No problems at all leaving Laos, despite going up to the arrivals window instead of the departures one - ooops. Took the ferry over to Chiang Khong (20 baht or 5000kip each), filled in a Thai arrival card and there it was. Our sojourn in Laos was over and we were back in familiar territory.

Grabbed a 'taxi' to the 'bus station' where we booked tickets for the 11:40 bus to Chiang Mai (3 buses a day - regular one at 6am for 151 baht, a/c at 9am for 272 baht and a/c at 11:40am for 211 baht) . Trip took 7 hours through some great mountainous countryside, with plenty of rest stops on the way. Tuk tuk to town went for 60 baht and he left us outside a guesthouse (nothing booked, no idea where anything was or anything). No decent rooms at that place, so we wandered off, trusting that we'd find something. After an hour or so we finally found a place that had rooms available. Ended up at Nice Place 2 Guesthouse (nice name, shame about the place - 300 baht for the night, hot shower, no towel, no toilet paper, drunken party out by the pool for half the night, I've slept on floors softer than their mattresses, but otherwise it was fine :)

This morning we went back to one of the places that was full yesterday and sat around eating breakfast and making friends until someone checked out and we could get a room there - The White House (250 baht, hot shower, towels, no toilet paper, fan). Great place, shame about the name ;)

Liking Chiang Mai already, has a good feel to it. Tomorrow we're doing a cooking course, which Chiang Mai is famous for (there are 5 places offering courses on our street alone).

Had a shave this morning, which ordinarily wouldn't be anything to write home about, but I didn't do it myself. All through Laos and Cambodia, and even in Chiang Khong I'd seen barbers giving shaves with old fashioned straight razors, so I was keen to give it a try. Unfortunately they didn't use a straight razor, so I lucked out - maybe next time...