Having arrived at Bangkok train station with plenty of time to spare we went to locate our train, obviously, in our heads we were wandering down the platform looking for something resembling the Hogwarts Express but unfortunately this was not the case, the 15 quid overnight sleeper train was basic, to say the least. After a really nice 5 course meal for 3 quid we played a few games of cards (mainly snap cos we don't know how to play anything else!) before they pulled down our beds for the night, climbing up the ladder to find the thinest bed ever with nothing to hold you in despite being on the most rickety train ever did not make for the best night sleep. We woke up at about 6 am and waited for our breakfast of Chocolate cookies to arrive! Mmmmm. The train was supposed to arrive in Chang Mai at 9.45 a.m, once it got to about Midday and we were still no where near the bloody place we gave in and headed to the bar cart for a few singhas to make the suffering go away. A couple of American's in there started chatting and asked us if we were off to Chang Mai for the festival - 'Erm, what festival?' was our response! Turns out at the end of October there's a massive carnival type thing to celebrate the end of the rainy season - pretty damned good timing then. When we eventually arrived at the train station 5 hours late we were harrased by about 50 people all trying to take us to their guesthouses, we walked straight past them all when a nice little lady chased after us and said we could go and have a look at hers and leave if we didn't like it - we figured it was a free lift in to town if nothing else. In actual fact, the little family run guesthouse (with pool etc) was a bargain at 400 baht a night so we opted to stay for a few days. We chucked our stuff in, had a quick shower, and wandered in to town to explore. Chang Mai is like rehab compared to Bangkok, so much more relaxed, no constant pressure to be taken round the houses in a tuk tuk, and everything's about half the price. Once we'd seen the cost of a bottle of Chang it seemed rude not to drink our body weight in beer. Once the sun went down at about half 6 the festival began with a few shady fire works and hundreds and hundreds of people setting off Chinese flying lanterns, such a wicked site. So we got all over it and set one off ourselfs. After messing around on the main square for a bit we found another bar selling 50p beers to settle down for the parade which again was awesome! Our plan to stay out and make lots of new friends failed when at about 10 o'clock we were both completely wasted and had to go home, not before getting a few random snacks from the market on the way.
Which brings us to today, we got up this morning and went for coffee and croissants before getting a songthaew (big red tuk tuk) to Doi Suthep which is basically a big temple up in the hills with views over the city, after wandering around up there for a few hours we headed back in to town, did some more sodding walking before having a small rest by the pool. We've booked a trip called 'Flight of the Gibbons' tommorrow which looks like Go Ape in the jungle so that should be pretty awesome.
Just looked at my watch and it's 11.10 a.m on a Monday morning in England - hope you're all enjoying work!!!! Just to add, it's about 30 degrees here with bright blue skies - sorry, I couldn't help it....
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