My Last Days in Thailand Before Flying Home

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Matt Goldsmith | 5 Comments

I sat in my guest house, the Green Oasis, on my last day talking to Tony and Jlo the male and female owners. My train was at 17:30 so I had a while to wait. At some point his friends turned up, six or seven of them, and at 11:00 they cracked open the Jonny Walker Red Label, coke, ice and water.. (and they called me having beer at 4pm ‘breakfast’.. jokers!)

I’d met a few people in my last few days that were staying there, a couple of Korean girls, a Canadian and a guy from Seattle. More exchanges of life stories went by and the time soon got to 15:30. One of Tony’s friends was heading to the train station too, for the 4pm train, so we shared a tuk tuk and got to the train station in 15 minutes.

They sauntered off as their train was sooner, so I went to buy a ticket. There were 1st and 2nd class sleeping tickets, and 2nd and 3rd class seated. Partly due to reduced funds, and partly because I knew I wouldn’t sleep anyway I sadistically opted for the 3rd class seat – mirroring my first choice from Bangkok to Surat Thani – and sat outside in the glorious sun smoking what cigarettes I had left, alongside other 17:30 train waiters.

The train was called and I boarded. Grabbed my seat which was rickety, but luckily in my booth there were no other seats taken, this could prove useful in trying to get the ever elusive sleep during the dark hours. I knew I’d have around an hour of daylight to get some photos, but I chose to sit and take in the surroundings instead. Although empty in my booth, across and to the right from me an elderly Thai lady kept her eyes on me a lot of the time, and a group of 4 young Thai girls and a boy were also checking me out, it was kind of disconcerting but I got used to it.

As it got dark, and the two beers I’d bought had ran dry, knowing what previous journeys have been like I put on some warm clothes, bunched up some spare clothes for a pillow, swallowed a sleeping tablet and tried very hard to grab some sleep before sunrise… 11 hours to go.

The trains lie by the way… supposedly 17:30 depart 06:30 arrival.. liars, we arrived at 10:30! Anyway.. before we arrived, and after a short and troubled sleep, lots of very random dreams, dreams where I’d be half awake still in the dream and talking to someone who isn’t there! The sun rose and I managed to see a better sunrise than on my trip up to Chiang Mai a few days before. After the lack of sleep, seeing such a peaceful and beautiful sight made my day.

Sunrise en-route from Chiang Mai to Bangkok

After the sun had risen, all you could see for miles was farm areas – usually rice paddies – nothing really descript but still eye candy for a foreigner in a strange land. Not far from Bangkok luckily with my camera still in hand, I randomly saw from the corner of my eye a couple of men in the distance, the idea of capturing people in a candid way, doing what they’re doing, going about their own business always appeals to me. So I fired off a shot, I didn’t know if the exposure or levels were right in any way, let alone the focus, yet I was so pleasantly surprised by the turnout of the photo.. I’d captured a moment that was seemingly unnoticed, unprepared and… well… I’m very pleased with the outcome, and it’s up there, if not the favourite photo of the journey.

Two rural fishermen on the outskirts of Bangkok

And from there, really, not much to be honest… I headed over to the Saphai Pae hostel (who had put their prices up since last time I stayed 7 days ago!) grabbed a shower using someone else’s towel, and chilled in reception trying as hard as I could to avoid spending money. I actually went up to bed around 7pm, still quite tired from the sleepless train journey, and watched Game of Thrones before falling asleep.

I woke up around 8am thanks to the others in the dorm, but still I sat watching Game of Thrones again from the previous night, preciously using as much time as possible doing nothing because the alternative was to go and spend stupid money on a drink or a meal downstairs.. I somehow managed to while a few hours away.. just enough to get me to my usual ‘safe’ time to arrive at the airport without freaking out that I’d be late for a flight. Airport prices for everything were tripled so I grabbed a water and a Minute Maid orange, held out until I was called for boarding, got on the plane and we were off.

