Travelling to Chiang Mai

Apologies for taking so long to place another blog entry – we’ve been having a busy month and far too much fun to type! But as we now have a quiet day before we leave Cambodia I can begin to tell you what we have been up to since our last entry. After deciding to move on from Bangkok we headed up to the north to Chiang Mai – this would be the Manchester equivalent if Bangkok was London. We were looking forward to getting away from the hectic and often chaotic feel of Bangkok and had been told that Chiang Mai although the 2nd city felt a lot more peaceful. We decided to use the sleeper train again as we had had such a nice experience last time. We were not to be disappointed as we ordered some food and settled back for a relaxing journey.

The food was fantastic – and there was so much of it! After a very spicy soup and a couple of curry dishes the staff (most of which were of questionable gender!) set about trying to get us drunk. Every time they would come up the aisle they would spin us a story about how it was the last beers they had and if we would be so good as to buy them they would get to have a break – me and Rob often don’t need much persuasion in these types of situations so were only to happy to oblige, and several Changs later we were having a very nice train journey indeed!

At about 7am we were awoken to a tasty if not a little sweaty egg breakfast, which we needed after our heavy evening! Then finally just over 14 hours later we arrived having had a fairly good nights sleep this time. At the station and were greeted by the usual hordes of tuk tuk drivers, and hotel representatives vying for our business. We found one which seemed ok called SK House so we thought we would risk it and get the free car ride there. In the car we met the owner Mr June who began telling us all about the city, where all the markets were and where to eat etc. That is when the alarm bells in my head started going off. It sounds horrible to say but you learn to be very guarded if someone is overly nice to you and especially having just come from Bangkok, me and Rob looked at each other quite worried about the place we were about to end up, but I am pleased to report that Mr June was the exception to the rule and we ended up in a very reasonably priced guesthouse with a lovely pool. This was to be our base for the next few days.