First Day in Chiang Mai

We managed to make it safely from Koh Tao to Chiang Mai. From Koh Tao, we took an enjoyable three hour boat ride to Chumpon. The ride took us through many beautiful islands of the Gulf of Thailand. We definately prefer this express boat to the overnight boat. It was interesting to see that there were two classes of service on the boat. We paid for the economy class, which entitled us to be anywhere on the upper-deck, or sit on hard seats below. For an extra $1.50 per person, we had the option to sit in plush seats in a small room on the upper deck. After a bit of deliberation, we decided to stick with the lower class of service. Both sitting rooms had TVs, which happened to be showing King Kong on this particular trip. In the lower sitting area, where we spent most of our time, the volume was turned just high enough that it was hard to look away from the TVs, but just low enough to where you couldn't catch a lot of what was being said. I think that this was meant to persuade people to go upstairs and pay for the VIP room, where the sound was sure to be excellent. We pulled out the Archos and watched Around the World in 80 Days, starring Jackie Chan.

We had three hours in Chumpon before our bus left to Bangkok. We walked around town for awhile, exploring several markets, and then stopped at a Japanese restaurant called Sukiyaki for dinner. For an appetizer we had a banana split. Larissa ordered some fried noodles with vegetables, and I proudly ordered Sukiyaki, not knowing what it was. The waitress seemed to understand my request for the vegetarian version. I was happy to see that the dish that I got had no meat, but rather tofu. While Larissa's dish tasted better, we were glad to have learned what Sukiyaki is.

A very nice bus showed up to pick us up in Chumpon, and it was a comfortable overnight ride to Bangkok. Once in Bangkok, we put another bag in storage, hoping to lighten our load for our trip up to Chiang Mai.

Three hours later, we boarded the "Express Train" to Chiang Mai. We found our seats in the front of the train. The car was airconditioned and plenty spacious. The ride was to take about 11 hours, so Larissa settled into reading and I settled into sleeping. Every couple of hours we were served a light meal and given a choice between Coke, Water, or Orange Juice, which looked and tasted like Tang. Everything went smoothly until we reached the hills leading to Chiang Mai. The train stalled several times, and refused to make it up the hill. We backed down several times in an attempt to get a running start at it, but to no avail. Of course during the hour or so that the conductor and crew were trying to figure out how to resolve the problem, none of the passengers were told what the problem was. Since I was watching the situation very closely (I think I must get more stressed about this sort of thing than most people), the people sitting next to us asked me what was going on. I told them what my best guess was, and they seemed to buy it. Anyway, we ended up back-tracking about 45 minutes to the last train station, where we linked up with another train. This train, while equipped with enough power to get over the hill, was certainly not an express train.

We made it to Chiang Mai at around 10:30pm, only about 3 hours late. We managed to get a hotel in the old part of town, which is surrounded by a square-shaped moat. Our guidebook claims that our hotel is the best bargain in this part of town. We are paying about $6.25 per night. Larissa was a bit disgusted that we opted out of the warm water, which would have put us back about another $1.50 per night. She was just as much a part of the decision as I was though, so don't let her make you think that she is any less cheap than I am. Besides, the cold shower was refreshing.

This morning we woke up starving, after not eating well for the past couple of days. We made our way to a vegetarian Indian restaurant, which was conveniently called "Vegetarian Indian Restaurant." We had one of the best meals of our trip so far. Many of the places we ate at in Koh Tao had low tables, and mats instead of chairs. We wished we had some of those mats this morning. We have found that a little nap after thoroughly gourging ourselves is much prefferable to sitting in a wooden chair for awhile.

We like the food so much that we signed up (rather Larissa signed up) for a cooking class tomorrow morning. She will learn how to make around ten indian dishes, and will come home with the recipes for all of them. While she is taking the class, I will get to try the food she makes, drink a couple of fantas, and take some pictures.

Unfortunately, Larissa was not feeling good following our meal this morning. We both hope that she just ate too much. She is back at the hotel right now taking a little rest.

Chiang Mai is the starting point for various trekking tours all over northern Thailand. We are looking into embarking on a trek to include a visit to one of the long-neck villages, an elephant ride, and a trip down a river on a bamboo raft. There are many other interesting offerings also, so we will have to do our research.

Internet access is pretty cheap here, so we should be able to keep you all well updated on what we are up to.