the beginning

Let me start from the beginning of my Thailand adventure...

Jacqueline and I were up and in a taxi at about 7:00, dressed in sandals (her), my TOMS (me), jeans, and sweatshirt with a jacket. We wanted to wear all of our "wintery" stuff on the way since they wouldn't fit in our luggage (especially my backpack, it was stuffed to begin with)!
We got to the Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and began to check Jacqueline's luggage. We went through the security and they began to open my backpack... apparently you can't take toiletries over 100ml in your carry on, and all mine were over 100ml. After a slight panic because I reeeaalllyyy didn't want to check my luggage, in fear of my "fake market" backpack getting ruined on it's way to Bangkok, I ended up checking in. I had to, if i wanted to be able to wash during my 2 weeks :)

Oh, and they gave us these stickers for "international transfer" once we hit Guangzhou, China that we had to wear, but we kept calling them "retard stickers" because we were the only people with them. :)

jacq and her sticker 

After a few hours in the freezing cold airport of Guangzhou, and a mediocre meal, we were on our way to Bangkok, and on our way to the warm 85 degree weather! (This is after the plane left an hour and half late...)
Once we arrived in Bangkok we had a few very important matters to attend to:
1. get in line QUICK to get our passport checked.
2. exchange money
3. get jacqueline's bag, again, QUICK! because....
4. We had to figure out how in the world to buy train tickets north to Chiang Mai and get to the actual station.

We were able to use a phone at a tourist desk and call the train station directly. In Thailand, everyone speaks pretty great English and are SO friendly! They are so willing to help you out with anything you need.

Once we get in the cab to go the train station we had to make a game plan. We had found out there were only a handful of tickets left at the train station and they train left in about an hour. They were second class seats, either the sleeper or the seats. We had our fingers crossed for sleeper.

ps. they drive on the other side of the road! weeirrrd.

It was straight out of Amazing Race I felt like, the plan was...
Jacqueline will pay the cab driver and get her luggage, and I will grab my backpack and run into the station for tickets. I ask the attendant for any 2 tickets into Chiang Mai (we HAD to take this train because the last bus had already left, due to our flight being delayed).
We ended up with 2 second class tickets... seats. They were the LAST ONES TOO! Actually, they weren't too bad, minus the whole train being soo freezing cold.

the train station

jacq and i in our seats with our "towel" blankets and Leos

thai sunchips which i think looks like it says "bu tuna" :)

I had read on Lonely Planet that Thai busses like to run their air conditioning extremely cold, but didn't even think about trains.
I was wrapped in anything long sleeved I had brought and a small blanket aka towel they gave us.
We met some pretty fun people on the train! They were 2 Thai couples who wanted to take some pictures with us, and enjoy a Leo (a beer).
I was actually able to sleep a good amount (thanks to some Tylenol PM).
We woke up the next morning in the train, had some breakfast and were getting pretty pumped up for our adventures into Chiang Mai :)

the next morning in my big seat once some people left

welcome to chiang mai!

*more to come this week...

all about chiang mai!