Enjoying our north-eastern experience

On Saturday we packed up and left our Chiang Khaen guesthouse. We walked the kilometre or so to catch a sawngthaew to a village called Ban Tad, about 40 minutes away. We arrived and were dropped off in the middle of the village with no hint of a bus stop anywhere. We managed to establish, thanks to the help of a few friendly locals (none of whom could speak English) that we had to wait under a tree at the side of the road. Half an hour later another sawngthaew appeared, not going to where we wanted to go but heading in the same direction. So, we got on and travelled the one and a half hours to a village called Pak Chom. We passed through lots of remote countryside and villages. Pak Chom itself was, again, a smallish village. We arrived at midday and were informed that the bus to Nong Khai was at 3pm. So, we had to wait in the extreme humidity for 3 hours. We ate lunch, well, Matt did. The local cafe's only menu item was noodle soup which was, as is usually the case, meat stock based. I managed to find some fruit and crisps at the market. We got talking to a Belgian man and his Thai wife who thought we were a bit barmy travelling these parts without being able to speak Thai.

Eventually we boarded the 'ordinary bus' (as in none AC which means all windows and doors open, 90 degree angle seats and stops in every village so takes four times as long to reach anywhere) and 4 hours later we reached Nong Khai feeling thoroughly sweaty, wind swept and grubby.

We haven't done much to note over the past couple of days. This is a big-ish size town, mainly used as a passing through point by people getting to and from Laos.