(22nd April – 6th May 2015)
Chiang Mai is a place where I have been wanting to go for ages. It’s in the (slightly) cooler north of Thailand.
When I lived in Surin a group of teachers from my internship went for a long weekend, but I joined another group to an island called Koh Chang.
When I had finished my travels in Vietnam, in December 2013, I had a flight booked back to Thailand so that I had time to visit Chiang Mai before flying home to Scotland, but I loved Vietnam so much that I didn’t take the flight, and traveled back to Bangkok overland instead.
Now, when planning this trip, I have made absolutely sure I have time to go!
And here was the time.
I had looked through my options of getting there from Bangkok – train, bus or plane?
The cost of a flight was outside of my budget really.
The train sounded fun, I like train journeys and it’s overnight meaning I would save on the cost of accommodation, though still quite expensive for me, and I would have had to book the sleeper a week before hand.
I’ve heard things about the tourist buses in Thailand. They pick you up from the main tourist market/pub street – Ko San Road. Your bags go underneath, as on the majority of the long distance buses, but what you don’t see is someone going in there with them. There are so many stories about people’s bags being raked through while they are travelling and unawares of what is happening.
The choice seemed clear to me. I wasn’t going to fly. I wasn’t getting the overnight train and I most definitely wasn’t getting a tourist bus out of Ko San Road.
The Adventures of Ruth 