I was strangely sad leaving Chiang Mai after living there for the past almost 2 months, even if I am going back right after Christmas!

After saying bye and happy Christmas to some friends, I waited at Jai Dii House for my night bus to Bangkok. Luckily I was able to leave my big backpack there until I come back so all I had was a small backpack for the weekend. The overnight buses in Thailand are notorious for theft so if you've a bag in the storage compartment you can be sure it will be rifled through by those opportunist thieves. It's happened to me on nearly every bus journey I've taken here even though my backpack was always locked, fortunately I keep my valuables with me on the bus. I even know of a girl who had her converse shoes stolen from her backpack!

Eventually the songtheaw (thai taxi/pick up truck) that was supposed to pick us up at 6pm, arrived just after 7 (Thai time!) We stopped at several guesthouses on the way to the bus station, all the while listening to an arrogant old Australian man who thought he knew everything there was to know about travelling in Asia. Not surprisingly he seemed to have a soft spot for Phuket, Pattaya and Patong, the renowned sex tourist destinations. An Australian women, who had just found herself travelling on her own for the first time after her friend had to fly home suddenly, was asking lots of questions about how to get to her next destinations. I told her a few things but it was difficult to get a word in edgeways with the opinionated old man throwing in his two cents worth at every opportunity! Made for an interesting journey!

We eventually arrived at the bus station and our bus was there waiting for us. I got straight on the bus with my backpack while the others put their big bags underneath in the storage compartment. Considering the time of year, I was surprised to find that the bus wasn't even half full. Of course this might have had something to do with the fact that it was the cheapest ticket to Bangkok, not a VIP bus (three isn't much difference only the VIP buses are usually full!). So we each had two seats to ourselves, and I found a seat with double the amount of leg room! There was even a movie showing in English, a Saoirse Ronan film called Hannah. It didn't look that interesting so I read my book, Shantaram, instead (great book).

We stopped for food at about 11 at one of these big service stations that survives on bus business. I'm pretty sure I've stopped at that same place on all 4 previous trips to/from Chiang mai! Dodgy food, supersize packs of sickly sweet Thai biscuits and squat toilets! I came prepared with my take away dinner and toilet paper!!!

We had 20 minutes there before embarking on the rest of the 11 hour journey. I was chatting to the australian woman who was very grateful to get advice about Bangkok and booking buses to the south and Cambodia. I felt like a travel agent!

I didn't sleep very much for the rest of the journey. No matter how much you try it's very difficult to get comfy on a bus that only has reclining seats! I was lying across the seat at one point with my legs on the edge of the seat across the way but had my feet slapped away! We arrived in Bangkok at an ungodly hour as usual, 5am! It always amazes me that the bus from CM to Bangkok which is supposed to arrive at 7, always arrives a few hours earlier while the return bus in the other direction invariably arrives 2 hours late even though they both use the same route!

On an upside from all that, I arrived at Elinor's apartment just in time to capture some awesome sunrise photos of the Bangkok skyline!