« Entry into Thailand | Main | Checking things out »
September 24, 2005
And on to Chiang Mai...
OK, after a fairly terrible journey north to Chiang Mai, I am finally settled in. Once I left Bangkok, my mobile phone went missing along with my LP Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand book, one of the CHF199 Meindi trekking shoes broke, and the train ride became quite tedious after six hours, painful after nine, and finally arrive an hour late after twelve hours of fretting. Stu, believe it or, was super grumpy by the time he made it to CM. Blah.
Once arriving, it was off to the first guest house that would have me--The Royal Guest House. This has turned out to be an unexpected uplift to my fortunes. While the TBT250/night room is very basic (no air conditioning, five flights up with no elevator) the rest of the premises is great. The food is good and cheap (TBT110 for coffee, OJ, and a bowl of fruit, yogurt and muesli. Yummy! There is also a little pool out front of the open air reception area/bar/restaurant. Oh, and the beer is only TBT40 each--or just about USD0.97. Life is good.
Today I met up with Marc and Daniel from Child's Dream for some coffee and to drop off the 8KG of goodies from Switzerland that have been weighing down my pack: two Compaq laptops, three tubes of Tomi mustard and a single tube of Tomi Mayonnaise. We also discussed the logistics of my stay which seems good so far, chatted about Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Swiss people in Thai jails (lots) and the general drug problem in this part of the world. They also promised to loan me a motor bike for getting about town and a old Nokia phone. :D
Tomorrow I hope to explore the city...more to come.
Posted by stu at September 24, 2005 02:12 PM