Our first steps in Thailand – Bangkok and the way to Chiang Mai

“What does ‘thank you’ mean in Thai?” – “??????.”?

(You spell it more or less like this: Kom Cup Crab.)

Thailand here we are!

The first steps in Bangkok

Our time in Bangkok was short but not too short for us. What makes Bangkok special? Maybe we haven’t found the answer yet… Maybe you can tell us and recommend something?

Bangkok is mostly the first destination for many travellers when they arrive in Thailand. So it was for us. In advanced we booked one night on Airbnb for 10? in total. The apartment was outside of the centre close to the Huak Mak station. The region was excellent quiet and far from the tourism that means the journey to the centre was long but still cheap.

At the same day of arrival we started to explore Bangkok. It was so fucking hot in comparison to Germany (minus degrees). We took the train from Huak Mak till the end to Phaya Thai Station for 60 Bath more or less. Our Airbnb host recommended us to take a tuk ruk or taxi to the main attraction Grand Palace. We thought we shouldn?t miss the experience sitting in a tuk tuk passing all the cars and maybe driving on the wrong road side. By the way Bangkok is so crowed and loud ? that?s the time when I notice I grew up in a little village 😀
Tuk tuks may charge you more than a taxi with taximeter but the fun factor worths it!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCH6rczAWEp/?taken-by=loveistraveling

Our first stop for sightseeing was Grand Palace. It was built in 1782 and was home of the Thai Kings for 150 years. People say it?s the most famous landmark without any protest. With the amount of people walking in and out of the palace, we wouldn?t reject the famousness.
For us it was definitely too crowed. We almost couldn?t breath among the people! The time at the Grand Palace was a big challenge for us: We arrived in the morning at Bangkok and haven?t slept on our 14 hours flight. We were definitely overtried. The heat and the thousand of people in the city made our challenge completed.

Anyway we made it to one of our favourites places: Wat Pho. It?s also considered as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha and it?s close to the Grand Palace. The entrance is 100 Bath.
We had an amazing time in the temple, taking pictures and making videos.
Have you been to that place? Do you have any idea how many Buddhas are there? They should make a game or a competition: Count all Buddhas in Wat Pho! 😀
We met two monks in their wonderful orange robes and their shaved hair. We had much fun taking those two guys as our models or better as the models of Gonzalo.

On that day we made our first experience with monks: They were so friendly with Gonzalo, giving hugs but with me they kept the distance.

Our way to Chiang Mai

For the next day we planned to go to Chiang Mai by train. We haven?t booked the ticket yet so at 12pm we left our apartment and went directly to the Railway Station Hua Lamphong.
There are many ways to gain a ticket: online through agencies, on the Railway Station website or on suit like we did. Agencies may charge you a fee (about 200 Bath) and to buy your ticket online you should do so approximately four days before departure.
We bought our tickets at the counter at the same day of departure. In this way you should be flexible because it might happen that there are no tickets the time you wanna leave. But no worries there are several trains going to Chiang Mai at several times a day.
Because we decided to take a overnight train to avoid boringness on a 12 to 14 hour trip we had about five to six hours at the station waiting for our train to depart. Actually we wanted to discover the region around but there was nothing interesting for us. We spent the time watching people, taking pictures, sitting on the floor, standing up for the humph at 6pm, eating, videos? By the way there is the option to leave your luggage at the train station for around 70 Bath a day.

Finally the train left and the night came! The trains are so awesome, kind of old but at the same time so stylish!

You can take a seat/bed at the first or second class. The difference is the room you sleep in. The first class is an own room with one upper, one lower bed and a washbasin.
The second class has plenty of seats/beds in one train compartment. You can compare that with a dorm bedroom. All about the different prices you?ll find on the website.

We hopped on the train at 7.35pm and were excited about our first time sleeping in an overnight train. After the first hour the seats got transformed into beds. It?s amazing in what a practised manner the workers make the beds! Besides the train provides a restaurant and the smoke area at the same time. The waiters are very friendly and always ready for jokes 😉 When we had dinner, the train stopped for about two hours and nobody could tell us why. The waiter just mentioned something with a smile like:

In that time we enjoyed our dinner without any shaky movements ?
We loved to sleep in the train! The movements and noises felt like lulling a baby to sleep and we slept so well apart from the fact that I felt cold and warm alternately. I think I?m still not used to the heat and the air-condition, should get better from time to time 😉
At about 7am we woke up and our first look was out of the window:

?Where are we??

Foggy landscape and some mountains made Gonzalo excited so that he didn?t hesitate to take his camera gear and catch those magical moments. Until 10:40am we enjoyed the beauty of nature, taking pictures and recording videos.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCMNKPwgWI-/?taken-by=loveistraveling

Before people told us that trains always arrive at ?Thai Time? which means nothing more than arrive delayed ? in our case two hours. We didn?t mind at all because we had a wonderful time in the adventurous train!