Monday 9 November Bangkok to Chang Rai

This morning I woke early, thought ‘ I need some exercise’ so went for a walk. This was interesting. I had a rough ‘touristy’ map and saw that we were not far ( or so I thought) from the river – but there was no scale. Nevermind. I set off and made ‘almost mistake’ number 1 – I did not remember to ask the doorman for a card from the hotel with the details – but he remembered to give me one. He refused to believe that I could walk to the river – said it would take at least 1 hour. ‘Almost mistake’ 2 – I forgot to find out the going price for a taxi back to the hotel. I set off at about 6.30 in the early morning half light. There were a few people going to work, quite a few school kids, people sweeping the already quite clean pavements, people setting up food stalls. I walked quite briskly because I needed the exercise. After about 35 minutes I got to the ‘river’ ( glorified drain) and knew my time was limited so took a few quick photos and started to return. Mistake 1 – I decided to come back a different way rather than the safer option of retracing my steps. I headed off in the right direction – went along several roads that bent in the wrong direction so went down narrow lanes ( at no time did I feel threatened) – stopped to ask someone – ‘almost mistake’ 3 – I was told where I was going ( the hotel is next to a well known shopping complex) was in completely the wrong direction. Luckily I did not take her advice. I went along more back streets looking for a more major road and finally found one I recognised and got back at 8am. ‘Almost mistake’ 4 – I was in need of food. So I was quite luck because if one or more of the ‘almost mistakes’ had been ‘mistakes’ I might have been a bit worried. I had time for a second shower and a big breakfast before we went to the airport for out flight here – Chang Mai – a 1 ¾ hour flight north of Bangkok.

Chang Mai is the second city of Thailand ( 1.6 million people) to Bangkok (11 million). I went for a walk with some other of our tour and we ended up not where we thought we were going but it did not matter. We got to a river and watched some people buying fish and birds from a little stall and releasing them. Apparently ‘liberating’ different things get you different sort of help.

We then had a cocktail and are soon to go out for dinner. I have decided to go for a ride on an elephant tomorrow. Watch this space.