Train to Chiang Mai

Today was a very lazy, much needed relaxing day. Packed our bags because tonight we were headed North to Chiang Mai! Arrived at the train station at 6:00 pm and had some time to kill before we took off. Grayson and I wanted to grab some food before we took off because the food offered was very over priced. After searching and searching, we settled for this corner food booth that looked a little questionable and ordered some Pad Thai. Now, I’ve had my fair share of Pad Thai all over California and now in Thailand and there are not enough words to describe to you how amazing and unreal this Pad Thai was. It looked like any regular glass noodles fried with eggs, vegetables, tofu, and topped with peanuts and shoved into a styrofoam box. But every bite we had… we were moaning more and more. It was bursting with so much unknown flavor and had a subtle sense of sweetness from the lime we squeezed on top of it. I almost cried when it was done. Still have yet to find a Pad Thai dish that was even close to this. It was 7:15 pm and off onto the train we went! We had a whole cart to ourselves, except for poor 10 other random people who had to deal with our craziness. All night we played games and deemed it the Chang Train. (The picture says it all).

We all actually slept pretty good on our tiny little sleeper beds, except for the fact it was freezing cold because the AC was blasting all night and all they gave us were towels for blankets… Thankfully, Kels and I woke up at the same time and were so cold we climbed into bed together and cuddled till we warmed up. When we finally got out of bed and looked out the window, we were mesmerized. We were in the middle of the Thai jungle. People who were awake before us said they saw water buffalo and were on the lookout for tigers. We headed over to the open air café/bar cart and ordered toast with eggs. (Side note: I’ve noticed in Thailand everyone leaves their eggs out… like out on the shelf or on the counter. Never in the refrigerator… odd. Us Americans must be doing it wrong.) We were in a daze sitting at the table with the windows wide open and the warm, tropical air blowing on our face as we starred out into the jungle. 

Every once in a while we came upon a small village with skinny cows, a crumbling house frame, but the people had the biggest smile on their face and waved vigorously at us. After a long 13 hour train ride, we finally made it! Chiang Mai! Our new home for the next four weeks! To all of us it was much better than Bangkok because it literally feels like a thai SLO. It’s a cute college town surrounded with mountains and happy people. We took a tour of Chiang Mai University where we were shocked! It’s such a nice and pretty campus! And it’s huge, 60,000 thai people attend! There are grass fields, a huge pond, different departments scattered, and football fields, volleyball courts, and other recreational fields everywhere. For dinner a group of us headed down the street and fell even more in love with Chiang Mai. It was block after block with cute clothing stores, hipster cafes, and the best part was we didn’t feel dirty like we did in Bangkok! We ate at a rooftop restaurant where we shared all the dishes family style and the food was delicious! 

Afterwards we finally found a place that sold mango sticky rice and all ordered a plate. The mangoes were perfectly ripe and people who never had it before were shocked as to how good it was and were hooked.