We booked the sleeper train from Ayutayah station to take us straight to chiang mai, the train was meant to arrive at 19:45 but was running late so we hastily boarded it at 20:20 when it arrived. The train arrives and departs with one minute so there was a hurried scurry of backpackers running down the platform to find their correct cart and get on board, we were on cart 8.

When boarded, our seats were not yet set up and we then realised we had to prompt a staff member working in the cart to transform our normal looking seats into what would become our bed for the overnight journey. The top bunk was folded away neatly, you would have no idea it was even there until unfolded with the mattress placed on it and a convenient curtain to pull over for privacy. We couldn't decide who would sleep on the top and bottom bunk. I slept on the top as it was quite a bit more narrow than the bottom. Guess i drew the short straw here as Dan ended up with not only a lot more room to sleep but also a window. Nonetheless, it was comfortable.

I lay in bed reading my book for a good hour until i decided it was time to get some rest. The train would often halt suddenly and break pretty harshly but it all added to the experience and wasn't much bother. Breakfast was available on the train though we both decided against it as we loaded up on crisps and chocolate for the what we thought would be a 12 hour journey.

After around 3 hours sleep, the Russian couple opposite us woke me up. It was really only the woman, talking in a volume which was a bit too loud for a sleeper train, her boyfriend was speaking in respectful whispers, i made a point of being woken up by making a loud tutting noise, she soon shut up and allowed me to continue my sleep.

When i had gotten into the sleepy state, it was around 7am when i was woken up by a train worker shouting "orange juice", it was breakfast time in the journey and as our train was due to arrive in chiang mai only an hour and a quarter after this i thought i may as well get up. It was only until we overheard a fellow passenger asking staff how long till we reached chiang mai to which he replied 2 hours. At first i thought it was sarcasm, the thai's idea of a joke. Boy was i wrong. We ended up arriving in Chiang mai at 12:30pm!! A whopping 4 hours later than expected! We all shuffled off the train and out onto chiang mai station, it was cool hearing all the accents and languages of fellow backpackers that surrounded us, we may all hail from different corners of the world but we all shared the same epic adventure.

After a well deserved cigarette (i forgot to mention me and dan had a cheeky fag in the train toilets, although if anything we did the travellers a favour by masking up the stench of urine with cigarette smoke) we hopped on a shared taxi with a group of Americans and a family. I kept myself entertained by exchanging funny faces with the little boy sitting opposite me next to his father, he had a cute little face that looked very similar to my little cousin will back home. During the ride to our guesthouse that we managed to get at a good price the night before online, we passed a few novelties from home, pizza hut, Mcdonalds and subway. This excited my very much as i have been dying for a tuna sandwich for a long time now!

We hopped out of the tuktuk-like-taxi and began to find our way to our home for the next 3 nights; Lanna Guesthouse. The walk in the heat with all my luggage was getting a bit much so dan left me to sit down for a while while he located our accommodation. Check in went pretty smoothly, we forgot we were getting a sleeper train and so had booked to check in the night before but we were able to change this pretty easily online through the booking site. The young girl at reception guided us to our room, it's pretty decent with a fan, double bed, private bathroom, hot shower and a window! After showering and changing we were off out again to explore chiang mai. It reminds me a bit of khao san road in bangkok only on a larger scale! We wandered around some of the markets and ended up in ( and i'm not too ashamed to say, McDonalds). I went for a double cheeseburger set, this includes a massive portion of fries (extremely salty i might add) and a drink of your choice. I noticed that they sell a ham and cheese pie, similar to the apple pie like the english mcdonalds but a savoury version as well as kfc style fried chicken.

We both felt defeated by the massive mcdonalds so set out again to wander around. We passed a beautiful temple so Dan went in to have a look. I waited outside as i wasn't dressed appropriately, i had indulged in a pair of denim shorts and a top, minus the sarong as i wanted the sun to get to my legs. I don't feel like i missed out on much because to a point, once you've seen one temple, you've kind of seen them all!

We continued looking around the shops and market stalls. We came across a few book shops where you can buy or exchange to have a look around for what to read next once we finish our current books, they have such a wide selection available so i shouldn't have trouble picking one i like. We walked passed many bamboo tattoo parlours and flicked through the portfolios to get dan some ideas for some ink he would like to acquire during this trip, there seems to be a tattoo shop on every corner!

The sun was beginning to set so we made our way to the famous night bazaar. We've been on the lookout for cool, unique silver rings to buy so we looked around some of the jewellery shops. I spotted a nice one that looks like a delicate feather, i may come back to buy this before we leave chiang mai. Inside the might market there was a fish restaurant that had hundreds of live king prawns in tanks, to be honest, seeing how long their tentacle type things are kind of put me off! I wasn't prepared to pay 500TB for fresh devil looking shellfish anyway!

After a browse around the night bazaar we were contemplating going to a Huay Thai boxing match. We felt more inclined to see this as there is a boxer from England, and as Dan is the patriotic type he was well up for it. 450TB I feel could be better spent elsewhere although it would be a pretty cool experience! We found a nice little outdoor restaurant in a cascade of trees and a small pond so we decided to eat there. I went for a traditional chiang mai curry; a chilli and coconut soup like curry with chicken and noodles, something i know my mum would LOVE while Dan had some stir fried chicken and rice; boring! Ha! We hadn't realised the time and it seemed we were too late to see the boxing and figured we could do that another night so instead we decided to have a few drinks at a bar.

There are always young girls dressed provocatively sitting outside bars, prostitution seems to be a pretty blatant thing in Thailand, almost part of the culture. I wasn't really feeling to have any more beer, instead i fancied a cocktail of some sort so it was convenient when we walked passed a bar on the main road with mojitos of 70TB. We sat in this bar playing a few games of the retro game "connect 4" while sipping on our beverages. The bar were playing one of Eddie Grant's albums, the same one my mum would play when i was younger so i didn't feel shy to sing and dance to these songs, dan found it entertaining! 2 mojitos down, i was feeling comfortably tipsy so we then decided to grab a tuktuk back to our guesthouse to get a reasonably early night ready for our full day in chiang mai in the morning!