Sunday, January 21, 2007

Adventures in the north

I know I've been really bad... I should have been blogging a lot more often than I have but it's been hard to get enough time to actually sit and spend time doing it. I finally have one hour to get it all together. Anway, we left Bangkok about five days ago, on the night train to Chiang Mai. What a blast that was. It was super comfortable with totally pimp bunks and table service. They kept us plastered with beer the entire time (the actually stored their mobile bar-a bucket full of beer and ice- right next to us). Dinner was Thai food, served to us in our little booth, and then we moved to the "bar car" when it was "bedtime". Drank way too much beer, but slept soundly all the way to Chiang Mai (12 hours). Arrived horribly hungover and had to hop on a 4 1/2 hour ghetto bus ride to Pai. It was exhausting, and hot... the seats were so small we couldn't sit with our legs forward and had to sit sideways. Not good. Found a great little tree house style bungalow in Pai. We were all set for a three day stay before we realised that we messed up our train tickets and could only stay for two nights. So we spent our one day zipping around on rental scooters.. so much fun. We drove by the elephant camps, saw the hot springs and walked through the Pai Canyon. It was gorgeous up there... also very cold. It was about 25 during the day and dropped down to zero at night. All three of us were huddled in one bed together trying to keep warm. It was quite a shock. We opted for the suicidal mini-van to take us back to Chiang Mai (I honestly thought we were going to die). We managed to squeeze in an hour of late lunch and market shopping before hopping back on the train to Bangkok. As usual Amy was sharing her seat with someone drunk.. this time an ex-policeman who was so old he could hardly walk. He kept trying to take her for dinner in the other car... he polished of a mickey when he got up in the morning. Ha ha.. poor Amy. When we got back to Bangkok we headed to the dreaded Kao San rd. Yuck... what a sess pit. Anyway, we found a semi-decent over-priced room and spent the afternoon getting foot massages and eating lots of street food. When nighttime rolled around we decided to save some money.. we went to 7-11, bought a twixer of vodka and some fresh squeezed tangerine juice. We mixed our own bevvies and wandered the streets until midnight, eating yummy food and getting up to all kinds of mischief... more details on the outcome of that night at a later date. Anyway, we are flying to Phuket this afternoon for some well-deserved beach time. Im sure there will be more adventures to follow.

No comments: