Day 13 we woke up in Luang Prabang around ten.  One good thing Willis works so well traveling with me is the fact he rather catch a sunset then deal with miserable early mornings and early people.  He is also in no hurry to go take a bunch of photos of the

Buddhas up in the hillside of Luang Prabang

The view from the top

same shit everyone else is taking a photo of.  Just to post about it 5 seconds later to show off that he did something.  So around noon we finally got out of the hotel and made our way up the top of the hill in town here to see the view that over looks the city.  Well we are a lot of like and as much as people like to find beauty in something we call it what it was and that it really was not all that great.  The walk up was nice passing by all sorts of different Buddhas in the woods but temple on top was a size of a hotel room and extremely ran down.  So after a few photos of the city below we just walked back down only 40mins later of starting the climb.  Now we expected that to take up a few hours but needless to say it didnt so we grab some lunch.  After lunch we picked up one of the boats that sat down in the Mekong River and for 40$ he was going to drive us 2hrs up stream to a cave with buddha statues in it.  We agreed and

inside buddha cave looking out

made the 2hrs drive up river which was stunning and incredibly relaxing. The weather was not to hot out that day and the breeze from the boat made it even more enjoyable.  We arrived 2 hrs later to the cave climb up some steps to get inside to see over 4000 statues of different variations of buddha.  After that climb up more steps to

sunset on the mekong

see a bigger cave with even more buddhas inside.  We enjoy the view of the countryside and slowly made out way back down to the boat.  After a little over a hour at the caves we were back on the boat heading down river to the city again.  As we got near the city the sun was about to set but today was far from a clear day so we definitely missed out on a beautiful sunset.  After arriving back at the hotel Willis was struck again this time not from issues with the bike but a soft belly has caught up to him.  He would spend the rest of night shitting out of his mouth and pissing out his ass.  He was puking so loud even the guy at the reception came up to ask if everything was okay.  I had to just laugh and I head out into town to grab some dinner by myself before

The bears playing

calling it a early night with him. Day 14 Willis is feeling better and thankfully slow because we are to go chasing some waterfalls again.  We head about a hour outside the city to this little village.  We know we were at the right spot because unfortunately it is tourism central. We park the bike and begin our walk into the woods.  You first come up a little bear rescue place.  Now im usually like well thats kinda fucked up but they had a sign there that made a very good

this was waterfall two

point.  It was two photos one on the left and one on the right the photo on the left was a bear bleeding trapped in a tiny cage the one on the right was a bear playing on one of the obstacles they have set up in the park.  It read something like that the poachers are capturing and killing off there bears but here we can protect them so you decide what is right.  Which I was like eh they got a point cause there are more lions actually in texas being protected then are thought to be wild.  So I guess shitty cages are not so bad afterall.  Anyways we watched them play and moved on to the falls and what a sight it was.  We arrived absolutely stunned at the pure blue water and the several falls.  Then we decided to hike up furth and again surprised with more

and the main waterfall

falls so we decided to hike up even further to where we arrived at the top to see this amazingly huge waterfall that broke down into different other waterfall tiers.  We hung out there and sweat it out for awhile you could go swimming and our plan was but we were going to go to another waterfall next and figure eh fuck might as well ride with dry pants and get wet at the next one.  So we got on the bike and started going another hour to we reached a area that was just a boat.  We had to pay to ride up the river to the next waterfall.  Well when we got there we were completely bummed.  Its the dry season in Asia and unfortunately these falls were just that dry.  It was still semi enjoyable to be able to see how dry it really was and how many crazy falls were here as well.  So the photo are what we saw and the other one i just

what we were hoping to see

stole from google.

