25 May

Aboard the train we settled in for some reading until 01h00 before trying to get some sleep. Lying on the small mattress, I decide to sleep with my backpack at my legs considering it has our passports, camera and laptop in and not wanting to leave it in the isle where it could easily be stolen.

Neither Leanne nor myself had a good night sleep, the lights shone in over her curtain and my bed had more metal than mattress. At least I got some sleep from 06h00 to 08h00 pulling the sheet over my head while the sun shone in.

Our breakfast arrived just after 08h00, we will try to avoid train breakfasts from now on. Lucky for us we had packed in banana bread and nuts for later in the day. It came in handy as a locomotive had fallen off the tracks the previous day resulting in our trip being delayed for 3 hours in midday heat with only a fan. At least this gave us time to catch up on our books. We arrived at Chang Mai at 16h00 where our transport picked us up and took us to the Winner Hotel where we would stay and rest before departing for our 3 day trek through the forest.

The evening we wandered through the street market amusing ourselves with all that was on offer. We found the food court were we enjoyed a green and yellow curry with 4 pieces of sushi to round it all off. Returning to our restaurant we bought some more supplies from 7/11 and fresh fruit to enjoy on the walk back. At home we drank our Singha while watching the bucket list and downloading our movies from the video camera to the laptop, all in all, very relaxing.