Airport

So! Last night we caught the train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. In Chiang Mai we'd had to move from one guesthouse (Julie's, about $7 a night) to Supreme (the same but not as social, BUT with a large DVD collection, including Envy with Jack Black inventing va-poo-rize [you can guess its function] - it is not a good film), and then for our last night to SK's at $13ish a night BUT with a large swimming pool. After days of fantastic thai food and good markets we decided on our last day to take it a bit easy, go out to a forest wat and eat western food (at least for brunch).

HEALTH UPDATE - all fine, doxycycline still having no side effects, and no dengue fever (woot woot).

Our train was at 6pm so after an early dinner (4ish) we headed out to the station. The train was on time so we boarded straight away and found our set of 4 seats. At night these are folded together to create a (large but shortish) single bed at the bottom, and a narrow single bed is lowered from the wall above. Along these beds curtains are placed to give some privacy (because there are no berths as such) and to block light. This was more effective for the lower bunk (mine) than teh upper (kirsty's) so I had a fantastic 6 or 7 hours sleep...kirsty did not. Many Thai's seemed to put their bunks down (or have them expertly put down by a nice woman sitting at the end of the carriage) very early (from 7.30 on really). We waited till 9.30 before doing so. Arriving one hour late at 8am (not much shorter than the bus but MUCH more comfortable) we decided to head to Silom - our recent local street - for breakfast. This proved an expensive move but nevermind - the French pastries were delicious.

Heading back to the train station after lunch we caught a taxi to where we wanted to stay - or at least we tried to. There was some confusion over where we wanted to go. And I may have pissed off the tuktuk drivers when I laughed long and hard at a quote of 600 baht (10 pound) to get there - this would be enough to go about 40km or something...I think to Ayuthia anyway, cheeky fuck. We got a taxi with some assistance from the Railyway Police. Nice guy took us out on the road this place was off, and headed too far up it, so we had to loop back (expressway, so that meant taking a turn off) to get back to our soi - which it then turned out didn't exist. Drove to another place - no hotel. Woman there suggested some other place which she claimed was nicknamed 54 hotel (we wanted 54 hostel). We decided to give it a go and were a bit concerened to see a semi-posh looking hotel, and pondering sleeping at the airport instead (as the taxi was at 250 already and cash running v. low - so low that today we only just had enough to get to the airport). Fortunately I have a credit card and the hotel had rooms for 600baht (about 10 pound) which we thouht quite acceptable, especially as we'd get a nice room and nice shower. A day with a lot of faff in anyway...