Phuket to Chiang Mai…

We returned the scooter early in the morning to it’s rightful owner and needed to get to the right bus terminal. Luckily we did some recon the day before to know where it was, so instead of walking the 7km to the bus station, we hauled a tuk-tuk over to take us to the right bus terminal for our next part of the trip. After successfully renegotiation of the price this is…

The busdrive from Phuket to Surat Thani took us four and a half hours, but we were happy as we were (again) the only whites on the bus and had some fun ‘listening’ to the conversations between the Thai pépé (whom was completely deaf ) and the driver. The driver even dropped us off at the trainstation which was 15km from his normal stop, so Ko-Pun-Kra (thank you) mister driver! This avoided us a long walk in the tropical sun or paying a taxi to get there.

At the trainstation whoever, we ran out of luck. The train we wanted to take the next day to Bangkok was fully booked, as was the one the day after that… So we took the nighttrain. We had 3 hours to spare and walked a bit around Surat Thani, and finally our train arrived and we left for the 12hours trip from 1830 to 0630 the next morning.

When we arrived in Bangkok, as usual I did my homework and knew where to get the tickets for the next train to Chiang Mai, at what price and I also knew this one leaves at 0830… And it was 0700 when we arrived at Bangkok, so plenty of time for a quick breakfast in the station, and off we go for another 13 hours from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, 0830 to 2130…

Good thing is that on the train we met Melanie, a Dutch girl (not her fault – but despite this she’s a nice girl) traveling by herself on her way for a 6 months trip. She doesn’t have a place yet in Chiang Mai, so we invited her to check out the place I found earlier on the net while having my breakfast in the trainstation – multitasking, you know… 😉

The idea is that we will hire again a scooter in Chiang Mai for 10 days or so; to check out the Northern part of Thailand, including the “golden triangle”. For you who are wondering: hey they changed plans as two up on a bike wasn’t working out? Ask Kim. I think it’s a woman thing. Don’t really understand it. So it must be a woman thing…

Anyways, of the last 36 hours we’ve been 26 hours on a train, almost 5 hours on a bus and 5 hours traveling and waiting between the bus and the trains…

Seb.