The overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai took about 14 hours, and was much more comfortable that we'd anticipated. The trains are pretty old, I'd guess from the 50's, and haven't really been updated since then.
Carrie: The aisles are narrow, and wobbling down them with huge packs on is quite a feat. On the ceiling loud, racketty fans push the hot air around. There are drawn curtains for each bunk. I got the top one, where I had the option of closing the drape to shut out the fluorescent light, but then I had to sacrifice the blessed, blessed fan.
Despite this, the sleeper train is a very nice way to travel. Stretched out, it reminded me a lot of laying out in sleeping bags with Larry in the back of the stationwagon on the way to Grandma's house. Having once read a story about a little girl getting off a train, not at her stop, but where they had stopped to clear the tracks of snow, I could only sleep in fits and spurts for fear of missing our stop and continuing on to who-knows-where. Eric popped in his earplugs and went promptly to bed. I woke so early, to the sound of a woman selling fried chicken for breakfast in the aisles. Then crawled down to Eric's bunk to look out the window.
As morning continued on, the beds folded into benches and the scenery became more fascinating as we stopped at little towns to drop or add passengers. The train is a lovely way to see the countryside, with the farmers in wide brimmed hats, long pants and sleeves, and scaves up covering their face and throat. And our first glimpse of water buffalos both white and brown, with huge eyes, sweet ears, and loose skin seeming to melt off. Everywhere there are banana trees, the stickerbushes of Thailand! And some plants I was surprised to recognize, morning glories. There is no sign of monkeys yet, but I hardly expect them to be dangling from every passing tree. People are friendly, in the small towns, people might wave at the train as we passed.
On Thai trains, people open the outside doors between cars to sit or smoke, so you could sit there and watch the world go by at very high speeds. They also toss garbage right out the window, not the passengers, but the crew! I'm frequently reminded of the regulations our government has cooked up, some -like littering- absolutely necessary, others -to prevent one from sitting open to the tracks as the slip below you -made only to spare the stupid from natural selection. And yet everyone seems to get by well enough without handrails and smooth pavement and food sanitition laws.
Eric: We arrived in Chiang Mai at about 1:00pm and went right for our guesthouse, the CM Blue House. It was a modern place, and I'd certainly recommend it, but it was definately more hotel style than guesthouse. They only had rooms with air-conditioning available for that night, we left to stay at Gap's house for rest of our Chiang Mai visit.
Carrie: The city is modern, and much less crowded than Bangkok. Like Bangkok there are highway style road, and the rest seem to be hardly more than alleys. In fact most of them are the sort that I wouldn't walk down in the US, except here, they are just the way roads come. It is also noticable cooler. We are much cheered by this.
The vendors are much less pushy, and streets easier to navigate. Ah, except that the road names are these long foreign words (what else can I expect) like Ratchamandamneon, not to be confused with Ratchamankha. Try reading those while driving past in the Tuk Tuk at night.
Around any corner you might walk into a flower market or fish market or food stands, not that these areas would be exclusively anything. You never know what you'll find. Right at the end of our guesthouse's alley is another wat. They're about as common as churches, but so much grander. And yet we must have walked past it two or three times while concentrating on our guide book or road signs.
Everybody has a dog, or three. In The big city the dogs didn't make eye contact; they would go about completely on their own agenda, with lives in parallel to humans, but seemingly void of interaction. In Chiang Mai the dogs hang out in from of someones gate or sidewalk shop. They eat scraps from the restaurants mostly. No Science Diet here.
There are few cats. And shorter clubbed tails seem to run in their genetics. And no Siamese anywhere. (I can't take credit for noticing this myself. Our Chiang Dao guide, Christopher pointed it out to us.)
Most of our first day in Chiang Mai was shopping at stalls and street venders, including the huge night bazaar. There are three or so levels to this shopping block. It's so extensive. There are wood carvings, and antiques and furniture and woven cloths. There are areas of just artists, doing amazing reproductions from pictures or (very patient) seated customers. I picked up teak bookmarks with imprinted elephants for my kids at school, what a good teacher I am. We're getting decent at haggling, but still have a long way to go.
We mostly purchased gifts, so the details will have to wait until after we return to the US. There is a good story we could insert here about bidding one vender against her neighbor for our business, but we hate to give away our Christmas surprises.
To be fair, there is also a good failure story, where we found out we were grossly overcharged, but had walked away happy. (Grossly overcharged is such a relative term, as anything we purchase would have cost many times more in the US. People here certainly have less than we do, (or will have the potential to have in up coming years) so can we really begrudge them what would only be a few dollars?)
The market did have a courtyard where some Thais were performing a very traditional type of dance. Very neat to watch. I'm certain Eric got some good pictures.
Most of our trip so far has been shopping, and we're both sick of it. Even though I knew that our adventures wouldn't start the second we stepped off the place, I must admit that I'm disappointed that our trip has been so limited. Fortunately, the next couple of days prove to make up for the tedium of shopping.
