstaying my visa. That's more than the original visa cost... yikes. I will spend the holidays in N. Thailand, which seems to be a good decision since everyone else is heading to the islands of S. Thailand. I spontaneously began singing Christmas carols the other day and even though I hardly feel in the Christmas spirit, I imagine the goings-on back home now, the cocktail parties and fun times with friends. Happy holidays everyone!