We landed in Hanoi for the flight transfer, 4 hours wait and I mostly spent it wandering around, in the smoking room or near the smoking room because the nearby business lounge WiFi was in range. Time pretty much flew by.. coffcoffbullshitcoffcoff.. but I was called for my flight and had to leave Hanoi

Heavy hearted for leaving beautiful Thailand behind, heading to a beautiful cold country, the in-flight entertainment wasn’t working throughout the flight so I slept as much as possible, enjoyed the refreshments as much as possible, and did anything I could to pass the time, before we landed ahead of time. The captain spieled his usual ‘welcome to London’ speech, followed by “it’s -6 out there, clear skies, and the local time is 06:30”.. -6!!!! a whole 40 degrees less than 15 hours ago when I left for the airport, drastically underclothed for the climate, I went straight for Costas upon getting my baggage and ordered the largest caramel soya latté they had whilst waiting and planning my next moves..

At this time of day no-one was up, I’d arranged to go and see Rob and Karina, but of course by the time I would arrive at theirs they’d be away at work, so I resigned to heading to Kingston near them and spending the day until they arrived in coffee shops and wandering around K-Town.

I grabbed the shuttle to the South Terminal, by that time light, and blanketed with snow!

Snow at Gatwick’s Shuttle Train

I spent as much time in the airport as possible, before venturing into the known, but unknown wilderness that is London.

Wat I Did in Chiang Mai

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Matt Goldsmith | Leave a comment

After checking in at Mojito Gardens I headed back to Villa Duang Champa again for a small beer and to catch up on blogging and photo editing. Here I was treated to an amazing traditional Thai dance by two dancers, first with just hands, then an umbrella, then fire and then back to just hands again. The dress they wore was extremely well crafted.

Thai girl doing a traditional Thai dance in Villa Duang Champa, Chiang Mai

Typo in the title you say? Nah, wat means “Temple” in Thai.. just before you go accusing me.

I’d spent a couple of days in Chiang Mai, and done relatively little, ate, drank, slept, most of my days were on the bike as well driving out of Chiang Mai on one of my many jaunts.

Well, as my last day on the bike came to a close, I used the day to see the local wats, Chiang Mai has over 200 of them, in and around the city, rivalling Bangkok on sheer volume.

I was still stuck in HDR mode too.. so they’re all in HDR. Absolutely amazing places, and no wonder that backpackers and tourists alike want to meander round them.

HDR Chiang Mai wat

HDR of a wat in Chiang Mai’s grounds

After taking my fill of the beautiful structures I knew I had to go and take my bike back – hoping to get the full, and needed deposit back – before 6pm. Luckily, through gabbing to the guy who rented it to me, I got away without an inspection, maybe because I went to the care of photographing it before I left, and also being friendly to the guy on return. 3000 Baht back in my possession and my last few days in Thailand sorted. I’d asked about staying the night again at Mojito Gardens but they were full, so I also went back to the Green Oasis to book a room for the night, dumped my bag and went back to Mojito Gardens

After showering and refreshing I heard three British accents, Northerners in the dais/gazebo in the centre of the garden. Always loving to hear the accent whilst abroad I asked if I could join them. This is where I met Karl, from Stoke, and Ian and Nick from Leeds.

Of course having lived in Leeds I was able to talk with them about their local areas and all three of them were easy to talk to anyway. The beers came and went, conversation flowed, then before long Jade came to join us – also a Brit, who I chatted to earlier in the day about photography.

Nick playing Jenga outside Mojito Gardens

Karl from Stoke, outside at Mojito Gardens

Ian outside Mojito Gardens in Chiang Mai

Things got a bit messy from here and we stayed up quite late, getting “shh”‘s from the locals and the owners before moving into Nick and Ian’s room for a few final drinks.

Everyone was a bit rough the following day, Jade didn’t surface until late in the afternoon. I woke up and went and sat in the gazebo area, Nick, Ian and Karl joined in brief succession. Karl had found a good place to get breakfast and then decided to go and get a prison massage (if not the best, certainly the most popular in Chiang Mai – me, Nick and Ian sat and had a couple of hairs of the dog, Ian was behaving as they’d booked on an elephant tour the next day.

I’d seen a couple of girls playing Yahtzee nearby, so I went over and tried my hand. Ronja and Lajla from Germany, and it’s called ‘Super’ not Yahtzee in Germany. After working out what the German scoring types were, I lost the subsequent three hands, and suggested they come and join us on the gazebo.

Jade had arisen, and Vicky, her friend from Surrey also joined, and by this time Karl had come back too, so we had a nice little gathering before deciding to head out to Zoe’s a local gathering place with music and drinks.

