12 hours later and we are here, we got to the train station around 10am as planned, got our shit together and got off. Since we booked our train ride, our accommodation and our trekking trip all at once in Bangkok, there was supposed to be someone from our hotel waiting for us at the station upon our arrival. But no such luck was had, we waited with our new acquaintances at the front entrance for almost an hour, then the dude finally got there. Jonathan and Anaelle from Paris were going to the same place as us so we all hopped in the truck and off we went.
On our ride to the hotel we got to talking of course and we realized that we all got hustled into the current situation we were in, while being in complete denial when it was happening. So basically the cute little old man at the Buddhist temple in bangkok that we thought was just being kind was actually part of this big plan. This plan is where they pretend that they're just trying to help but they actually send you off to get screwed over. Basically what happens is that this old man starts to talk to you and telling you what you should see while visiting Bangkok then he hooks you up with the "local" price of 50 baht each person to have the Tuk Tuk driver at your service for 2 hours. At the time we thought we totally scored but it was actually all a scam.
So once in the Tuk Tuk, the driver brings us to the smiling Buddha where a man is conveniently there waiting, then he comes into the temple and starts talking to us about our travel plans etc. Then he says "ohh you're going to Chiang Mai! You better go to the tourist Center to book accommodation in advance because everywhere gets filled up around the time of the flower festival". Naturally we panicked a bit and thought that we might as well book ahead of time, especially being told this by a "Tourist Police", so after he told us all this he wrote a bunch of random shit on a piece of paper basically telling our driver to bring us to all kinds of places.
Again we just thought this dude was trying to be nice to us, we hop in the Tuk Tuk and this is when he drives us all over and drops us off and random stores and temples so he can get his free gasoline for bringing us there (I told this story a few blog entries ago). Within all these stops we got to the tourist Center where a guy named Choke (we told him what his name meant in English and he laughed and said, no! no killing! Ha apparently it means lucky in Thai.) set us up with a package that had train tickets, accommodation and a trekking tour in it. Again at the time we just thought he was trying to help us, like the other people earlier that day but nope, not even close, they apparently do this all the time since the same exact thing happened to Jonathan and Anaelle.
Anyway so when we get to the hotel we check in and go up to room 230, it's a tiny room with a single bed, well this won't work so down to the lobby we go. If we had paid a super cheap price like in a hostel we would've dealt with the single bed, as we have before but Choke had already got us to pay way too much and also promised us a big bed for the same price. Room 415 is a bit better, at least it's equipped with a king size bed, although it's hard as a rock. Not to complain but I guess we were upset that we totally fell for all these things back in Bangkok, after we settled in we headed out to find some food and quickly noticing that yet another of Choke's promises was not fulfilled. He told us that the reason the room was more expensive was because first it's air conditioned (we later on found out that Chiang Mai is a colder part of Thailand so this was not needed...) and second it's walking distance to everything and right in the center of it all. Thankfully we found some good food a short walk from the hotel but Choke had definitely lied to us because we discovered that downtown CM is a 35-40 minute walk from where we were staying.
Veggie resto.
We walked this distance to get to town for dinner after chilling at the hotel a bit, we got there with a bit of help from a Canadian who was headed the same way and was much more situated than we were. After walking around and grabbing some wicked vegan grub we walked back to the hotel.
That's all for today folks, we are leaving for a three day trekking adventure tomorrow and we have no friggen idea what to expect, especially with all the great things Choke has planned for us up til now. I guess we will shortly find out! If I never blog again you'll know it went south... Ha just kidding!
A bientot,
Janelle Brine
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