Ban Thale Wa

I can't believe it's only a week since we landed on to the mega trip!

After last night's 'crazy' late night we had a lie in and took our time packing up to leave Yin, the dog daughter and the Cube hostel. It was a slightly crazy establishment, yesterday I pulled the curtain pole down and the shower head flew off most of the time but would go back in a second if I were in Bangkok again.

From there we ditched our bags at the station left luggage where there was a sign about leaving no food in bags because of the rats. Nice. We decided to walk the 1 mile to Jim Thompson's house to avoid the inevitable scam attempts in any mode of transport. I'm glad we did as we saw a nice temple, visited Tesco Thailand and found a geocache (for any fellow caching geeks I also dropped my first retrieved trackable). Plus a dead crocodile in the river which was less nice.

The destination of our walk was Jim Thompson's House. JT was an American ex-spy who fell in love with Thailand and rejuvenated its silk export industry then disappeared without a trace. Whilst he was alive he had 6 traditional Thai houses brought to Bangkok and put them together to make a new house. We had a guided tour around with a hilarious guide. The house is beautiful and it was actually really interesting for the random house of a man we'd never heard of.

Our last stop in Bangkok was the Caturday Cat Cafe for a late lunch and drink. As the name suggests it's a cafe where there's lots of cats. I had mixed feelings about it. The cats seemed well cared for and were very pretty but people were agitating them by picking them up and no one was stopping them even though there were rules. Rules!

We're now on a sleeper train heading to Chiang Mai. As it only cost about £30 each we have a private room to house our bunk bed as opposed to 80 bunks in a carriage further down the train. Oh the luxury! (See photo). We've already checked out the 'restaurant' for strange ready meals and are now tucked up on beds which are definitely not memory foam. There's a shower which I'm tempted to use but also imagine it's a terrible idea when your balance is not on point. There's a TV mostly showing film clips of the king but also tells you if the toilet is occupied. I think the blankets might actually be big towels. I'm on top bunk. I'm not sure I'll ever get down again so the next 10 weeks of blog might be about my sleeper train adventures - well you can order the ready meals through TV.

Tune in tomorrow for my update on trains. Edge of your seat stuff.Read more