Jade and Vicky at Zoe’s in Chiang Mai

Nick and Me at Zoe’s in Chiang Mai

Ronja and Lajla at Zoe’s in Chiang Mai

We didn’t have a very late night, as most had booked on tours the next day, and were getting bothered by one hawker who I bought a bracelet from earlier in the evening.

One of the jewellery sellers at Zoes in Chiang Mai

So we all headed to a few bars playing live music (quite well I might add, the Thai rendition of ‘Killing in the Name of‘ certainly had me up and moshing) but ended up in the end meandering our respective ways home. Considering my new guest house was only a 6 minute walk… to spend 1 and a half hours trying to find it was a bit curious.. I ended up in the open air guest house lobby, on a chair, with my bags, four foot from the bed I’d booked, and slept like a baby until morning (apparently ignoring the owners shaking trying to wake me up and the mosquitoes feasting on me all night). Not the best start to my last day in Chiang Mai before heading back to Bangkok.

Living the Life of Pai

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Matt Goldsmith | 4 Comments

My longest planned journey by bike yet, I woke up Saturday morning and left my big backpack with the guest house I was staying at. Loaded up on supplies and drove off.

In the wrong direction! This is me, of course, I kind of did a semi-circle around from North to East, driving for an hour before I decided that the road signs I was seeing weren’t right. I stopped at a coffee shop with wifi and located myself – abused myself mentally and then double backed, back towards Chiang Mai.

It did give me a chance to stop at a viewing point and have a Korean guy take my photo.

Me sitting on a barrier at one of the viewpoints overlooking Chiang Mai

The two outer roads in Chiang Mai are one way, with few U-Turn possibilities. I ended up on the right road thanks to a friendly American who spotted me with a map, and I was off! Because of the wrong way fiasco I had to refuel. It’s just two roads to Pai, one is a motorway heading North out of Chiang Mai, then a left turn onto the road of death (RoD), the 1095 from Chiang Mai to Pai! Before the RoD I refuelled to the top, not knowing if I’d get another chance along the way.

The turn off to the 1095 road towards Pai

The first stretch of the road is easy going, you can get up to 80 for prolonged periods of time. It’s scattered with small towns and villages either side, and the usual beautiful Thailand scenery. There comes a point however when the roads start getting a bit narrower, and then the curves, bends and twists hit.. Literally every 100 metres, give or take, you will see a warning sign to slow down, that there’s an incline or a decline (is that what the opposite is?) a sharp left, sharp right, hairpin, sharp left then right, or sharp right then left, slow down to 30, etc..

The first stretch of the 1095 road from Chiang Mai to Pai

This goes on for approximately 70km. I was told it was a two and a half hour ride total, it took me 5 – yeah okay I was being the overly conscious driver that I am, wasn’t doing the 50km/h that I’d heard was possible, even 40 at some of the less tight corners and I was veering into the opposite lane. What beautiful scenery though, wow! The main reason it took me so long was that I was stopping so frequently to photograph the amazing views.

The video above doesn’t really show the curves until around 1 minute in.

Beautiful scenery on the road to Pai

At one point a convoy of porsches drove past, around 30 – 40 of them, “Drive of the Year 2013” must be some kind of tour/paid event.

The Drive of the Year 2013 Porsches heading to Pai

Then when I stopped for a coffee at a really beautifully designed coffee shop an almighty roar of bike engines went past, slowed, turned around and came to the coffee shop, around 20 bikers on racing bikes pulled up so I got the chance to photograph them too.

The beautiful coffee shop on the 1095 road to Pai

Just some of the sports bikers who stopped at the cafe on the road to Pai

It does get very cold in places though, something I’d yet to experience in the oven-hot temperatures elsewhere in the country.. My hands were numb, I only had (I thought) a jumper with me to go over my measly thin shirt, and my bottoms which are also thin.. So I was stopping and pausing in the few brief glints of sunlight through the mountains just to get my hands back to normal temperature. At most it must have been about 10 degrees, but when you couple in the wind factor from driving, it may have been around 5 in all.

Luckily it was one road though so I didn’t have to pay attention to a lot of signs, except the warning ones. Around 4pm the road got extremely dodgy, hairpin bends downhill one after another. I nearly wiped out on one of them by undercutting the road and ending up on the verge. The verge itself was a couple of inches of tarmac and then a dip, so, very luckily, I was able to right myself and get back onto the road – I stopped and gasped for a second.. got my head right and carried on. Maybe 15 – 20 hairpins later the road evened out, the weather got warmer and I was able to increase my speed.

