Our flight from Singapore to Bangkok was uneventful, and I got a wee bit more sleep in. After getting through the usual business at the airport we caught a taxi to Hua Lamphong Station, where we were due to catch our overnight train to Chiang Mai 11 hours later. We found the luggage storage amidst the hubbub, and after a short walk down some dodgy sidestreets where (possibly rapid) dogs started barking their heads off at us, we decided to tuk-tuk to Khao San Road for some lunch. Enjoyed some food and a fruit shake and the endless harassment by stall owners, tailors and drivers, but didn't want to spend any money and didn't have much else to do, so we headed back to the station and read for hours and hours until we finally got on the train and left at 6.10pm.
(We didn't see any sign of the red-shirt protesters in Bangkok, however some buildings had pretty heavy armed guards, military men with big guns and steel gazes.)
The train was pretty sweet. I managed to sleep all night and the views out the window in the morning where very nice. Sunrise over the mountains and rice paddies in the foreground... When the train guards came round to clip tickets on departure, the poor girl opposite us didn't have a print out of her ticket and assumed (not unreasonably) that showing them the pdf on her laptop would be sufficient. They weren't at all happy about it though, and it took about five minutes plus some help from a nice Thai lady who spoke English to finally convince them to give her the okay. Oh and if you want to smoke on the train, the guards will inform you that the toilet is the place to do so!
We got into Chiang Mai at about eight this morning and headed to our guest house. We are staying at Banilah guest house, and it is lovely. 500 baht per night for the two of us, in very comfortable rooms with lovely staff looking after us. There is an amazing food market just down the road, and old Chiang Mai, the happening part of town, is about 20 minutes walk away, and full of amazing temples. We got talking to a man from Bangkok at one of these temples, and he told us to forget about the tailors in Hoi An (Vietnam) and that the Chiang Mai tailors were the ones to see for quality at a good price. We thanked him for the advice, but didn't think we'd make it to the recommended tailor, and were happy to settle with Hoi An later in the trip. However just down the road a man remarked that he liked my beard, and after stopping to chat (because a beard compliment does not go unacknowledged!) it turned out that he was a Vietnamese man living in Albany, south of Perth, and that he and his wife were in Chiang Mai specifically to buy some tailor-made clothes, from the very same place that we had had recommended to us not five minutes earlier!
We hailed a tuk-tuk and headed straight there, and our first fitting is at eight o'clock tonight...
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