Bangkok to Chang Mai
Bangkok centre hotel where the G adventures tour was starting was much further out from the busy Koh San road but it was a very nice hotel, my room on floor 7 had a great view of the city.
I had joined the tour a few hours late as I had been on the tour to the bridge the same day. I would be sharing rooms with a guy called Dean from Sunderland. Everyone had decided to head out so Koh San road to see the nightlife, I thought I better go too even if I was still hanging from the night before.
The next morning we met at 10 for breakfast and a group meeting. Today the group had a free day so some people wanted to go into china town and head to the floating market but I didn't want to do that as I had already been. I met up with Franzisa and did some last minute shopping on Koh San road before I went on my trek and she went to the islands. 100% guinnuin fakes!
I took her back to my hotel that afternoon and we spent the day by the pool. Just what we both really needed!! :)
I met the rest of my tour later that night before heading to the train station for our overnight sleeper train to Chang Mai.
The sleeper trains here in Thailand are much much better than the ones on India. You have a nice big seating area for 4 people so we played cards and drank beer until the bed man comes and pulls out the top bunk and makes the bottom up too. As we couldn't play cards any more Shi our group leader tells us about the "party" carriage!!
The restaurant carriage at night turns into a bit of a disco with flashing lights and a disco ball, the beers were extortionately expensive ... Well for Thailand anyway!
We all woke to the noise of "ooooraaange juice" imagine a really annoying Thai voice repeating that over and over to wake you up! They have to get the seats out back together and collect all the linen before the trains pulls into the station! So we were all woken up at about 5.30am for that! Although I did sleep well I think we all felt a bit dead by the time we got off the train... I'm sure the alcohol had nothing to do with it!
The hotel we were staying in that night was really nice! Certainly one of the best parts about being on these trips is the fact you stay in some really nice hotels and makes a great change from the hostels I have been.
After breakfast and another group meeting with Shi we made our way to another... Temple! One of my favourite temples on the trip so far! It had been set on top of a large mountain just outside the city and had great views over the entire area!
I received another blessing from a monk and another string wrist band to go with it. You can't cut off the strong bands as they protect you from evil spirits and bad karma! It must be working as I have had nothing short of an amazing trip since I had left the UK! Starting to look like a traveler now, I own 4 vest tops which I would NEVER wear at home, I have loads of bands on my wrist and ageing backpack and of course the beard on my face.
That night we met with the tour guides who would take us into the jungle for the next 3 days. The jungle trek was the main part of this tour and I "think" everyone is looking forward to it... seems strange to book a walking tour and then moan about walking?? One of our guides was called "oo la la" and the other I think his name was "can" both really interesting people and funny. Can had been a monk for 15 years before becoming a tour guide to learn more about the world.
We had a group meal in the famous Chang mai night bazaar which had to be one of the largest market places I have seen on my travels! You can buy anything from backpacks to knives and of course fake rolexes which dean brought 2 as he thinks he can make some money when he gets home! We all agreed to go to the "ladyboy cabaret show". Now I was expecting maybe a American style "beauty pageant" maybe even a bit boring, but what we got was really quiet different! We arrived at a back street bar with high fencing around it and a fairly large crowed gathered inside around a stage. We had front row seats to the action as Shi had pre booked us a table. We orded drinks and then suddenly the curtain opened to some very revealing outfits and some even worse music! We had dancing of all kinds, from country music to Britney and Madonna all the really camp songs they could find! It was shocking more than anything! They had very tight pants on which made us all wonder where they had there bits stored or if they had maybe had the snip! Some of the ladyboys were very nice in a strange way but a few were well...worse than a pantomime drag queen!
I was lucky/unlucky enough to even have a little lap dance with 2 of them!