Back to Thailand

After leaving Cambodia, I arrived back in Bangkok and realized that during the trip, I had already come through Bangkok's airport five times. Along with feeling excited about continuing the trip, I was feeling apprehensive about joining my tour. I was going to be spending the next 3 and 1/2 weeks with a group of people traveling in Laos and Vietnam in some very basic conditions (after spending a year enjoying some very nonbasic hotels and resorts in India). I joined up with my tour group on Sunday morning and found that aside from me, there were only 3 other people on the tour until we get to Vietnam. Two native Australians (although I use that term loosely since one of them is a world traveler and has now sold all of her belonging to spend the rest of her life traveling) and one native UKer who has been living in Oz for the last 5 years. Clearly, I will need to do my part to represent for the Americans. We had one day in Bangkok and then took the overnight train to Chaing Mai.

Chaing Mai is a great town in the north of Thailand. It is a great spot to go trekking, mountain biking, and the Gibbon Experience (you can sign up to spend days and nights in tree housing helping to save the Gibbons and do some ziplining). The train was pretty nice, even the bunks (a bit more comfortable than those in India - better bedding) but late - so we didn't arrive in Chaing Mai until early afternoon. So with only a few hours to see Chaing Mai, we trekked around and town visited a couple of temples in town. You can see that the town of Chaing Mai has been built up around the tourist industry with loads of guest hoses, travel agencies and coffee shops and restaurants. I can see why people use it as a base for other activities in and around the area.

My favorite part of the day was our visit to the Mountain Temple - Wat Phra That Doi Sthep. It was on top of a mountain (as the name would suggest) and you could only reach it after climbing 300 steps. The temple itself was beautiful. Built in the 14th century, it has two large golden stupas. We arrived just after sunset and saw some great views of the city below.