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Published: February 14th 2006
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enjoying a beer on the train to chiang mai
me and travel mate Andrew (from Sydney) enjoying a beer in the 'disco carriage' of the night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai I'm a happy man now - we've finally got away from Bangkok and have escaped to the more chilled out north of the country.
I've managed to get quite a lot done in the last few days so will try to remember whats happened.
First thing, I apologise again for lack of pictures, I'm currently typing this blog on a wind-up computer so its a bit out-of-date to plug my camera into. not to worry, more to add to the gallery when i find a suitable computer - although this may be difficult in laos which is one of the world's poorest countries. lets hope eh?
Monday morning was our first venture out into Bangkok as a group and this was welcomed by more rain - which is really weird considering we are mid way through the dry season. and cue the worst possible activity to be doing in the rain - a hell raising ride through the canals of bangkok on a narrow boat powered by a noisy old two stroke engine. still it was great fun as we were nearly sitting at water level so everything seem to shoot past at lightning speed.
we started off on the main river which was full of weed and lillies which were inhabited by lots of storks/cranes, then ventured off onto one of the canals to see the more cultural side of bangkok. lots of the houses here are on stilts and (barely) stand above the water. people rely on the canals to do their trades and many an old lady can be seen plying her heavily laden boat up the canal. all were really friendly though and gave you a smile or wave. we even got to feed some huge catfish big lumps of bread - a local delicacy in some of the restaurants.
after heading back ashore, we ventured on to the wat pho, which is the buddist temple complex housing the gigantic reclining buddha - i managed to get some good shots of this gold plated statue - very impressive, will try to get these sorted asap. one thing which will always be a memory of the buddhist temples is the smell of sandlewood incense which is really overpowering but nice all the same.
after venturing around this temple area, some of group braved tuk tuks journeys home (fitting 4 people plus bags in the back looked a bit too hellraising for my liking, and these guys don't drive slowly!) and others went to see the Grand Palace, which was a truly monumental sight - consisting of numerous buddha images and statues, lots more incense and some mighty impressive multi-coloured temples. after an exhausting trip around the palace area we had to head back to the hotel so that we could venture off to the train station in order to pick up the night train from bangkok to chiang mai. que another trip through the mayhem that is bangkok traffic (where you can fit 2 adults and a baby to a scooter). the train station makes any in the UK look an embarassment and even though you had to pay to use the toilets, 2 pence isn't too much to complain about. there were lots of stalls where you could pick up food and drink, as well as a kfc or dunkin' donut if you really wanted to.
having stocked up on chang beer for the journey we boarded our surprisingly cosy train and left bangkok station at 6pm on the dot. its only on leaving the city that you realise how huge the place is and how contrasting the wealth is here - a mixture of slums and shanty towns with gleaming high rise offices in the background.
we all ate on the train (although the 'chicken' in the yom tom soup looked decidedly dodgy so i gave that a miss). we also got to experience probably my first and last 'disco carriage' which consisted of the buffet car, lots of beer, very loud music, and fairy lights!
i could only imagine the poor souls out in the middle of rural thailand who are trying to get some sleep when out of the blue comes this night train with 'disco carriage' windows open blurting out banging music into the night! suppose it was an everyday occurence so they get used to it. after laughing at the roudy tatooed english women who were getting progressively more pissed on the evil local whisky, we all got chucked out and called it a night. next stop chiang mai!
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