Leaving Bangkok for Chiang Mai

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Our days in Bangkok are drawing to a close and I am beginning to wonder what we have actually done with them. As much as we have tried to sight see, I am afraid that Wat after Wat is really not, I regret to say, our thing. We have enjoyed just being in Bangkok - the hustle and bustle of it, the cleanliness &, yes, the noise. That said, I think that it is fair to say that we are both ready to move on to Chiang Mai. This is the destination for meditation and yoga and is therefore apparently home to numerous “aging hippies”.

31 October 2010

After yesterday afternoon’s sojourn to the market, I was up for heading there again today to make a full day of it - it really is that extensive - but, upon mature reflection, concluded that actually we don’t need most of the items that are on offer there and there will be numerous other opportunities whilst we are in Thailand, even if on a smaller scale.

So, you guessed it, this morning’s itinerary was ‘lazy’ following which we had a few purchases to make so we headed out to the shopping district once again. Purchase A - conditioner -was an easy find as I had seen what I wanted a couple of days previously (I am particular due to the curls) but you would not believe how difficult it is to find a plain and simple notebook in Bangkok. I think we had to take a lunch break during our search, it took that long.

We returned to our hotel for an early night but somehow ended up playing cards until 2am. I swear one moment it was just before eleven and then we had lost two hours and it was just gone 2.

1 November 2010

The sleeper train to Chiang Mai leaves at 18:10 this evening. It’s 8:30 am, I’ve had 2 hours sleep, my head hurts and my stomach is doing somersaults. I learn from this: do not stay up late drinking Thai beer the night before you have to check out of a hotel. I have never been good with a hangover but it seems that age really is catching up on me on this one…perhaps I should give up drinking altogether. I really didn’t think I drank that much either.

I force myself out of bed and attend breakfast where I a hoping to find some variety of fried potato, dripping a fat and thus restorative qualities. I am out of luck. I have to lie down again and may be close my eyes just for a moment.

An hour passes, leaving me with one more before we must have checked out. I have an hour to shower and pack. Under usual circumstances, that would be plenty of time. Today, with hangover, I struggle and we eventually leave the room with 1 minute to spare. I learn from this: do not stay up late drinking Thai beer the night before you have to check out of a hotel.

This was not the greatest start to what was destined to become a long day. We had six hours to kill and were desperate to find some free, or at least cheap, wifi. We may have found bargainous 4* accommodation in Bangkok but the cost of connecting to the world wide web had a serious go at making up for it so yesterday we economised, and went without. That means that we are now woefully behind on uploading blogs and photos.

Seeking out free wifi was rather like yesterday’s search for a notebook - fruitless until the last and necessitating a break for lunch. We eventually found a way to connect whilst in the Siam Paragon centre with Gregg supping a Starbucks coffee. As I did the uploading, we heard music behind us and initially thought nothing of it until we later wandered towards it. Siam Paragon, I should mention is home to the most premium of premium brands even having Masseratti, Lotus, Lambourghini, Bentley and Porsche show rooms to name but a few.

We had happened upon a fashion show being part of The Siam Paragon Bangkok International Fashion Week. Much to Gregg’s delight the show at that particular time was lingerie. We both enjoyed critiquing the models runway skills and I spent a further goodness knows how long fascinated by the back stage action between shows. Gregg, meanwhile, had found the electronics shops - apparently the Samsung Galaxy S is looking particularly good at the moment.

We then decided to head back to the hotel to collect out luggage and then on to the station. We were going to be pretty early but we have made a habit of that on our travels and it would give us an opportunity to by a few drinks and snacks for the trip.

We arrived at the station with over an hour to spare. Bangkok Hualamphong station looks very similar to a Victorian city station in the UK save that the food stalls sell skewers laden with various meats rather than Cornish Pasties. Much to our surprise, our train was already sitting on the platform waiting - what a novelty. We had booked First Class tickets because a first class cabin contains fold down beds for two and we thought that that might be more conducive to sleep. First class on a Thai train cannot be compared with First Class on a UK train (or the glimpses that I have seen of it from the platform) but then neither can the price.

Our cabin was conveniently the first in the first carriage thus we still had over an hour before the train was due to depart. The window provided us with plenty of opportunities for people watching and that hour passed quickly, night time had fallen and we were on our way to Chiang Mai.

Thai trains, much like their Vietnamese counterparts, are not known for their speed and we therefore began an impromptu game of “how long do you think it will take us to leave Bangkok”. I guessed 15 minutes. Gregg looked at me like I was nuts and went for 40 minutes. We were both wrong - it took about an hour in which time we had ordered our evening meal for delivery to our cabin and shared a good few hands of cards.

In the cabin next to us was a monk. To our surprise, he not only had a mobile phone but received what seemed like hundreds of calls during the evening - if you asked us to we could sing you the ring tone - which appeared to necessitate talking as loudly as possible. We were surprised because we think of Buddhist Monks taking meals and days at a time in silence.

Dinner was delivered on plates and apparently freshly cooked. It was a great deal tastier than anything I have ever had on WAGN or First Great Western but nothing particularly special - particularly since it was luke warm. We rang the call bell in our cabin when we had finished our meals expecting the waiter to come to collect the empty plates. Instead, the porter (I guess that is the right title) arrived to convert our sofa arrangement into beds. We apologised for calling him and he went away but returned less than 20 minutes later to get us ready for bed. So at shortly after 8:30 I gave in to my heavy eyelids and turned in for the night.

In the absence of the ringtone of the monk’s mobile and our own chattering the effect of sleeping in a cabin made largely of steel became all too apparent. The chugging of the train I could cope with but the metallic bangs, twangs and reverberations tested me to my limits. We have earplugs with us but unfortunately absolutely no idea where they were packed. I tried searching the bags by torchlight until Gregg who was reading suggested putting on the main light. Unfortunately, that didn’t make the search any more fruitful and I eventually gave up, turned the light off and tried to block the noise out. The last time I looked at my watch that night it was midnight and I found myself once again cursing 2am the night before and the Thai beer.

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Photos

Dancing Water
Outside the Siam Parago Centre