Uh-oh, Bungalows Again

The itching bites had aggravated me enough to wake up in the middle of the night, and in doing so, it indirectly woke Rachelle up too. In the morning we get back to the bus for a 7:30AM departure. The reason we must leave so early is because the journey today is a long one; 8 hours long, with stops for food and an animal trading market. The tiredness and mosquito bites weren't the only things that would make the journey uncomfortable. Anyone who knows my immune system will think it no surprise that I managed to catch a cold. I've lasted the whole trip so far without food poisoning or stomach problems, but of course, I manage to catch a cold in a tropical climate.

The stop at the animal trading market was sad, because all the animals are in bags, small cages, overcrowded buckets or tied to tables. Apparently, most animal trading is illegal, but it happens anyway. Otherwise, the journey is long and boring, but we eventually get to Tad Lo. The guesthouse is right next to the waterfall, which can be clearly seen from the restaurant. When we discover that our accommodation is a bungalow, I get flashbacks from the awful night we had at the Sunset Bungalow in Nong Khiaw. I open the door to our bungalow with worried eyes and turn on the light. Thankfully, and to my relief, they are actually quite nice for bungalows. No bugs and a western toilet. I remember shouting 'Hallelujua!' after seeing the toilet. I didn't want another bucket toilet to deal with like in the last bungalows.

After looking at the waterfall, Rachelle and I go to see if there's anywhere to swim. When we get a closer look at the water it really doesn't look very clean and I spot bits of rubbish floating around. It looked nicer from far away. It took little consideration before deciding not to swim. We were both a bit disappointed, because Tad Lo is quite rural and there is nothing to do here except look at the waterfall, which gets boring after a while. The uncomfortable, eight hour journey just didn't seem worth it in the end.

Eating is all we really had left to do, but the restaurant where we were staying was too expensive so we went to a nice cheap place called 'Tim's'. We ate a lot. Then, with little else to do, the early morning start and my feeling ill, it made sense to go to bed early. I laid in bed sniffling and itching.