Chiang Mai at last

Definitely time to leave Bangkok.  Our two best meals were street lunches and on our last day we visited for quite a while with two sisters who are owners of a wonderful little shop on Pra Atit, Chonabod, which roughly means "country".  They carry organic cotton silk screened T shirts with Thai language alphabet letters on them and clever pictures that illustrate what the letter means.  They gave us a set of letterpress postcards and I bought two real cotton pa ka ma, sort of a man's sarong, but so much more.  The ones I have all have synthetic thread in them and are useless as towels.  These are lovely.  The ladies fed us fruit...one that I'm sure Sarah will know that is like a potato, which for some reason gave one of the ladies fits of laughter.  She spent time giving me Thai language lessons which was wonderful...and Sarah will also be proud that I am using as much of my Thai as I can...proper addressing of others and all.  Our new friend tried to tell me about a tonal exercise that sounded like "Thai, thai, thai, thai.  It sounded familiar but...anyway...they warned us of an impending demonstration and suggested an early departure for the train station, so we ate a lovely lunch, somtam and an incredible pork salad dish and took off for Hulalampong (bad spelling, sorry) train station.

The big train station gave Muz ample photo ops; a seating area for monks, the usual train station characters who are the same the world over only they were speaking Thai to their invisible friends, country people camped out on the floor and forced to move along by the Railway Police.  We finally boarded our refrigerated sleeper car and were surrounded by a gaggle of 14 giggling teenage Danish schoolgirls being herded by 3 adults. We had reserved two lower berths and when they plopped themselves down in the seats across from us I fell over laughing, thinking they would be our noisy companions through the night.  One of the girls looked at me and said in halting English, "Don't worry, ve are yust waiting, not sitting here."  It was quite a parade up and down the aisles all night. And the refrigeration was intense...freezing for a couple of hours and then warm for a couple.  The Dutch older foursome in the seats behind us took exception to the cold with the young Thai porter who replied in frustration, "NO LOWER NUMBER!  Only on and off!".  He made a sucking sound and shook his head as he made up my berth.  I smiled and smiled, murmuring kor thot, excuse me...the nice American.  After the train porters went to sleep for the night Muzzy was able to "locate" two more contraband blankets.  Trains are a lovely way to travel.  They don't seem to intrude the way a highway does.  A night's lodging and you arrive at your destination only 2 hours behind schedule, but hey, we have no time tables!  It was a full moon and between shivers, Muz and I gazed out at the jungle and the full moon dancing through the clouds as the train wiggled and bounced us up to the north.

So...Chiang Mai...the air is fresher, the pace is slower, the fruit is sweeter and the food is better.  You all know I am always on the lookout for "CHARMING", so I took a chance and directed the outrageously expensive taxi driver to the TaePae Boutique House, Soy 5, Th Tae Pae, just down from the Tae Pae Gate.  Chiang Mai is a walled city, built in the 11th century by King Mengrai...white elephants and all...I'll tell you about that later.  This is a lovely little guesthouse, immaculate, polished wood stairs, set back from the road, quiet, light, lovely garden, cooing doves and the bed is good!  The walls are decorated with lovely stenciled vines and the bathroom is a real plum!  Only and occasional tuk tuk goes by.  I'm happy, I'm charmed!