Hi from Chiang Khong, a Thai border town on the river right by the Laotian border. It's Christmas Eve and it's certainly one of the more unique places I've spent a holiday. I know most of you back home are preparing to visit family and friends, or to hide out at home with Chinese food and Die Hard. Meanwhile, we just finished sharing a huge Christmas dinner with a biker gang. Yes, really. Well, sort of. Let's just say travel can be weird and wonderful sometimes.

But more on that later. First things first.

Before leaving Chiang Rai this morning, Ryan and I decided to walk around and check out a few more sights. So, after breakfast, we set out on foot for a wander.

We walked past the local market where every type of fruit, vegetable, meat, fish, chili, spice, and other local ware was for sale. Unlike the Night Bazaar, this market is entirely for locals, so it felt much more authentic. Right across the street is a beautiful temple that is almost overlooked by the people who seem to merely use it as a parking lot or backdrop for the market itself. I guess when you're constantly surrounded by beautiful temples, it's easy to ignore them.

We walked through the different districts of Chiang Rai: The garment district where store after store sold giant bolts of fabric; the gold district featuring a whole street of jewellery stores and gold traders; the Buddha statue district, and so on. I love how Asian cities are set up this way: If you're looking for something, whatever it is, you know where to go and you'll find all the stores for it in one place.

Our first stop was Wat Phra Kaew, a traditional Buddhist temple complex featuring a replica of the Emerald Buddha. The original is on display at the Royal Palace in Bangkok, and we'd seen it last week when we were there. But legend has it that the Emerald Buddha comes from this area, so they built a replica where it used to be housed. Probably due to not being surrounded by so many other competing glittery wonders, the replica almost seemed more impressive in comparison.

The temple was a nice traditional contrast to yesterday's modern art temples. The complex had a number of other buildings including the monk's quarters, a number of Buddhas, and a small but informative museum about Buddhism for tourists like us. Well worth the stop.

Next, we walked over to the small Hill Tribe Museum and Education Centre in Chiang Rai, devoted to education and community-based support of the local Hill Tribes that live in Thailand and across the region. The museum was small, only a couple of rooms, and we were the only people visiting. But it was actually quite rich with information and well worth checking out. A ten minute film presented an overview of the 9 different main groups of Indigenous People who inhabit the region: The Karen, Akha, Lisu, Yao, Hmong, Lahu, Luwa, Khamu, and some smaller "other"s. The museum had exhibits on each culture's customs, style of dress, history, traditional beliefs, population size, economic and agricultural practices, and other assorted info about each group.

Some of the current challenges facing the Hill Tribes were discussed at the museum. Many of them are similar, albeit not the same, as those facing Indigenous people in Canada and the world over. Here, high rates of opium addiction persist; many of the Hill Tribe communities are dying out or losing their traditions as the younger generations move to the cities and adopt modern culture. The nomadic ways of many of the tribes include agricultural practices deemed destructive to the environment and are thus banned. Most of the Hill Tribe people in Thailand don't have Thai citizenship, a sticky and contentious political issue here as the Thai government fears that granting them such would lead to more immigration from neighbouring Myanmar, Laos, or China. As such, they don't have access to services, the right of movement, or other rights enjoyed by the rest of Thailand's people. In Myanmar, the Karen, the largest Indigenous group by far, are fighting for recognition and some semblance of independence, but facing near-impossible odds.

Tourism isn't helping matters, either. The so-called Long Neck Karen, like the women at the village that the tour tried to make us visit yesterday, actually don't live in Thailand at all; those villages are fake made-for-tourist experiences, with inhabitants imported (read: trafficked) from Myanmar and basically trapped there like zoo animals, exploited for profit by businesspeople looking to make a buck or two off of hapless tourists who come to snap their photos. Raising awareness of the horrible ethics of this practice is a first step towards ending it; I think if more people knew this, they'd avoid visiting these places. I'm glad Ryan and I opted out yesterday, and I hope that, in ten years, we'll no longer be discussing such things, because, similar to elephant riding camps, there will be widespread distaste for the practice of exploiting human beings like that.

Anyway, the Museum was fascinating but small, worth an hour of our time. All proceeds go to support the community foundations. I'd recommend that anyone visiting Northern Thailand pay the Centre a visit.

(Oh, and downstairs from the Hill Tribe Museum was a restaurant called Cabbage & Condom, which billed its food as "guaranteed to not cause pregnancy". I'm not sure why, but I was suitably amused.)

After a quick lunch from the small Korean restaurant at the corner, we headed back to the hotel to pack up, grab our bags, and check out. It was a short five minute walk back to the bus station. We knew the buses to Chiang Khong ran hourly, but we weren't sure when the next one was leaving. We showed up just before noon to learn that the next bus would leave at 12:30. The driver grabbed our bags and placed them in the back, and gestured to us to get on board and find a seat while we waited.

This was a far cry from the VIP GreenBus we'd taken from Chiang Mai two days ago. Nope, this is the truly local local bus. Like chicken buses the world over, it was a nearly broken-down, old, decorated, packed to the hilt manual bus that didn't look like it could make it out of the bus terminal, let alone all the way to the border. The windows remained open for fresh air, there were ceiling fans to move it around, and both bus doors stayed open the whole ride, leading to a bit of precarious worry that our bags might fall out. But nah, it was all good. We were nearly the only tourists on board.

