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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hungry we eventually decided to eat at a Thai restaurant. For the first time in Thailand we got a fulfilling meal at such a restaurant, instead of the usual small portions. We had now lost our sense of direction and weren't really sure where the hotel was located, so we tried walking back exactly the same way as we had come, which seemed to do the trick.

After having relaxed in our nice air-conditioned room for a while, we went down to the reception for a final information meeting before our Hilltribe trek. Eventually Boon arrived, bringing with him another guide called Keng and two guys from Coventry, England called Steve and Phil who were also coming on the tour with us.

Boon handed us some backpacks in army colours and a list of things to bring on the trek. There weren't many questions, so the meeting didn't last long, and we were told to be ready by 0800 tomorrow morning. We went back to our rooms and immediately packed everything for the trek, just to be on the safe side.

We decided to spend the rest of the evening relaxing. We took a tuk-tuk up to the big shopping center Kad Suan Kaew in the northwest corner of Chiang Mai, which according to Lonely Planet should have a cinema. After a while we located the cinema on the top floor, but there weren't too many movies that were "must see" for us. In the end we went for "Gone in 60 seconds", which was my first choice of what was available. The tickets cost 70 Bath each, which is about 25% of the Norwegian price.

The movie itself turned out to be quite average, but there was interesting event before the movie started. The National Anthem of Thailand was played at the same time as nice pictures of the king was shown on the screen. Everybody were requested to stand up and show respect to the king, which everybody did.

After the movie I was very hungry and wanted to get something to eat before going back to the hotel. The only place open in the area was a place called Chester's grill which served chicken fastfood. I had a meal there before we took a tuk-tuk back to the Winner Inn. The tuk-tuk guy seemed to know Chiang Mai slightly better than us (surprise!) because he drove a different but much shorter route to the Winner Inn. The hotel was in fact quite close to the city center, it was only us who had been walking along a bad route.

After taking another shower, we were in bed by 23:30.