Smoky Mountains

Hello!

So sorry I didn't write anything yesterday, but nothing worth reporting happened. We stayed at a pretty shabby hotel in a pretty shabby town and were very happy to leave early in the morning. When we got downstairs to the car lot, some very nice fellow drivers had decorated our Toyota with ribbons and a poster for my birthday. I thought that was very sweet. Thank you Simon.
We drove a lot over the last few days. Around 500-600 km per day, a lot of it on twisty mountain roads. These remote roads would have afforded us some spectacular views of the mountains and today of the mighty Mekong river that flows down here all the way from Tibet. But the problem is that everyone is busy burning brush and clearing forests with fire that that entire northern part of Thailand is covered in a blanket of smoke. You can't see at thing--even the tropical sun could not overcome the dense dirt in the air. The government is trying to stop this, but with no success. The amount of pollution that is produced here must be of global concern.
This could have been an amazing view of the river snaking its way through the mountains of northern Thailand, but the smoke was so dense, we had a hard time breathing.

We arrived in Vientiane, Laos, around 2.30 pm. It's a pretty nice little town, on the edge of the Mekong river. We'll spend one night here and tomorrow drive on to Luang Prabang, still in Laos. 

Interesting trivia:

"Balls of light are observable from time to time rising from the Mekong's water surface in the stretch of the river near Vientiane. These are sometimes referred to as Naga Fireballs. The locals attribute the phenomenon to Phaya Naga, the Mekong Dragons."