Chiang Mai Part One: Northbound

Now Playing: "Road Trippin'" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

I'm a little behind on posts. I haven't been in the room much since arriving at Chiang Mai and our hostel has an internet ration, so I have to catch up on everything in small bursts. But I hope to get up to speed by tomorrow morning.

(Side note: There are lizards crawling across the table in front of me and I keep having to shoo them away. I've never had this problem before.)

I arrived at the train station in Bangkok at around 11 a.m. on the 19th to board an overnight train to Chiang Mai. The night before I had wondered if the train would have wifi and I would be able to catch up on some writing and email-replying-to. I laughed at the thought of it as soon as I boarded. Blue seats, metal walls, rusty metal ladders leading up to the upper bunks, and long windows. That was about it.

I sat down across the aisle from a German backpacker named Marco and was soon joined by another German backpacker and a Chiang Mai local. We chatted for a while, had a few beers and some dried squid to start the trip as we rumbled our way through the Thai countryside. The train was hot and we would periodically have to lift the windows when we passed through small rainstorms. But the countryside was beautiful. The landscape alternated between small cities, slums, and open fields and farmland with controlled brush fires filling the cabin with smoke.

After the sun had set I bought a couple of chicken fried rice dishes for me and Marco, which ended up being the worst meal of the trip so far, but by far the best train food I've ever had. We chatted for a while, mostly about FIFA soccer and Bayern Munich (which was largely a one-sided conversation on his part) until it was time to fold out the upper bunk beds and confine ourselves to our respective tiny tube-shaped beds and attempt to fall asleep in the wet heat. My feet were propped up on my backpack, my arms were laced around a guardrail so I wouldn't fall, and anything valuable was hidden from sight as we chugged along to finish up the 14-hour train ride.

We arrived in the grey early morning and Marco and I decided to find a hostel in Chiang Mai together. In hindsight, I wouldn't say I regret this decision, but it has led to the adopted mantra "make friends, but not commitments". But that's a story for another lizard-infested night.

Tomorrow we are off on a two-day expedition through the jungles outside of Chiang Mai to hike, white-water raft, ride elephants, feed them, learn how to take care of them (get ready, roommates), and camp alongside the river. This is the part of the trip for which I have been most excited since I started planning it. Until departure, I'm off for some street food and the Chiang Mai night bazaar. I am slowly falling in love with this town.