Chiang Mai is a large city in northern Thailand known for its Buddhist Wat temples, its infamous night bazaar, and its rougher jungle surroundings. For us, Chiang Mai wasn’t even originally on the list of Thai places to visit, but we heard good things from fellow travellers and were looking for a more relaxing place in Thailand, thus Chiang Mai seemed the obvious choice for the next destination.
After completing our open Water and Advanced PADI Courses in Koh Tao, we started our journey northward. We jumped on an afternoon ferry that took us from Koh Tao to Chumphon. In Chumphon we boarded a sleeper train to Bangkok (an interesting experience in and of itself). Then, once in Bangkok, we booked a day train that took us all the way to Chiang Mai.
Overall, it was an exhausting 30-hour trip from Koh Tao to Chiang Mai. Not only is it a long way to travel in one shot, but complications arose during the trip, which made it extra frustrating and tiring. For example, transportation is always late, so we spent many hours killing time waiting for the next train to arrive. Also, in the Bangkok train station, I was unfortunate enough to have my change purse stolen (luckily only $30 CAD was in it!). Finally, we arrived in Chiang Mai at 8:30pm at night in pouring rain, we didn’t have a guesthouse booked and had no idea where to go (it’s never good to arrive to a new location at night in poor weather!). All of these problems worked themselves out and we eventually arrived at a guesthouse – SK Hostel #2, we checked into a double fan room, and we slowly became acquainted with Chiang Mai.
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