Even more beautiful scenery came into view, terraced farming communities to the left, not far after hitting the ‘welcome to Pai’ sign, 33km to go. The petrol gauge that was worrying me throughout – as it seemed to go from full to empty super fast, and there’s no stations on the road – seemed to have stuck at half full for about 40km, so I wasn’t panicking so much. The road got even straighter and I was back to doing 80 again for a short while.

Terraced farming just outside Pai

The memorial bridge was signposted as being 8km away, and I knew that to be close to the centre of Pai. I stopped there as the sun was dropping and saw people washing themselves in the river and catching fish.

Man fishing and bathing in the river below the memorial bridge in Pai

Then, before I knew it I was in Pai! What a stunning little place this is.. I felt my blood pressure drop hard as I took in the clean air and golden sunlight vistas. I had to find a place with wifi so I could locate my guest house, and once again it turned out I was very close. I drank my coffee and headed there. Just over a small bridge and a lefft turn I arrived at Darling Viewpoint Bungalows – this place is so perfect, all wood and hammocks, cushioned living, easy going. I was greeted by Sophie the owner’s niece who asked me by my name which was a nice touch. I checked in and was shown around, I was upstairs in the main bungalow in a 4-bed dorm, but as I went up the steps, the balcony overlooking Pai blew me away.

Darling Viewpoint Bungalow upper deck

Beautiful lights over the pool at Darling Viewpoint Bungalows in Pai

I showered and sat on the balcony camera in hand waiting for the sun to go down over the distant mountains.

Sunset view from the Darling Viewpoint Bungalows in Pai

It was getting dark so I quickly headed into town for supplies and came back to meet the other guests. A huge campfire was lit, and we went and sat on the benches surrounding it, beers in hand, and talked long into the night. It was around 3am before I dragged myself to bed, knowing I’d had to do the long journey back the next day, I was told though that there are 2 waterfalls in the vicinity that are free to go and see, which would also take some time – I’d have to leave for Chiang Mai no later than 12:00 otherwise it would get too cold and potentially dark on the way back.

The campfire at Darling Viewpoint Bungalows

I woke up around 8, feeling a bit worse for wear, so had a stodgy breakfast and coffee, and then sat gathering my thoughts. Chatted to the guesthouse owner, Darling, and Peter the husband and Sophie his niece, before checking out, thanking them for the experience and heading to the Mor Paeng waterfall. These were the worst roads I’ve come across yet, potholes the size of two pillows stacked on top of each other, and camoflaged in the shadow of trees, so it was slow going. Passed by one lady who made a ‘cigarette to mouth’ gesture. I was smoking so I presumed she wanted one, I asked and she said “no, ganja?”.. Uhm, no thanks, and on my way.. Another lady up the road gestured the same but I declined, and then before long the waterfall was close.

I arrived to the parking area and a guy, Italian, or French maybe took a dirt track to the left.. Thinking this was the way to the waterfall I went up there, steep as hell, rocky, came close to the guy and asked where the waterfall is, he told me it was back the way I came so I tried to turn the bike around.. what a disaster, the bike toppled left, so I only had control of the accelerator handle, revving the enging all to hell gashing my leg on the way down and worst of all scratching the front fender and left wing mirror slightly (there goes the deposit, or some of it). Cursing myself and in sight of the guy, feeling foolish, leg bleeding and hurting, I picked up the bike and dusted myself off before getting to the parking area.

From the parking area it was a short, but slippery walk to the waterfall, there was a family there and I wasn’t so impressed by the fall itself, but I sat there quietly contemplating life and listening to the water flowing and taking pictures. One of the family’s children was naked so I couldn’t shoot the whole scene, luckily they weren’t in key positions to ruin the photos I took.

Mor Paeng Waterfall in Pai

It was around 12, so I scrambled back up to the bike, and rode back slowly over the treacherous roads to Pai. I drove around Pai trying to work out which direction Chiang Mai was, eventually found a signpost and followed it, stopping to fully refuel along the way.

HDR

One of the things I really wanted to do whilst in Thailand was experiment with my photography, I’ve done HDR before but I gave up for a long while, with such beautiful scenery around, and having shot most of it on the way up here, I thought on the way back I’d shoot some HDR photos. Cautious that I’d set off for Chiang Mai later than the previous day setting off for Pai, I knew I’d have to hurry up and stop less. Stupidly I’d found the last night that I’d actually packed an extra shirt and pair of trousers, and knowing what it was like on the way up, I wore everything I had for the way back down.

