I spent 18 hours on a train...

Ok I've just realised why they tell you to not touch anything when waiting for DEET based insect repellent to soak in, which takes ages by the way. It sticks to things and makes the colour come off on you. A strip of my arm is now a dark brown wood colour from the chair I'm sitting on. Great. And despite the spray and also mosquito nets everywhere I still think I'm being eaten. I might have to look in to what goes for local insect repellant here to see if that works.

So I made it to the train station. It was exciting getting a train on my own in a place where I had no idea what anyone was saying or if I was actually gettting on the right train! The train itself seemed a bit dated and looked like a large silver can. But it was air conditioned, to the point of being too cold actually, and actually quite roomy. The set up was two large seats facing each other, with a table that the stewards put up when you had food in the middle. Then when it was time for bed, the two seats folded out into and one bed and then there was a bed that basically folded out from the ceiling. Even pillows and blankets and curtains were provided! I had the lower bunk, and I was quite glad in the end because, although you had people walking around most of the night, the train rocked around and shuddered about quite a lot. It was a little bit like being rocked to sleep a little too forcefully. Therefore, I didn't get that much sleep, even in my sleep deprived, hungover state.

In the morning I was very much looking forward to getting to the hostel early, having a shower and a nice sleep by the pool, prefereably in the sun. This was not to be. Firstly, the train was about 4 hours late. I did notice during the journey that we stopped randomly for large periods of time and also that when next to the roads, the train was often overtaken by passing scooters... But I got here eventually and saw lots of jungle on the way, which was nice. As to the sleeping by the pool in the sun. It's raining. Not cold, but raining. It stopped a few times, but it's raining again now. It's much cooler up here than in Bangkok and not as humid. But I'm not sure if that's because it's raining. I guess the heat and humidity could come back once the rain stops.

The hostel I'm in is as lovely as the pictures. It's set a little way out of the city, about a 20 minute walk, so it has huge gardens. It's got a relaxing retreat thing going on. You have to take off your shoes whenever you go into a building and all the buildings have lovely dark wooden floors. I'm in a shared room, but only with one other person, I think it's a girl, judging by the dresses all over the place! I haven't met her yet, but I guess she will be there when I go back.

This afternoon I met an Australian couple, Wendy and Chris, in the common room and we went for a walk into town to go to the night market and get some food. I realised at one point that I hadn't eaten anything all day. We walked into town, in the rain. Chiang Mai is much nicer than Bangkok, it seems a lot calmer. And it doesn't smell. We didn't make it in to the actual centre but the night market was huge enough to entertain us. It was just enourmous. There were stalls all the way down both sides of a long road as well as little side roads that led to kind of large open halls also full of stalls. There were loads of food stalls as well. I had pad thai, which is a noodle dish served with egg, various vegetables and a light sauce, this one had pork in as well. It was cooked right in front of me and was wonderful. After that there was more market browsing. There was just so much to see. I could just buy so much stuff! I'm not sure how I would get it home.

I'm back at the hostel now, it's only 10pm but I'm pretty tired. I think I'm probably going to have an early night. Cooking course tomorrow!

Adellyn: Mitchelin Star restuarant?! Where? And what did you have?

Mum and Dad: It was necessary to explain how I found all the lady boys! I was still being sensible don't worry :)

xx