The ride to Chiang Khong would take about an hour and a half in a regular car via the highway. The local bus chugged slowly along the side roads, stopping at every small town and village to let people off, pick people up, and drop off deliveries of cargo. It was advertised as taking two hours and ended up taking close to two and a half. But hey, the whole ride cost only 70 baht (just under $3), so who's complaining?

When we got to Chiang Khong, the only other tourists on board jumped off about 5km outside town at the tuk-tuk stop for the Friendship Bridge to Laos, since they were crossing today. We were staying the night in Chiang Khong, so we stayed on the bus until it came to a stop at the small bus terminal in the centre of town, such as it is. Chiang Khong doesn't have much to it; a few shops, a couple of restaurants and bars, maybe a temple or three. The town is built along the riverbank of the Mekong; just across on the other side, we could see Laos.

We're only here for the night, so we didn't really care about sightseeing. We grabbed a tuk-tuk at the bus station to take us to our hotel, which cost nearly as much for the 5-minute drive as the entire bus from Chiang Rai. Amazingly, this was our first tuk-tuk ride of the trip; it just so happened to work out that way. We loaded the packs on and headed a couple of kilometers down the road.

When I'd booked the hotel room for the night, I grabbed whatever seemed cheap and convenient. I didn't realise I'd be booking a beautiful luxury resort built on the river, overlooking some amazing views as far as the eye could see. Seriously, this place is incredible.

What's more, when we went to check in, we were informed that, because the place was full and our room type wasn't available, we'd been upgraded to a suite. They then gave us the key to a ginormous room that's practically bigger than our apartment back home, with a living room and daybed, not one but two bathrooms, windows along every inch of the wall, and a balcony with the most incredible views. This place is one of the most jaw-droppngly nice hotel rooms I've ever seen, all for just 40 bucks a night. I'm only sorry we're only staying one night.

Ryan and I promptly got a couple of beers from the restaurant and took them up to the room to sit and drink out on the balcony. It felt like the thing to do. From the chicken bus to a luxury suite: We certainly have come up in the world fast!

The tour operator for tomorrow's boat cruise had dropped off the Laotian immigration forms at reception for us to pre-fill. So we set to work trying to figure out what the different fields on the form meant. Anything we weren't sure about, we just left blank; we can sort that out tomorrow. We took much-needed showers after the bus ride, I did a bit of blogging, and we both sorted our bags for the boat ride tomorrow, all while watching the sunset.

When we checked into the resort, we were informed that, because it's Christmas Eve, the open-air restaurant with a view would be hosting a special buffet dinner tonight for all guests. It's was bit pricey by Thai standards, but still cheap compared to a meal out back home, so we shrugged and said why not? After all, we're a bit far from the centre of town here, and a good festive meal sounded good.

So, around 7pm, we headed back down to the restaurant to be greeted by the resort staff wearing Christmas outfits and setting out a huge spread, and a long table with all the other guests of the resort all dressed up in festive outfits, including a large man in a white beard, a biker shirt, and a full Santa suit.

It turned out that they're all a motorcycle club of riders from all over the world based in Chiang Mai, and they're regulars at this resort. They planned and organised the dinner tonight, and as Ryan and I were the only two people staying here who aren't part of their group, they invited us to join them. Normally, we'd be reluctant due to the pandemic risks. But the restaurant was all open air to the outdoors, and so we shrugged and said sure, why not?

So yep, we had Christmas dinner in Thailand with a biker gang. You can't make this stuff up.

The staff and the group set up a huge spread: Fried rice, steamed rice, stir-fried vegetables, spring rolls, at least four types of Thai curries, spicy soups, and even some roast chicken and home-baked bread. It was an unbelievable amount of food, and we both filled our plates and our bellies while making conversation with retired recreational motorcycle riders from places ranging from California to Michigan to Ireland. I even had a conversation about latkes with a Jewish couple from Florida.

Meanwhile, there was cheesy Christmas music playing on the TV screen at the bar, a makeshift Christmas tree, copious amounts of wine and brandy (we sensibly stuck to beer and quit after one), and banana cake, Christmas cookies, and panettone for dessert. A merry time was had by all.

Okay, so it wasn't quite the same as Christmas Eve with Ryan's family. But it's probably going to be one of the more memorable Christmases that either of us have spent in our lives. And, given that we spent the last two holidays either in lockdown or close to it, it sure felt good to be outdoors in the open air, enjoying a meal with other humans.

It was one of those perfect, serendipitous travel moments that you can't plan for or even create by design. No, all you can do is take yourself places and put yourself in situations where things might occur, and then remain open to possibility. It was a great reminder of what I've missed so much about travel.

In fact, being in a predominantly Buddhist country where Christmas is at most a retail and tourist holiday is strangely fitting for Jewish Christmas. Instead of Chinese food, we had Thai food, but hey, close enough.

We even watched Die Hard afterwards. Because some traditions must be maintained.

Tomorrow we reluctantly leave Thailand... but don't worry, we'll be back. Meanwhile, Laos is just across the river, beckoning to us to come explore. Compared to Thailand, Laos promises to be a real adventure. I'm excited, intrigued, and keen to see what this next step of our travels will bring. Stay tuned!

And, to our families and friends back home and across the globe: Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Festivus (for the rest of us), and may this season bring you good health, joy, and peace.