The Wanderings of busman7

The 12 hr train ride from Bangkok in 2nd class, the only option on the daytime railcar service from Bangkok to Chain-Mai comes with free coffee/tea mid morning & afternoon along with a noon time lunch served by the not hard on the eyes Thai hostesses, all for a meager 611 Baht ($19.75).

So far Thailand doesn’t turn my crank, guess maybe I got spoiled in Myanmar where the people were genuinely glad you were there & went out of their way to be helpful. Whereas here in Thailand they are civil but it’s all about money & besides that there isn’t really all that much new to see, sure the national park near Chiang Mai has a couple mediocre waterfalls, the highest mountain in Thailand which is only around 2600 meters (not sure how high that is in real measurement but not very high) & a stupa each for the king & queen.

Sure Bangkok is a truly international city with anything & everything one could possibly desire including 3 English language newspapers, a good bus, subway & skytrain system. There is a drawback with the taxi’s however as unless your hotel gets one for you it is near impossible to find a driver who will use the meter  of course this is probably because the rates are so low.

Have used a tour company a couple times & while they don’t exactly lie there are extra charges they fail to mention & they are not really worth the extra cost that you can arrange things yourself for but laziness is costly LOL

At a not bad guest house in Chiang Khong & the Laos border in the morning. Guess Canada must of pi$$ed off Laos at some point as we get to pay $42.00 US for a visa but US citizens only pay $35.00, a proud Canadian?? NOT!!!

In conversation with other travelers it seems that northern Thailand is friendlier than the south where the great beaches are the big draw, then of course there is Pattya with it’s rent-a-girl reputation. Just have to wait & see but think maybe the Philippines while a tad more expensive is the best bet.

That said I had some good times in Thailand it’s just been spoiled by too many tourists.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 06:35 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.