Bangkok to Chiang Mai

We arrived at Bangkok Airport without a problem. Having spent so much time in Bangkok previously I wasn’t keen on double dipping so we proceeded with a plan to go to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. We caught a taxi to the appropriate bus terminal, which was massive, and found that the next available bus to Chiang Mai was in an hour and a half. Plenty of time to grab a decent feed and reflect on the previous 22-odd hours of being on the road. Since we’d be getting to our destination quite late in the evening Peach had the foresight to pick a guesthouse out of the LP guide and ring ahead to reserve a room and arrange a transfer from the bus station. It was the first time I’d booked accommodation since the very first night in Bangkok at the start of the trip.

The bus trip was 10 hours. It was a pleasure to be on Thai buses and roads after the amusement ride-esque ones in Myanmar. There’s essentially one long straight highway from Bangers to Chiang Mai so it’s a lovely smoothe ride. On long-haul buses in Thailand are ace. The seats recline a mile, you get a foot rest, there’s a hostess who hands out treats, the air-con is pumping (too much), you get your own blanket, there’s a toilet on board and it’s pretty easy to get some sleep. Rancho Relaxo.

Unfortunately since it was about 1:30pm by the time the bus left my body clock had me wide awake, despite my lack of sleep the night before. Sleeping on the bus wasn’t an immediate option. Instead there was a Hollywood film dubbed in Thai on the onboard TV. Even though I can’t speak Thai I could still follow the story line. That either says a lot about my perception skills or a lot about Hollywood films. Hmmm. Anyway it was a Ray Liotta film. He was a bad arse who got sent to a tropical island that was actually a prison. The feds just dump you there and leave you to your own devices. They monitor the island around the clock and if any escape attempts are made they send in the choppers and blow up whatever shelter the prisoners have managed to build. Anyhow it was quite enjoyable – I’ll have to watch it again one day in English and see how it compares.

In the end I did manage to squeeze a couple of hours sleep in on the bus and by the time we rolled into Chiang Mai at 11:30pm I was feeling quite refreshed. Unfortunately we told our guesthouse the wrong arrival time so they weren’t at the bus station to pick us up. So we caught a tuk-tuk instead. The guesthouse was all closed up when we arrived. We banged on the door and someone woke up. At first they tried to tell us they were full and then we convinced them that we’d booked a room so they couldn’t be and they let us in.

There was some reggae music blaring near our guesthouse and since I didn’t feel like sleeping I headed out to see where it was. I found it was a cool little bar with a mix of locals and backpackers. I met a local called Tom who rang a travel agent business. I also got talking to several Brits. It was a good night shooting the breeze and I didn’t end up in bed until about 2:30am. It’d been a long couple of days!