Day 4/72: Bangkok to Chiang Mai

A relaxed travel day today. We woke up in Bangkok, packed up our stuff and had a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast. We had that kind of time where there's not quite enough to do anything, but too much to warrant doing nothing, so we got an taxi to the airport early and had some spicy beef ramen noodles, a mango smoothie and watched the world go by. The flight was easy, and gave us each a free meal! After an hour and a half we arrived in Chaing Mai.

We got quickly shepherded from the airport, into a taxi and were at the hostel in no time. Nice homely place, and the desk guy was very helpful and showed us around. We put our kit away and went for a wander. In many ways Chiang Mai is similar to Bangkok, the smell, noise, the traffic, tuk tuks, crazy mopeds, temples, stalls are all the same. However the environment is different. Overall, it's calmer, but things seem less separated. Where Bangkok is mental most of time, the tranquility of temples and gardens is astonishing. It always seems impossible that just beyond the wall of the temple gardens we were being bombarded with taxi and tuk tuk offers.
Here, there are no skyscrapers and less busy roads, and much more green wildlife. People are chilling outside shops and just watch the world go by. However it's all closer together and you have 15 tuk tuks driving right up to the entrance of a temple which is an interesting contrast.

We wandered around some stunning shrines and then down the main road to a Tailor. Tom, lacking a tux, wanted to get one made with a snazzy lining and it can be done very cheaply in Thailand. We had a chat with a shop owner who talked us through all the materials and prices (he loves his cashmere) and decided to possibly come back the next day to sleep on it. Then we wandered back taking in the sights, stopped at a 7/11 for some supplies and headed for a coffee shop to get some ideas for our stay. A rough plan has been made and we're going to do some hiking tomorrow!Read more