The Golden Triangle

Dec. 18
I ate my last breakfast at Four Sisters and walked with all my stuff into town. A travel agent there was giving me the cheapest price on a taxi to the airport. The airstrip was in Heho, 40km away and the taxi was $14 to get there. I gave myself one hour to get there and arrived exactly one hour and a half before my flight left, as the travel said I should do. I checked in a then waited. The 'airport' was empty except for a few locals. The plane landed just minutes before we boarded. It left on time at 1.25. There were already passengers on the plane but it was full. It was open seating and I took a window seat. The aircraft was a 60 seater twin prop plane. It's not everyday I ride in a prop plane. The flight was fairly smooth and only 45 minutes long. The landscape below looked brown with some different colored cultivated patches. Once we landed in Tachilek I took a taxi into town to the Myanmar Travels and Tours office (MTT) to get my permit. The office was smartly located right at the border. Everything went smooth and the guy from the office even walked me to the Thail immigration and helped me. MTT took care of all the customs on the Myanmar side.
Once in Thailand it was easy to get the standard 30 day visa. The border was really busy with Asain people. I took a pickup to a waiting bus for Chaing Rai. It took about 1.5 hours to get to Chang Rai.It was a shock to be back in Thailand after a month in Myanmar. Sure Thailand is still a developing country but compared to Myanmar, it's developed! The smooth and paved roads, new cars, nice buildings and abundance of shopping and services available took a bit of getting used to. It was nice to be back in this for a bit. I took a nice room at City Home and went out to eat. I had a tasty green Thai curry and Singha beer. There were lots of foreigners around too. I just relaxed for the rest of the day, it had been a long one.
Chaing Rai is one of the largest cities in the Golden Triangle, the triborder area between Thailand, Laos and Myanmar were most of the worlds opium is grown. Chaing Rai was just a transit point for me. I left the next day on a bus at 10am for the border, 2 hours away. I arrived at the border and it was pretty straightfoward filling out the forms and getting my 30 day Laos visa.