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Published: November 5th 2007
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Ritz please, Jeeves
tuk tuk to the bus station Wanted to travel the far north of Thailand by train, but once we realized it takes 13 hours we started looking at other options, ended up booking flights online to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. This is the countrys’ second city situated 500 miles or so north west of the capital.
Young travellers arrive here for outdoor pursuits, mostly trekking in the hills, it is also a convenient gateway to Myanmar and Laos through the Golden triangle famed for the illegal production of opium.
We already possessed through tickets to Bangkok but these restricted us to leaving at 1700 hours. A 3 hour bus journey would mean a late arrival with possible difficulty finding accommodation. Went ahead with it anyway.
The coach pick up was quite far from our hotel, so we hired a Tuk Tuk and waited for the bus that would never arrive. The girl from the company turned up to tell us that it had broken down, third time in as many days. They were supplying mini buses for the passengers, guess what! Not us. She had been told to either take us to the public bus station or pay for accommodation if were catching the bus the next
day, but it was still the inconvenient time of 1700 hours and we would have missed our flight anyway.
We ended up at the bus station where she bought us two tickets on the next coach which wasn’t due to leave till after six. Not only that, it was going to the Southern bus station in Bangkok, more inconvenience.
When we had time to think we changed our minds, much to the dismay of the young girl and 2 other employees who had joined us. Eventually they found us cheap accommodation at the station and booked us on the 05.15 bus to Bangkok where we could take a taxi to the airport, after an early rise we set out on our next journey. We met a nice elderly German gentleman at the station, who we shared a taxi with to the airport.
After arriving in Chiang Mai we found a room at the SK guest house for 600 baht. This is the type of accommodation young travelers seek out, a place with reasonable prices, restaurant/bar, internet room, shows movies, books tours and even has a pool. However, it didn’t quite do it for us, room
not big or clean enough, crap TV reception, pool green instead of blue, light switches greasy. Little things I know, but enough to move out next day. Strangely we would recommend this guest house, but it just wasn’t for us. Our next stay was in the Star Hotel at the Night Bazaar. Paid more than we wanted but we had already spent too much time checking out rooms in different hotels, so we took their superior room option at 1100baht.
On our first day we explored the city and visited the Wat Chedi Luang, a temple dating from 1401. Then we found, as we always do, a little restaurant serving great Thai food. It is called The Corner restaurant, and sits, not surprisingly on a corner at Moon Muang Road near Loi Kroh Road, that’s the one that takes you to the Night Bazaar. The staff are a bit dour but I would rather be served great food by a long face than crappy by a happy chappy.
Booked ourselves on a one day tour which included an elephant ride, a visit to a Hill Tribe, waterfall and a river trip on a bamboo raft. We were joined
by three other couples on the tour, German, Slovenian and American. A good group as it turned out.
One thing is for sure we will never forget our elephant ride. This wasn’t some flat softly undulating terrain we are talking about here. I was a steep muddy track up and down a thickly wooded area with deep ruts and holes all over the place. We thought that an elephant was going to loose its footing, and slide or fall over on one of the steep slopes crushing someone underneath it, namely us.
To make matters worse our elephant wanted to do its own thing most of the time, seemingly ignoring the Mahout driver who was probably doped up on opium anyway. I thought Tuk Tuks and the catamaran was scary, nothing like this. At one point the elephant in front had to kneel on his hind legs and let them slide just to keep his balance. Our turn was next, just when it looked like we had safely negotiated this last and most difficult hazard our elephant tried to turn and go up again. We were leaning back now thinking, CRIVVENS, HELP MA BOAB! Our driver finally
shaky bridge
nothing compared to what comes next got him, or her to obey just as we were contemplating jumping off, never been so relieved to get off anything, couldn’t believe the Slovenian couple actually loved it.
After the ride you are expected to buy a bunch of bananas and make friend with your elephant, seems to me it would be far better doing that beforehand.
After this the river trip on a raft was sheer joy. A one hour trip downstream on 8 thick bamboo poles about 15 metres long strapped together. We were joined by the young Slovenian couple, The Thai boy stood at the front guiding with a pole, and I stood at the back with a pole pretending to guide,the rest sat near the middle. They all ended up soaking wet, I just had a few splashes. It was great fun.
After Chiang Mai we are flying to Cambodia.
Final Chiang Mai sightings = Celtic Soccer Shirts 1 (young Thai boy on motorbike)
Elephant jobbies 6
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Mhairi
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Thailand
Looks like you've really enjoyed Thailand, your accommodation sounds like its been fab - I take it you haven't had to do any room sharing yet? Would you go back to Thailand for normal holidays? M x P.S. Eileen's hair looks good to me!