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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him, and followed him into his office where he showed us the letter. It was from someone called Torben, who amongst other things, said he would come to Thailand in the autumn to get married. Anyway, the guy was very grateful to us for helping him out with the translation.

The snake show was pretty interesting, and the guy for whom we had translated the letter, turned out to be in charge of it. Amongst other things, they showed us how they milked snakes of their venom and how snakes in captivity were being fed (by holding their mouth open and forcing the food down their throat). In the end, May Tina got to hold a python, which she seemed to enjoy. She said afterwards that the skin of the snake was quite dry and not slippery as most people expect it would be.

After the show was over and we had seen all the exhibitions we crossed the motorway to the Pat Pong area. We walked around in some shopping centers just to pass time and eventually had a meal at McDonald's for simplicity. A taxi took us back to the station where we bought some food for the train journey, before going over to Richly Travel to retrieve our baggage.

Mr. Prakit's brother followed us to the train, making sure we got on the right one. It looked quite nice, with seats that would be turned into beds later in the evening. When we were sitting inside, we suddenly noticed that exactly at 1800 everybody inside the station stopped and remained still. This was because the National anthem of Thailand was being played over the loudspeakers, which apparently happens every day at 1800.

The train left on schedule at 1815 and it was not long before a guy from the train restaurant came round taking orders. Lonely Planet told us that food on the train was very expensive, which turned out to be complete nonsense as the prices weren't any higher than in a regular restaurant. In any case, we had already bought food at the station, so we didn't need any.

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