Unlike some bus stations in the UK, this one actually has some life as it seems there's an army of people in Thailand all going somewhere. There's plenty of places to eat, buy food to take with you and of course get on the Internet - all of Thailand seems to be on their mobiles.
We purchased some snacks and then sat next to two Ukrainian women. One of them was shouting into her phone at some unknown person about an accident and missing a flight and some other drama - it passed a half hour for us!
We boarded our bus and it left on time. For our £3.50 each we got a recliner chair, a bottle of water, air con and an apricot donut - a bargain. On leaving the city behind us, heading north, the road climbed, twisted, turned; I'm not a good traveller if not driving or in the front seat - oh dear!
I managed to keep it together to experience the early sights of very rural Northern Thailand. The strawberry, mango and pineapple crops were grown and sold on the roadside as the coach lurched both up then down and finally side to side, time to find the toilet.
After relieving myself of my breakfast in the tiniest loo you have ever seen I settled down as the road flattened out and we drove through several small towns, all clinging to the main road, all very rural and agricultural. However, this wasn't Hicksville, all modern appliances, cars and services were available and there were some beautiful houses - it's that don't judge a book by its cover again.
Chiang Rai closed in on us as we took a spur off the Super Highway (Thailand is spending lots of money at the moment on its road infrastructure), it did look a little frontier like and were still an hour and forty minutes away from the border with Laos.
There was the usual scrum when the bus disgorged its passengers at the terminus, we quickly found a Tuk Tuk and gave him the address of our hotel, the Pimann Inn.
Once there we realised the further north you travel certain things can get lost in translation. It took them a while to find our booking in reception which was staffed by very young people, most of them not versed too well in English and the one who was had to deal with every enquiry. I'm not knocking them, Hell, I can't speak hardly a word of Thai. We just put it all down to the experience of travelling in a foreign country and, eventually, we were in possession of our keys and unpacking our bags soon enough.
Now hungry, we had a stroll in the direction of town. The Pimann Inn is just on the outskirts along with many other modern, newly built hotels. It looks like this is a town on the up with many new businesses springing up in the area. We found a restaurant where after some delicate negotiations due to the language difficulties we finally acquired three plates of delicious Thai food to share. On the way back we stocked up with snacks and beer at the 7/11, they are equivalent to the Spar out here.
That evening we started walking into town, gave up after 10 minutes and hailed a Tuk Tuk. We asked to be dropped off at a bar, we made the usual drinking actions and off he went. we were dropped off in the middle of the town by a clock tower. After walking up and down for a while we plumped for the Singha Bar, quite full on a Friday night mostly with locals. There seemed to be more staff than customers though, all young, and all inexperienced. Eventually we got our drinks, Lynn was disgusted with the wine, as were other westerners around us. The food was just about palatable, not the best Thai offering we'd had this trip.
Back on the Main Street we were just in time to witness a sight that made coming to Chiang Rai worth it - the nine o'clock lighting up of the clock tower. First of all the street lights were dimmed. Next the clock was lit up in blue, then red, then green and finally music was piped by loudspeakers to the open jawed watching tourists - all filming it on their mobiles - me included.
We eventually did find a bar where the wine was half decent - the Easy House. It was in a district of girlie bars and dubious massage parlours, it made for interesting people watching.
All tired out, we got back to the hotel to recharge our batteries for our second Saturday in Thailand.
The clock tower - before its performance
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