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
Bangkok tops the list as one of most visited cities in the world. On arrival you immediately get that feeling that the whole world is actually living here. Dusty, chaotic, crazy, wonderful Bangkok is a hub of activity, people arriving here from all over the world to either stay for a few days or to connect with somewhere else in Thailand or even further afield in Asia.
On arrival it can feel a little overwhelming, it certainly was for us when we first visited this city back in 2014, but it has
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 9, Sunday 02/02/2014 – We were not sad to leave Patong as a mini bus pulled up to our hotel to take us to the Ferry Port where we boarded the Ferry Cruiser boat to Ko Phi Phi Island ( we purchased our Ferry ticket to Ko Phi Phi Don a day before in one of the many tour agencies in Patong, it also included the minibus pick up from our hotel). We boarded the Ferry boat after queueing for a little while to collect a stamp like a ticket that we then attach
Day 7 ( Friday, 31/01/14) – Our 2 weeks backpacking adventure continued, now to the South of Thailand on the Andaman Sea. We flew from Chiang Mai to the large Island of Phuket.
From the Airport in Phuket we took a minibus to Patong Beach, arriving at our hotel tired and hungry at about 4 pm. Also annoyed with the mini bus driver, for stopping randomly at a place where they were clearly keen to sell excursions etc. to all of us when all we wanted was to be taken to our hotels with no
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,