HDR shot of the view from Darling Viewpoint Bungalows in Pai

HDR shot of the scenery en route from Pai to Chiang Mai

I also saw the porsches on the return leg of their journey!

One of the Drive of the Year 2013 Porsches heading back to Chiang Mai

I had another near death experience, some idiot was overtaking on a hairpin, despite the no overtaking signs, I had undercut the curve on the opposite side and couldn’t see what was coming, luckily though I evened out and missed the minivan, both of us going around 30, by a few inches. That was it, no more cutting on to the wrong side to save some time.

My route, wrong at first, from Chiang Mai to Pai and back

Slightly warmer than the last time, though I’m not sure if it was because it was a different level of sunlight at a different time of day, I made it back to Chiang Mai in less than it took me to get to Pai, around 4 and a half hours total.. I went to grab my backpack which luckily still had my laptop and everything in, moved onto my next place, the Mojito Gardens 2, checked in, showered, and relaxed..

Bed Shaking Waking Me in Chiang Mai

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Matt Goldsmith | Leave a comment

Arrived in Chiang Mai by train around 3pm – bleary eyed, lack of sleep, I’d sat for the last 5 hours in 3rd class to take photos of the sunrise and scenery. I’m pretty glad I didn’t sleep, and likely in future I’ll take a long train journey during the light hours so I can photograph, because it seems that I can’t sleep on any public transport.

I went to meet Julia and Nina in the next carriage when we landed, and we grabbed our bags and moved off. They’d met two German guys Chris and Simon the day before and we all met up off the train. I was a bit stressy from the lack of sleep so I meandered off outside the station to the café nearby and ordered a mixed fruit shake, shoo-ing off tuk tuk and taxi drivers wanting my fare!

The four of them joined me and ordered food, I chatted to the two German guys and found out that they’d booked a guest house in Chiang Mai, close to the outer wall, North West and so I approached a taxi driver to see if he could take us there, and to haggle a good price (from 50 baht each to 35) I told him to wait 5 minutes until they finished their food and when they’d finished we set off to SpicyThai guest house.

Because the German guys had a reservation they were let in, and the owner asked if we had one, to which we were then told that only 1 night for each of us as they’re full. Fair enough, and not willing to go to another place, we checked in, payed the 220 baht + 200 baht key deposit and 30 baht towel deposit.

This was around 29 hours since my last shower, so the first thing I did was that.. cold, aye, stinging, aye, comfortable this was not, but I was clean, and that was shower marked off the food, shower, sleep list. I wanted to chill for a bit so we sat, met the other residents, and a few of us wanted to go and get food “FOOD CRAWL” was shouted, and a couple of others joined.. We wandered around 500 metres to a recommended local good Thai food place, and en route I chatted to Emily from the US, she was planning to head up to Pai on Saturday by bike – 149km – I said that I’d join her, up for the challenge and Pai sounded like a nice place to visit.

After dinner I headed back to relax, preparing to mark the last thing off my list. I hooked up online, half watched a couple of films and wrote a couple of blogs so that I was up to date, sorted my accomodation in Pai, and also for the next night in Chiang Mai. I knew that I’d have to get up early to hire the bike so I had a not late, but not early night.

Shake Awake!

Woke up quite frequently in the night, but around 7am to the guy in the bunk below “rhythmically” shaking the bed.. thinking that he was on his own, I made aware that I was awake thanks to him and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn’t though as the bed started shaking again, so I got up.. on the way out I noticed two pairs of feet sticking out of the bed.

I grabbed a shower and headed back up, they were still at it! So I took all my gear and checked out, then sat in the lobby saying hi to everyone from the previous night. I left my luggage and went out to hire a bike. Each place wanted my passport (no!) or a 3000 Baht deposit, so I wandered to an ATM – ended up wandering quite far and somehow did a round circle back to the guest house… I watched the latest Total Recall and chatted some more to the other guests.

The guest house owner had heard rumours of the libertine guy in the bunk below me, and asked me for more details, then went upstairs to sort it out – he also said that after hiring a Thai girl, he had a Western girl in his bed after! Nina and Julia came downstairs, but really only had time to chat quickly before I picked up my stuff to go to the next guest house.