dry waterfalls

Day 15 we woke up early to hit the road towards thailand as we were planning for a long day of riding just because we did not know if we would be able to get in and how many different borders we would have to try before getting in.  See last year thailand made this rule that no foreign vehicles were allowed in the country mainly do to the chinese people.  As they come there for holiday and drive like shit and the death rates have continued to go up with mostly being chinese registered vehicles.  So the only way to enter is do it with a thai tour guide on a prearranged trip.  Now I been following a group page on facebook that would have people post often if they were able to get into the country or not.  I will say it was like a 50/50 range so was kinda planned for the worst.  On the way to the border we hit some rain high up in the mountains and these roads were like a ice skating rink completely smooth and it was nothing but twist and steep incline and decline.  We slid around a few times but finally got out of the mountains and rain.  Now while we were in the mountains they were doing a lot of road work and now by the time we got out we pull over for a rest and we can see the road work also was done to our bikes.  The front forks the bags and the rear were all covered in freaking tar.  We should have bought bottle water or something to wipe it off right away but didnt and we arrive to a thai border about 2hrs later but its just a common entry for the thai and laos people no other foreigners are allowed to cross here.  So we move on to the next border where we probably arrived a hour later.  This was a nice big border so it look good but when we arrived we were turned around once again as it was used for trucking only.  We were directed to go north about two more hours.  So we grab some lunch and moved north to the next border.  On our way my gps was going wacky yet again keep telling me to do a U turn even though it showed me going the right direction.  Well needless to say i found out why eventually cause the road ended at the mekong

crossing the Mekong in style

river.  So we waited there and were guided onto this barge thing.  We paid 3$ each and cross the mekong to the other side were we unloaded 5 mins later and moved on.  My gps now cut the time in half so I was like shit okay we could still cross over today probably.  Well the next hour it was nothing but insanely bumpy off road.  Then willis luck struck again this time it was his top box bracket just snapped off so his box went tumbling in

willis and his run away top box

the dirty off road.  We had about a 40min quick fix with some ratchet straps and back on the bikes again.  So it was yet another hour of insanely bumpy off road going through these tiny little towns.  Finally got on a main road and got to the border.  This time it was

arrived in Thailand for the third time

the right border we got stamped out of Laos got a police escort across the bridge which i thought was weird then I realized o shit that right we got to switch to the other side of the road cause thai drives on the left. It was pretty funny as you cross over the bridge it literally is a why and you cross over to the left side.  We go to the customs booth right away he said you dont have a tour I said no he said its a new thai rule you need to have a tour but lets go to my boss maybe he can help you guys.  We go to his boss and ask if we have a tour I said no but I have a Carnet Du Passage.  This thing cost me in the upper thousand dollar range and really have no idea what the power of it is but apparently thats all you need to get in without a tour guide. So it has officially saved me 2000$ now cause it would have cost 2 grand with a tour guide for only 3 days.  We did all the paper work got stamped in thailand now at this time its 8pm.  We officially been on the bikes for 12hrs I asked willis do you want to just head straight to the city we were going to stay at or just camp or get a hotel here.  It was 2hrs to the city Chiang Rai where we were planning on staying in tomorrow but he said fuck it I am good to ride if you are.  So back on the bikes and 2hrs later we arrived in Chiang Rai. Grabbed a hostel for the night and try to plan out our day tomorrow. Day 16 got up semi early and went straight to get out

dirty bikes and tar

doubt they will ever look this good again

bikes cleaned.  Found a car wash randomly down the street and ask if they would do motorcycles they agreed to do it.  After cleaning them they asked would you like the tar taken off I said yeah they showed me outside that the power washer would not blast it off. So it would cost more I did not mind at all I wanted that shit off cause after the mud was cleared you could really see the tar everywhere and it look way worst now that the mud was not there to hide it.  We sat inside the cafe they had there I got ice cream on top of french toast (it was amazing) and willis got some huge toast thing with chocolate syrup and chocolate poweder  and then chocolate ice cream on top of that.  His was good to I had a bite and we killed some time while we waited for the bikes.  After 2 an half hours and only 15$ for each bike our bikes were done and I will say god damn they were incredible.  They truly may have looked better than when I  bought them brand new off of the show room floor.  I have had my spawn onyx frog toy attached to my handlebars and that thing even looked brand spanking new as well as the straps we used to strap willis top box down with.  After the bikes got there bath we went to the infamous white temple and

