Last two nights I shared a room with Tero in Green House Guesthouse in the locan backpacker ghetto. It was very refreshing to have some company after about two months of travelling alone. We met during busride between Siem Reap and Bangkok. Tero has now gone to Krabi area in southern Thailand and I will continue north tomorrow evening after having visited the embassy. I have booked train ticket and a guesthouse in Chiang Mai for two nights. Continuation after that depends somewhat on the delivery time of the new passport. If it takes more than week to get the passport, I will try to continue from Chiang Mai to Laos. If however I can get the passport faster, I will return back to Bangkok to pick it up and go south instead.

By the way, the birthday celebration of the King yesterday was really something to see. I heard that it is one of the biggest feasts in Asia. (Of course 60th national day in China was bigger.)

Happy Independence Day fore verybody there in Finland.