Home » Thailand » Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 3: From Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Highlights of the two last days in Bangkok were visits to the beautiful (but crowded) Grand Palace and to a snake farm where May Tina got to hold a python. Then we took the night train to Chiang Mai, which was slightly less hectic than Bangkok, although it still had lots of traffic by Norwegian standards. We spent one day walking around Chiang Mai and getting ready for some jungle trekking.

Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 3: From Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-08 18:22:33

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kept following us around, saying that the Lumphini Park, for which we were headed, was closed and under construction, but eventually we managed to shake him off. We went through a hospital area to get to the park, but on getting there it seemed that the entrance was on another side, so we just returned to the snake farm.

While waiting for the snake farm to open, we looked around the institute building and noticed an updated report from June 2000 on their bulletin board. It adviced people against taking Malaria tablets because they now were believed to be ineffective in Thailand and only served to give a false sense of security. There was also a map showing the risk of getting Malaria in various parts of Thailand, and just as Mr. Prakit had said, the area around Chiang Mai was considered relatively safe. Based on this information, we decided not to take any Malaria pills.

The park eventually opened (cost 70B) and we walked around looking at the various snakes in their enclosures. Snakes are really strange creatures! They had many different kinds of snakes in the farm. After sitting down and eating some cake, we went inside to look at the exhibitions there.

It was not long before we were approached by an official looking guy who asked us if we understood Danish. "Yeah, sure, no problem", we replied, wondering why he was asking us that. Well, maybe they were going to give the show in many different languages, and wondered whether Danish was enough, or if they had to do all Scandinavian languages? Then English would be quite sufficient and they didn't need to speak in Danish for our sake! With the incomprehensible way most Thais were speaking English, we would have been surprised if their Danish was any good :-)

However, of course, they had no intention of giving the show in Danish. Instead, it turned out that the guy had received a letter in Danish and needed someone to translate it for him. We were happy to help ...