Now I got an interesting foretaste of Asia and got spicy curry in Bangkok, lots of whisky on the night train, terrible life predictions from cheerful monks and wet clothes from the failed bamboo rafting.

The next day, from Chiang Mai, we take the regular bus and tuk-tuks via Chiang Rai, Chiang Saen and Chiang Bai in the direction of Chiang Khong.

The adventure continues.

The drive takes almost the whole day and brings us close to the Laotian border. We stop to change buses and have lunch. However, the driving style of this bus driver can by no means be compared to that of the leisurely Western European contemporaries. He honks everything in front of him on the road and then overtakes it at breakneck speed. It rushes at at least 70 kilometers per hour over “roads” that I would only have approved for a jeep with a maximum speed of forty kilometers per hour.

After another change to half-open tuk-tuks, we arrive in Chiang Khong, a mini-town on the Mekong, in the afternoon. The drive is made even more interesting by the fact that a rain storm sets in above us. We try to get our tuk-tuks as tight as possible, but a slight “humidity” cannot be avoided.

Our guesthouse is fantastic: a three-storey wooden building surrounded by banana plants and coconut palms. From our terrace we have a view across the Mekong to Laos. The river forms the natural border between the two countries.

Myanmar also ends not far from here and without a common border, China is not far away either.

Nicknamed the “Golden Triangle,” the area is notorious for drug smuggling. In Thailand there is nothing less than the death penalty. The thought makes me a little queasy.

On a covered porch we do the forms for tomorrow’s border crossing to Laos. For the first time I also have some time to write a diary about the trip so far. Years later I will type these lines and paste them into a website’s blog. I can’t dream of that in 2004. At the same time, the family serves me a small dinner. There is delicious spicy rice curry with chicken, lemon leaves and undefinable fruits. And Singha Beer too. It’s stopped raining again now.

A flaw in the guesthouse is that the family does not provide mosquito nets in the rooms. I’m glad I have one of my own with me. Because here near the river, the little bloodsuckers get really penetrating. The mosquitoes can’t keep me from sleeping, but Brian, with whom I have to share a room for the first time, can. I’ll make him snore master. The others find it very amusing. Later, however, they should be able to enjoy his chainsaw melody themselves.

I have breakfast alone on the lonely veranda, watching the light rain, the water beading off the palm leaves that reach into the house, and the light wafts of mist over the Mekong and the mountains beyond. I spill some tea on the saucer. A little ant finds the way and tests the little puddle. Thanks to Brian, I feel like a shaken pack of bad cereal. In the meantime, five more have joined the ant. I slowly have to get ready: we have to get up as early as possible to cross the border so as not to get stuck in the rush hour. Dozens of ants are now feasting on my cup, and a mighty trail of ants leads from the cup over the table, down the table leg over the plank floor through a crack in the undergrowth.

I’m going to Laos

Bureaucracy is a sluggish system, which is why we are ready at the customs post at eight o’clock. We can quickly collect the stamp of our exit and go through the border, i.e. to the bank of the Mekong, where a boat is waiting to take us across to the opposite bank. A funny little thing: when I want to grab my backpack again, I notice a huge rhinoceros beetle, which has made it comfortable there and which I smuggle across the border.

A dragon boat is waiting for us in Laos, with which we will travel along the huge Mekong for a few days.