So here I sit on my sleeper watching as the train stirs.  People wake start ordering juice and coffee.  A few use the immobility of the train at this time to go up to the toilet (beats peeing on your leg because the train rocks at the wrong time!). 

The coffee went down really well even if it was only a small cup.

I got kicked out of my bed and the man stripped all the seats then converted the bottom bunk into seats for us.  It’s certainly more comfortable since even I had to stoop slightly while sitting on the upper bunk.

The night before at the train station was relatively easy.  There were about 20 odd backpackers at the station with very little in English the question was being asked more than once ‘How are we going to know when it’s our train?’

Fortunately one of the guards who spoke English took it upon himself to check all the tickets of the tourists.  Then to start herding us all out to the platform, telling us the train was coming, positioning us down the platform in the approximate places where he thought our cars would stop.  So that kind of solved the ‘how will we know its our train?’ problem quite nicely.

The train rocked and sure enough we were positioned fairly accurately so we clambered up onto the train and found our bunks.  The second class sleeper is different from most that I’ve been on simply because instead of cabins the two tiered bunks run down the length of the car on both sides with little curtains for privacy.  The night passed ok sleeping off and on as one does (or at least as I do) on a train.  At least I got to stretch out and lye flat instead of ½ reclining in a seat all night.

So here I sit, updating my journal, sipping my coffee and watching the world go by out the window of the train wondering when we’re actually going to get into Chang Mai.

We finally made it to Chang Mai, though a little late, and were installed in the Awana Guest House.  Nice surprise was that the water in the shower was hot.  As in you have to turn the tap down hot!  This place also has wireless internet down in the restaurant and in the rooms as well which certainly makes things a bit easier.

After cleaning up we went down to the restaurant, ordered some food and started discussing our plans for the next week or so.  At this point Cass started getting somewhat shirty and insisting that we did not have enough time to do ‘all that…’, of course I insisted we did.

Kind of like those arguments one has as a kid

Cass: ‘No we don’t’
Cath ‘Yes we do.’
Cass ‘No we don’t’

At some point Cass went back up to our room.  I scratched my head, counted days, again and for the life of me could not work out why Cass was so insistent that we were running out of time.

An hour later Cass came down and I broached the subject again which is when I finally worked out what the problem was…

Cass ‘We don’t have time.  It’s the 30th today and we’ve got to be down south by the 5th….’

The light dawned.  I brought up the calendar and pointed out the date to Cass.  She looked somewhat perplexed for a moment, looked at her watched then smiled somewhat sheepishly and said..

Cass: ‘I guess we have time….’

It was mid afternoon before we ventured out, though since we didn’t get to the guest house until about 11:30 am I guess that is not bad.  We wandered the streets and looked at one of the smaller local markets before ending up at Black Canyon coffee house.

Hands down this place has the best coffee I’ve had in Thailand since we go here.  Certainly one of the few places that has served up real coffee instead of that instant stuff people persist in calling coffee.

After almost inhaling a iced Mocha we headed out and started to wander down towards the night markets figuring that they would be setting up and in full swing shortly there after before we got there.

We wandered around looking at the stalls and what was on offer before settling on a Fish restaurant to have dinner.  It was a little on the expensive side compared to what we have been eating but the food was excellent.

We wandered back through the stalls and Cass engaged in a bit of shopping, as one does in markets then we settled into some chairs and had a foot massage.  It is such a nice way to end ones night!