Welcome to the north

We escaped the heat, pollution and general chaos of Bangkok for Chiang Mai, Thailand's second-largest city situated about 10 hours by bus north of the capital. We decided to forego the many Khaosan Road companies advertising bus fares for cheap, having heard they were total scams where people have been gassed and mugged during the journey. Who knows if this isn't just some Thai urban legend, but why take the chance?

Instead we hit the bus station for seats on the pricier, but infinitely safer and more comfortable buses that actual Thais use. While trying to decipher Thai to figure out exactly where our AWOL bus was (given that we were supposed to be departing in 10 minutes), we were approached by a man who wanted to help out. Having gotten the same schtick from some rather shady characters in Bangkok, we were a bit wary, but Boonjan ended up becoming one of our good friends and hosts. More on that later.

There are several classes of bus service in Thailand. We went "VIP", one step below "SUPER VIP" and a step above "First Class." Apparently this entitles you to a cute air host/hostess (in our case, ahem, he/she was both) dispensing drink after drink and snack after snack (the "nori seaweed"-flavoured Lays are highly recommended) Not too shabby, and seats actually recline almost flat out - which I found out in the middle of the night with dude-in-front-of-me's head snoring away peacefully in my lap.

We got in around 6:30 in the morning, and had a bit of a mixup with the promised free pickup from the hotel, which allowed me to make friends with the ticket girl. Nazma graciously promised to let her finish helping us out before she clawed her eyes out.

We boarded the songthaew, which is a pickup-truck taxi - you get in the back and sit in the covered cab on two benches. This is great but hair-raising at stoplights when the scooters behind you come within inches of going up your bum.

Our guesthouse had a TV, air-con, and clean sheets and towels daily for an extravagent CAD$13 a night. After a couple of weeks we were starved for news, and the TV provided, along with MTV Asia and two 24-hour Thai karaoke channels. This last seems to be a national obsession, as we would find out the hard way later.