literally so amazing

man was that thing a spectacle.  Hands down I dont think I will go to another temple after seeing that thing it just simply wont be worth it.  Also what made that thing is so impressive the artist who designed it is simply an amazing artist.  Right next door to the temple the artist had a museum of all his original art and fuck this guy is incredible.  There is all sorts of mediums he dabbles in from small metal work to sculptures oil crayon acrylic pencil literally hands down maybe one of the most impressive artist I have ever seen.  After the temple willis and i head into town to grab some food.  I ate and

more white things

amazing spicy thai salad and then we carried on over to a giant buddha again.  I just wanted to go there cause it looked brand new and well it was just that simply brand new they were still building the stair case to the buddha.  So we got there and told willis i think u can inside the head it looks like a whole up there and sure enough we got close enough to the base and there was a 1$ fee to take a elevator to the top of buddha.  I was expecting it to be some basic shit u look out the hole and go back down but no this artist used ever nook and cranny to keep showing his art

the view from the top

as well.  There was two floors up in buddha head and they were crammed with amazing art work.  We hung out for awhile and then made our way back down and went to the

the temple beside big buddha

temple next door.  The temple itself was really nothing impresssive but it had like 50 wood carved buddhas inside with several of them on each floor from all sorts of sizes.  As you go to the top the ceilings got smaller so therefor the buddhas did to but up to that point each floor a buddha took up the height of each room from floor to ceiling.

all the wooden buddhas

That night we got back to our hotel and decided its been a few days since we went out so we were like lets try to go out and get into some trouble.  We head to the night market area there is usually bars around there and found a reggae bar so we went in and began to play some pool.  Around 1230 in the morning i asked the guy we were playing pool with what time they close cause last city bars closed at midnight.  He says here in Chiang Rai they close at midnight well buddy its 1230.  The bartender or whoever this guy was end up closing the bar not to far longer but we stayed inside and drank and played pool till 5 in the morning.  We wonder back to out hostel which was sealed closed.   Like no way into this place so willis and i beat on the windows and door for probably 10-15 mins.  I was going to say fuck it lets shatter the glass I dont care we can say its a accident we were trying to wake them up but i had the idea to just grab the lock doors and pull as hard as I can one way and since they were locked together it pulled both doors to the right which made a gap on the left where the doors are supposed to be so we snuck in and called it a early night.  Day 16 we woke up around noon and packed the bikes back up and made our way south down to Chiang Mai.  After we left we stopped at the triumph dealership to look into buying a usb plug for a european cigarette lighter since i broke mine.  We stopped in they welcomed us with open arms talked with us about our trip we got to check out there new triumph bobber and run it.  The guy was extremely nice to us but unfortunately they did not have the plug for the lighter they sold the last one the day before.  So we end up walking out of the dealership empty handed and moved south to Chiang Mai.  We got to our hostel around 5pm so got in our bikes situated and decide to go out for food and drinks.  Well needless to say we didnt need to end the night like we did.  Around midnight while we were going to make our way back to the hotel we were outside talking with this german guy who moved there.  A kid around 26 left everything and moved to asia lost 120 pds and been a lot more positive of a hum which was awesome.  Shortly after this directly i mean directly like 10 ft away some fuck wit  ausi kid ran the intersection and smacked right into the side of a tuck tuck.  The scooter flew his sandals flew off and was tossed probably 5 ft away.  So now every one is panicking as this kid is dieing in front of us bleeding from every hole in his head.  I asked his buddy like what the hell what were u guys doing.  He tells me he tried to stop and pull his mate over to the intersection i say bullshit theres no skid mark..  This road was not a through street for them it came to a T so on top of it at the speed he was going if he didnt hit the tuk tuk he would of been sure to just crash right into the bar we were standing outside of.  After everyone thinking they know how to fix a kid who just crashed into a tuk tuk at decent speed moving this lifeless kid around like a rag doll (which i think thats exactly what u dont do when u can see a head injury) willis and i were like eh fuck this lets grabs some beers and go back to the hostel.  So thats what we did and called it a night cause we had to be up early the next morning.