My first, and only tuk tuk in Thailand – Chiang Mai

A typical Chiang Mai street

I did my usual zig-zagging through the city to find it, stopping at the rather awesome Villa Duang Champa for a refreshing small beer.. It also gave me the chance to find out where I was in relation to the guest house, quite close, so I relaxed a little before heading there. Near the guest house was a laundry and a seamstress.. my bag had broken on day 6 leaving me carrying it with one strap, a bit of a pain in the arse so I enquired how much it would cost to fix – 50 baht and done in 15 minutes (a far cry from the ‘all-day £14’ the lady in Kingston charged me) – I said I was going to go to the room and unload the contents and bring it back. I checked into the Green Oasis and unloaded, took my laundry over to the place across the street and paid a little extra (50 baht instead of 40) to get a two hour service instead of next day.. Then I took the bag to the seamstress and headed back to the room for a sit in the reception area.

The Villa Duang Champa, a really nice place to sit and while away the hours

After picking up my bag again and loading up, I hit the town.. I tend to breadcrumb wherever I go, mentally, left, left, right, right, that way I know right, right, left, left on the way back. I turned one street and saw a hostel I’d seen listed on TripAdvisor, but hadn’t looked for the reviews, I sat there and had some food, talked to a French guy who does a lot of travelling around, made a note of the place as it looked like it was okay, friendly staff and people and the price was the same as what I was paying at my current place. I paid a deposit for my return from Pai and meandered back left, right left, right, left, right to get my laundry.

Chiang Mai is a bit cooler than Bangkok, by around 6 degrees, so it’s really nice – not too hot, not too cold, and no need to take #2 of my usual 3 daily showers (travel days an exception) Though I did wash my feet, the Macbeth’s I’ve been wearing are near toxic, so it’s unfair to force that on anyone but me. After getting my laundry I hit the town again.. As I liked Villa Duang Champa so much I thought I’d head there to see about some food, and sat down – on my own.. I ate and drank and paid.. not long before leaving, the musician who had been sitting behind me the whole time presented me with a drawing!!

Tom, the musician at the Villa Duang Champa drew this of me whilst I ate

Love it, it hit a certain note with me, something about the loneliness yet serene mood I was in (lonely is not a negative in this meaning) I thanked him profusely before offering a tip for the drawing of 50 Baht. Smiling all the way back to the guest house I took a few pics

One of the many wats, or temples, in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chatted with some of the guys and the owner in there before realising I needed to head to Pai quite early as well as hire a bike the next day and then turned in.

My First Visible Sunrise in Thailand

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Matt Goldsmith | 3 Comments

There’s not much wording to this blog, I’ll grant you, but then how do you describe a 20 hour door to door journey with no sleep? Well, here goes anyway:

Left the hostel at 18:30 aiming for a taxi to get us to Hua Lamphong train station.. we waited half an hour, getting refused once for some reason and refusing a tuk tuk driver.. The third attempt picked us up and for 100 baht took us to the train station in time for the 19:35.

Wrong!

No mention of the 19:35 once we got there and the ticket guy said 2nd class seated tickets only available, knowing we had to either choose that option or go back to Saphae Pai for another night, we all chose the former and waited until 10pm for the next train.

On the train, once again picked the wrong seat and was ousted on the next stop by the owner, so went to my original seat and there was a French girl sitting with her friend.. She told me I could have hers, which was a window seat so I wasn’t very pushy about it and accepted.

Some guy sat next to me, which proved to be a bind with cigarette breaks and climbing over him. After a million years I got to sleep for like 6 seconds, and after 8 hours of nothingness and a sore arse I moved into third class as the light started coming up, determined that ‘sod it, I’ll sleep when I get there’.

And here’s where the following photos happened, from 6:30 to around 13:00 – there’s not much explaining to them, but I sat wide-eyed for that long taking photos.

Sunrise en route from Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Scenery en route from Bangkok to Chiang Mai

We arrived at around 3pm to Chiang Mai, and followed two guys that they’d met on the train to their guest house, hoping for a spare room for us three.. Luckily, for one night there was room, so we showered, went to find food, and I’m sat here blogging and image editing.. At least I’ve secured my plans for the next two days, hire a bike first thing, get my stuff over to the hostel, then drive up to Pai on Saturday. Until then, ciao!

Photography and Adventures

by Matt Goldsmith

Tag Archives: Chiang Mai