March 26th

Arrived in Bangkok at around 12:30 in the morning, as the plane had been late leaving Narita. Got through customs and everything fairly easily – having only one backpack (less than 8 kg) made things nice and quick. I avoided the people trying to “help” you get a hotel reservation - and took a taxi down to Th Khao San, which is known for being an all-night party street overflowing with foreigners, but also has lots of cheap guesthouses which are open 24 hours. I walked around until I found one and crashed.

Slept until about 8 in the morning, then got up, checked out and wandered out for my first Thai food experience. I found a little café/restaurant down a little alley, with outdoor tables under some big trees. Some of the trees were wrapped with cloth, in a way that seemed sort of religious.

Enjoyed coffee and pad thai for about 100 baht. The food in Thailand was really cheap and almost always delicious!

After that, I wandered around, and eventually ended up taking a tuk tuk where the guy offered to drive me around for a few hours for 20 baht. I realized that it was probably a bit of a scam, but for that cheap, I didn’t really care where he took me. He did take me to a few temples, and a large Buddha. He also took me to a travel agency where I booked an overnight train and a bus for later in the week, and to a couple of shops so he could get some kind of commission, which got a bit annoying, (and which I’d been warned about in the guidebook) but I didn’t really have any plans for Bangkok anyway, so I just glanced in the shops and later did some walking around.

The traffic in Bangkok was nightmarish to say the least, and I don’t think we were really driving at a particularly busy time. Cars, trucks, buses, tuk tuks, scooters, motorcycles and taxis all just filling in any available space and merging into too few lanes. But it looked entertaining!

I got to Hua Lumphong station at about 6 pm for a 6:30 overnight train to Chiang Mai, which actually left on time. On the train, I had a good conversation with a guy from Bali who was travelling with his friend. A Thai lady was sitting across from his friend, and everyone spoke pretty good English.

The sleeper train was actually pretty cool. We had seats (2 per side, facing each other) and when we ordered dinner, they pulled out a table from a slot in the floor. The train food was pretty cheap, but otherwise not very spectacular. If you find yourself taking the train, I’d buy some food at a bakery or something instead. Sometime after 8 pm, the staff came around and converted the seats to beds. The facing seats slid together to form the bottom bunk, and the top bunk folded down from above. It was really quite comfortable, and only cost about 800 Baht. I actually made the reservations online, with help from http://www.seat61.com/Thailand.htm.

Bangkok photos are here.