The return to Bangkok

Today it was time to get back to Bangkok and I´ll leave with the feeling that I should have spent more time in Chiang Mai, a couple of days just weren't enough for all the things this town has to offer but I am on a tight schedule and New Zealand is the priority.

As the train was leaving at 17:55 I was a bit limited as to what I could do so in the end I decided to spend some quality time in the morning just relaxing and writting the blog entry from the previous day and then I just went for a stroll, I still had plenty of temples to visit. :-)

But I couldn't leave the guest house without taking the compulsory picture:

Some of the smaller temples are worth visiting not for the temple in itself but for its surroundings, the peaceful garden, the adjacent temples/houses

Phra Singa is the most important temple in Chiang Mai but you can deduce that by just looking at the sheer amount of people queueing up to go in.

The queue continues to the right and left:

Once inside this is what it is like


The yellow things hanging from the ceiling are donations

The surrounding temples weren't less impressive, including the one shown below, look at the monks inside:

They look soooooo real, don't you think? I thought they were real until I got really close.

The houses within the temple boundaries were also very decorated

Closer to the hotels area (where most tourist on the higher-end of the budget scale tend to stay), temples have adapted to the times...



Have you noticed the electronic scrolling panel on the right hand side?

The decoration on this temple was truly amazing, the level of detail on the carvings...

While making my way throughout the temples I also came across these guys trying some acrobatics on their motorbikes

And Phra Sing wasn't the only popular temple

And that was Chiang Mai for me, time to get back to the body preservation chamber also known as "the train".

After negotiating prices with various tuk-tuk drivers I managed to find one willing to take me for 100 Bath (a little bit over 2 €) (it seems to be true what they say, the third one was the charm). Tuk-tuk trip to the train station, passing by a local market:,


Chiang Mai train station

And this is what the 2nd class carriage looks like:

Have you noticed the girl on the right wearing a jumper, long jeans and with the coat on her legs despite of being at 30C outside?

Some other passengers were even wearing woolly hats!

I reckon that by the amount of time I spent in the body preservation chamber I must have rejuvenated at the very least 5 years... although it's hard to tell because one of the first symptoms of hypothermia is losing all feeling on your extremities.

Wearing three t-shirts, a jumper, long trousers and socks helped to prevent the frost bite but today I woke up with a sore throat... it looks as if I may have to skip the diving trip after all. A shame, I was really looking forward to it... :-(

This is what the second class looks like. The seats get transformed into beds.
They also provide bed linen once you are on the go.

And they have a menu... I must have missed it on first class...

I have to recognise that I enjoyed the trip in 2nd class more than in 1st, in 2nd you get to talk to all sorts of people, sharing and exchanging travelling tips and best places to visit...sometimes in other countries, whereas in 1st you are on your own, in your little cubicle.



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