Nong Saphan

Whole Lotta Nothing

With a long lie in (except from Alfie who had his top bunk mate drop a phone on him at 2am) and nothing planned, it was definitely a rest day. We had a few things on a list that we needed to do but other than that it was sitting in a park (beautiful park by the way).

1) Breakfast ✅️
Super easy - counting the small wins 💪

2) Book jungle trek from Chiang Mai ✅️
We've got a 2 day 1 night trek through the jungle, staying in a Hill Tribe village overnight, elephant feeding and bathing, and bamboo rafting all for £22 a day per person! Plus we made sure the Hill Tribe and Elephants were being done ethically as it's been a big problem in Thailand.

3) Book a hostel in Chiang Mai ✅️
Only for a night so not a big stross .

4) Lunch ✅️
There was this yummy street cart right next to the park we sat in which either gave us pork or duck with some rice - I have no idea which . On the way back we walked past some water lizards just roaming about which are basically mini dragons.

5) Apply to the Jonathan Conville course in the Alps ✅️
Deadline was looming and we'd been putting it off for too long now. This actually took a good couple hours as each section had a 600 character limit. Fingers crossed!

6) Break ✅️
Not originally on the list but a quick stop at the calisthenics park and the 7/11 and we were golden. We saw some crows (or maybe ravens) too and it was starting to feel like a wild zoo .

7) Find an ATM ✅️
All ATMs in Thailand charge an ATM fee of about £5 so it was worth getting a big sum out now which is why I wanted an ATM not surrounded by people which was most along the roads.

8) Dinner ✅️
We headed *back* to the market we had already been twice as I wanted more shirts but he didn't have any more in the right size yet. Alfie also got a Valentines "gift" for his girlfriend Daisy who is set to join us in Cambodi in less than a month. I didn't get a picture of it as he quickly put it in his bag but I will try and get one ASAP.

9) Pick up our dropped bags from the hostel ✅️
Inbetween the market and our skytrain station so went smoothly and allowed us to top up on water as I definitely haven't been drinking enough.

10) Head to bus station ✅️
A metro and and a straight forward walk - not much to report.

11) Bus to Chiang Mai 🦧
This was meant to be barely a task - just hop on bus but this was definitely the most stressful part and alot of monkeying around (hence the monkey). As I queue up to get my ticket, I look at my booking on my phone and see 12/03/24 instead of 13/02/24, at first I panic but then the clerk gives us 2 tickets and sends us to the gate. The tickets read 12/03/67 which confirms my thought that the e ticket was a mess between Thai and English dates. We wait at the terminal and meet a English dude also called Sam who was getting the same bus and as the bus was a bit late we were a bit anxious. 5 minutes later, we board what can be described as a luxury bus. We had opted for an £8 more expensive First Class rather than Gold as it had more room. Settling in to the MASSAGE chair it was less than 1 minute till someone had the same seats as us and it was confirmed that I had booked the wrong tickets. We're ushered off the bus and collect our bags as taken back to the ticket clerk, who luckily was a very nice guy. There were exactly 2 seats left on the 22.15 (our original bus was at 21.45) and he booked us in. We didn't get the £8 refund for the downgrade but atleast we didn't have to spend another day in Bangkok. It's a good city but it's busy, noisy, and I can feel the air quality taking days off my life expectancy every breath I take. Alfie was somehow very chill about my fuckup - though it was a shame to see the luxury we were missing out on. Boarding our new bus (the correct month this time), we were both sat next to strangers but Alfie was behind me. And to be honest, the seats didn't recline as much and there was a little less leg room but it wasn't as bad as we feared. Receiving a blanket, some drinks and some snacks, it's now time to try and get some sleep.Read more