After kicking off our 10 weeks SE Asia backpacking trip by landing in the Thai Capital of Bangkok, we are now making our way Northwards through Thailand by visiting Ayutthaya > Sukhothai > Chiang Mai > Chiang Rai and Chiang Khong (where we will cross into Laos).
It is our preference to avoid flying between places by using overland means of transportation whenever possible. We leave Bangkok on an easy door-to-door ride by Grab taxi at £27 for the one and half hours ride in a comfortable
We could probably have done a better job of recording all the incidental costs which we have just captured here under Misc…. things like food and drink, taxis, tours, haircuts, massages, ice creams etc etc etc, but that will have to be an improvement for future blogs as we just didn’t really record these as we went along. All the major travel and accommodation costs are in here though, and the total is about right.
We could have saved on this amount and cut corners,
Day 6 (30/01/2014) – Our last full day in Chiang Mai. 
I told my sister Angelita, before our trip to Thailand, that I would love any opportunity to spend time with elephants at an elephant sanctuary. We had not pre-booked anywhere to see elephants, so it was hard to find a place that was not already full. Luckily, however, we managed to get a morning at the Ran-Ton Elephant Camp, not our first choice, but I had read good reviews of this place, where they look after
As we waited for our sleeper train to Chiang Mai, at Bangkok Station, we felt for the first time like we were real backpackers!
We heard that train travel in Thailand is easy, comfortable, inexpensive, and is the best way to see some of the Thai countryside. We booked a first class ticket. There are various combinations that can be made with shared cabins etc, but we decided to go for the single berth compartment, that although more expensive (about 1, 953 Baht, £40 per person,