Not the Night Train to Chiangmai

Now I hear that the night train is quite lovely. The beds are OK and you can actually sleep. Last year in Vietnam it was such a horror that whenever I hear that word I shudder. In Harlem Night Train is a cheap alcoholic wine-ish drink that only the most desperate drink. Too me.. it seemed consistant.

I opted for the day train which takes a little longer. Still you get to see the country. Plenty of it. It took 12 hours to go from Bangkok to Chiangmai. 8 across flat plains of the central highlands. The last four in the mountains. That is when I was happy to see out the window. In the north it seems that people take special pride in their railway stations. They are special little houses with pitched roofs, nicely painted and little, very well kept gardens. If there was not so much to see in so little time I would like to have visited one of these towns. One where not one single flip flop wearing back packer has set foot in.

The train itself was good enough. You could actually use the bathroom without gagging. I hear that on the bus it is like visiting one of the outer rings of hell. They had food service as well. You could eat it. They randomly gave out two kinds of meat, white or red. It didnt really matter. It tasted as if the choice was either dog or rat. Still, you could eat it.

At the station I stopped at the Visitors Information desk to ask about a hotel. The attendant led me out into a completely dark parking lot and asked me to wait in a broken down blue Van. Its amazing what you will do when you are traveling. You have to trust everybody.

The hotel I stayed at is called the Anodard. It is a beat up 1970s style with close to 300 rooms or so. The place was empty. I think there were maybe only 20 guests in the whole place. My room was large with wood paneling like the kind you see on the Brady Bunch. In fact I thing the Brady Bunch dad might have been one of the Architects on this project. His signiture style is everywhere. It has a beautiful swimming pool surrounded by tropical plants and a sort of Walt Disney-esq fake waterfall. Too bad you cant jump from it any more. There is a sign with several Thai words on it blocking the steps leading up. Under the Thai script it says simply "No" in english. Isnt it nice our language is so compact?