ï»¿{"id":256,"date":"2001-07-23T11:30:49","date_gmt":"2001-07-23T09:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/?p=256"},"modified":"2011-01-29T18:27:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-29T16:57:48","slug":"bangkok-to-chiang-mai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/2001\/07\/23\/bangkok-to-chiang-mai\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangkok to Chiang Mai by train"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <div class=\"ngg-gallery-singlepic-image ngg-left\" style=\"max-width: 155px\">\n\t\t        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-content\/gallery\/thailand\/thailand_30.jpg\"\n           title=\"Train to Chiang Mai\"\n           data-src=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-content\/gallery\/thailand\/thailand_30.jpg\"\n           data-thumbnail=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-content\/gallery\/thailand\/thumbs\/thumbs_thailand_30.jpg\"\n           data-image-id=\"1164\"\n           data-title=\"Train to Chiang Mai\"\n           data-description=\"Train to Chiang Mai\"\n           target='_self'\n\t\t\tclass=\"shutterset_3d757803f3ff76422ace977302bcfa36\">\n            <img class=\"ngg-singlepic\"\n                 src=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-content\/gallery\/thailand\/cache\/thailand_30.jpg-nggid041164-ngg0dyn-320x240x100-00f0w010c010r110f110r010t010.jpg\"\n                 alt=\"Train to Chiang Mai\"\n                 title=\"Train to Chiang Mai\"\n\t\t\t\t                    width=\"155\" \t\t\t\t            \/>\n        <\/a>\n\t\t    <\/div>\n\t\t20th of July<br \/>\n5.00 am, arrival in the capital of Thailand once again&#8230; I had to pick up my friend at the airport around 2:00 p.m., so I stayed at the hostel and talked to some of the thai volunteers. The youth-hostel started a &#8220;volunteer-program&#8221; for thai students . Students can come to the youth-hostel and talk to foreigners to improve their English, and the foreigners get in contact with the locals.<\/p>\n<p>We had an discussion about the differences between the way young Thai&#8217;s act in the public as an couple and western teenager. For example: You would never see a young Thai couple, walking hand in hand in Bangkok on the mainstreet.<\/p>\n<p>We also talked about tourism in Thailand. Tourists bring in the money, thats a main statement of every Thai I talked with. It&#8217;s hard to find someone who wants to talk about sextourism in Thailand, or how tourists destroy and change everything like on the southern islands.<\/p>\n<p>21st of July<br \/>\nA short visit at Khao San Road in the morning&#8230;. To be honest: I hate this place. It&#8217;s a big tourist trap, skip it if you visit Bangkok. That&#8217;s what tourism &#8220;can do&#8221; in the worst way. I felt like being in an European or American town.<\/p>\n<p>At night we decided to walk a bit &#8220;of the beaten track&#8221; We left the youthhostel and walked until we could not see any tourists. We then dropped into a Thai Karaoke Bar ( I always wondered how Thai spend their sparetime, now I know&#8230;) and this was realy funny!<\/p>\n<p>A lot of Thai&#8217;s visit Karaoke Bars at night.<br \/>\nEveryone sings their, no matter if you are old, ugly, a bad singer or a good singer. We watched the whole scenery for about three hours and tried some Thai beer and Thai Whiskey. Thai music on TV or radio sound&#8217;s strange, but it still got an western touch, Thai music, performed live and by a local is just amazing. Most of the the songs sound sad, and the singer never smiles.<br \/>\n(We also went to another Thai karaoke bar, but I don&#8217;t remember to much about it, guess why..). Altogether it was the best time I had in Bangkok so far, no other tourist, pure Bangkok and typical Thai entertainment.<\/p>\n<p>22nd of July<br \/>\nBuses in Bangkok are a cheap and a funny way to get around. But when I tried to make my way to the railway station, I had find out that they can be also very confusing. I took Bus Nr. 53, which goes straight to the main railway station. Unfortunately not if you are in a hurry and want to go there as quick as possible. I had to find out that the routes can change, with in one day, so I had to get of the bus and walk to the railwaystation. fortunately I was able to catch my train to Chaing Mai just in time.<\/p>\n<p>23rd of July, Chiang Mai<br \/>\nOur first day in northern Thailand after a 700 kilometre trip by train. Chiang Mai is like Bangkok, just a bit smaller, and a bit cheaper. The city itself is crowded with tourists, I even saw a &#8220;German Hofbraeuhaus&#8221; &#8230; Embarrassing to see young thai woman, dressed in Bavarian clothes. Why do Germans fly thousands and thousands of kilometres, just to sit in a look a like German restaurant and eat German food?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>20th of July 5.00 am, arrival in the capital of Thailand once again&#8230; I had to pick up my friend at the airport around 2:00 p.m., so I stayed at the hostel and talked to some of the thai volunteers. The youth-hostel started a &#8220;volunteer-program&#8221; for thai students . Students can come to the youth-hostel &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/2001\/07\/23\/bangkok-to-chiang-mai\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Bangkok to Chiang Mai by train&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-backpacking","category-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}