Bangkok - Chang Mai

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Made it to Thailand! The flight wasn't too bad, 11.5hours - we spent most of it with my head in The Lonely Planet book and didnt sleep a wink really. Got into Bangkok airport and was immediately swamped by keen Thai's and their taxi services. Had some cheeky woman instantly try and rip us off with a taxi to Bangkok train station costing 1000baht but with some scanning around we found one for 500. We got to the station and grabbed our second class tickets on the sleeper train, briefly chatted to some french travellers then got on our train for another 12 hour journey to the north of Thailand, Chang Mai.

At this point Tom was already making bold efforts to hurt himself, stubbing his toe which was bleeding - but luckily some nice old Thai nurse who was visiting her daughter had some handy antisceptic, cotton buds, and a plaster and took care of him. The journey was pretty damn boring, but was a lot more comfortable than the flight as we unfolded bunk beds which ended up being about 6ftlong and about as wide as Will. We grabbed some food on the train, Tom had sweet and sour (top man!) and Will ordered the first thing he saw with tentacles...nearby Thais giggled whilst he worked up a sweat with some proper hot sauce with it though.

We arrived at Chang Mai at about 8am, already highlighting some potential hostels to check out at our arrival. On the top of our list was Julie's Guesthouse, which conveniently had some free transport and a free room for us - something which we later noticed was very lucky as it is extremely popular and totally full of backpackers. The only room we could manage to get was a very minimal bunk bed (mattresses are about an inch thick) with additional fan, and shared showers for the price of 70 baht a night (1 pound 50! bargain). After dropping off our bags and padlocking our very weak door we set off for a wonder about.

Decided to book ourselves cooking course for the next day, and worked out to get a cheap flight from Chang Mai to Phuket for Monday, we then went to get our first Thai massage. After some laughing about the size of Will's feet, it began. Things did seem a bit unfair as Tom got a petite, attractive Thai girl, in comparison to Will who had lets say a very chunky girl in comparison....at one point they roll you so your back is on top of their knees and the large girl had...the...the...the NERVE to question Will with "Ooo how many kilo?..."

He got over it though with a rewarding Pad Thai for lunch, cooked by a bubbly little Thai girl down the road which apparently came to 83pence.

After returning to the hostel it wasnt long before we got chatting to other backackers, of which nationalities included English, Canadian, German, Dutch and Hong Kong. Everyone was so friendly and sociable, and later on we all agreed to head to the night bazaar where we ended up getting dinner (pad thai...again...), some fruit shakes and browsed through hundreds of fake clothes.

At this point everyone fancied a bit of a party, so we all went upstairs on the roof terrace with more or less a lot of beer. They keep Chang beer in the fridges in the hostel, which is pretty much a large bottle of beer which comes to 6.3% (this arguably is inaccurate as it can be more depending on the batch) and each bottle came to about a pound. After a while of chatting and getting to know everyone we ended up leaving to a few bars in town in a group of probably 20, for a great and ridiculously cheap night, and everyone was enjoying themselves as if they had known each other for years.

A long story short, we didn't get much sleep that night and had to wake up bright and early for a full day of cooking which ended at four which we did with three Swiss people. With our hangover and lack of sleep we can only say. Error. Eating a hot Thai green curry, although delicious, caused Will to truely test his clenching skills, and Tom well...he was falling asleep sitting up!

Although a torturous, yet great day, we returned to the hostel, befriended the toilet, and had a power nap. Came to the internet cafe to type this up, and look forward to tomorrows trekking which lasts two days - no drinks for us tonight!

Hope you find this update interesting and look forward to hearing back from you guys
Love Will and Tom

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Comments

[Katie]

stubbed toe
hahahahahahaha tom i love that you have ALREADY stubbed your toe. Will i warn you this is a common occurance and happened throughout our trip to india and nepal. i recommend you buy him some antisceptic cream and plasters and give him lots of sympathy ;-) love the blog xx

[Ping Pong]

Be careful with the ping pong
Sounds like you are having a great time. You missed out by skipping the 1000 baht ride - I'm sure it included extras! Have you watched any ping pong yet? Be careful with the drinks on offer, they will cost you more than you are expecting - take a look behind the curtains on the wall first. Have you met up with any Karen? You can hire them to take you to some interesting places. If you think the ablution facilities are challenging where you are now, wait for the forest!!

[mum, dad will's]

Itold you that you would need the Imodeon; have fun