We got up early in the morning this time so as to secure a place on the bus to Chiang Mai. The Thais dont seem to have come up with an advanced booking system for bus tickets, so unless you're there early on the day you pretty much always face a few hours waiting. Luckily our 6am start paid off, and we reached Chiang Mai not long after 1pm. As we planned to spend a week here we spent some time choosing a guesthouse we were happy to stay in for a while. Chiang Mai...

The second of our temple-site visits in Central Thailand was in the town of Sukhothai, about 6 hours north of Thailand. Despite its development relative to some of the other countries around it, Thailand can be pretty difficult to get around by bus, especially on the popular routes. The main reason is that you can't book tickets in advance (unless you board in Bangkok), even for their expensive VIP buses. It means you have to get to the bus station ages in advanc...

The historical town of Ayutthaya used to be the capital town of Thailand before it was moved to Bangkok. The city is situated on an island formed by the confluence of 3 rivers flowing southward. The main reason for our visit was to explore the ruins that form part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Burmese Army sacked the capital in 1767 and left most of the grander sights in tatters, which makes it all the more interesting now! The first temple on our route...

From Bangkok we made the 2-hour bus journey west to Kanchanaburi, home of the Thailand-Myanmar "Death Railway". We decided to walk to our accommodation (and regretted it, again) which was in the north of the city close to the river. Although there was the option to stay in floating bungalows on the river itself we opted for one closer to the street...a wise decision when we saw the mosquitos at dusk! That night we went to a small restaurant called Fine ...

We caught the overnight train to Bangkok as it seemed like the best way to cover such a long distance. It was actually alright, mainly because I won the toss and opted for the larger, darker bottom bunk. In return I had to guard the bags all night. Arriving in Bangkok is an experience at the best of times, let alone having just been on a train for 12 hours. We had heard bad things about the tuk-tuks, and the buses were too much to manage, so we thought we'd walk ...