Day 60 - Planning (Chiang Rai)

Today was a day of planning.

I had purposely chosen to take a few days in a couple of cities to get to the Laos border so I could do some much needed planning.

I always knew I’d go to Laos and then onward to Cambodia but I didn’t actually ever take the time to sit down and figure out just how exactly I was going to get from point A to B.

I can happily say that I now know.

It took a bit of searching online but I now know the route I’m going to take and which cities I have to go through to get there.

Some of the cities I’ll stay a few days, some just for the night while others I’ll just zoom on through.

Now, as to which are which – well, I kind of have an idea but that could easily change as I get to those cities.

I might fall in love with one and want to stay for awhile or I might just take one look at it and just keep on going.

The entire route will be done over land via bus. I’ve tried to break it apart in segments so most of the trip times are 4 hours or less but like I said if I’m feeling so inclined I can just pass by a city and travel longer on the bus.

Of course as I started to add up the days it would take to do this leg of the trip I was shocked to find the total at just around two months.

And that puts me in an interesting spot.

I had always kind of guesetimated that it would be done in half that time so basically I just added a month to the length of my trip.

Once again this is all kind of rough and can certainly be adjusted if need be but now it looks like my adventure won’t be done til mid June which turns my 101 days in Asia to 152 days.

The other looming thing for me is my current day count.

Today was day 60.

Around this time on my Euro Trip last year I was starting to lose my fire for travelling and by day 87 I was back home, drastically shortening my original trip length of 219 days.

Will that happen again? It’s definitely been in the back of my mind the entire trip.

So far I still have my fire and I’m actually really looking forward to this next leg in Laos and Cambodia over the course of 6 or 7 weeks. I envision relaxation and more relaxation and awe inspiring visuals.

No hustle. No bustle. Just a laid back time.

Once I had it all figured out I gleefully clapped my hands. I could put this to rest and start to be excited about moving onward into Laos.

Around noon I headed into the city for two things: a massage and lunch.

Both were awesome.

After just kind of lounging around in the afternoon I again headed out, this time for an early dinner.

I attempted, yet again, to find the area the guy at the hostel had told me about. You know, the place I got hopelessly lost last night.

This time around I went from a different direction staying on the main street and making sure I knew exactly how to get back.

I still couldn’t find the damn area but at least I didn’t get lost this time around.

I admitted defeat yet again and just ended up at a food stall on the main street where I eventually had dinner last night.

I sat down at the first place I saw and was surprised to see the menu all steak themed. They had pork steak, chicken steak and of course beef steak.

I chose beef steak because, well, what the hell is chicken steak?!?

I guess technically my meal wasn’t authentic Thai cause, well, it was steak with coleslaw and fries.

But you know what? It was awesome and I was sitting on a little stool on the sidewalk getting served food from a cart also on said sidewalk so, yeah, it counts!

More relaxing in the early evening (you kind of get the gist of how my day was) and by 9pm by stomach was rumbling again.

Time for more food.