Bus Bangkok to Chiang Mai

More issues… We decided to leave BK and travel north to Chiang Mai to trek through the jungle and meet some local tribes. Arriving at the travel agent at 5pm I almost gave our knob of a taxi driver a heart attack when I opened the passenger door into traffic and narrowly missed having it taken off my a Mercedes Benz. I don’t know what he was worried about, there were millimetres to spare (don’t forget engineers are very precise people). We were then whisked to the ‘bus station’ (read: side of the road), our “VIP” [I suspect “Very Important Prisoner”] bus arrived 3.5 hours later and we were away on our ‘dinner included 12 hour – over night journey’.

About an hour into it while we were still excited about the whole bus thing, the biggest storm I have ever witnesses began approaching over the horizon. We had an hour of constant thunder and lightning bolts, trees blowing over on the motorway, torrential rain and massive winds blowing the bus over the road (lucky the lane markings have little relevance in Thailand!). We later found out that the storm killed over 100 people in the Philippines. At hour four we arrived at our destination for dinner, I had a cramp I was so hungry, that is until I saw the shit on our plates. Fried sizzler type sausages sliced into strips that I could seen through and probably used and a lubricant in an engine, rice soaked in water and Bok Choi. I slanted away from the sausages in favour of the BC but within seconds was seriously questioning if I had just finished my first mouthful of dog meat. Needless to say their plan worked and I brought dinner from the solitary nearby store. An hour later and the fully laden “VIP” bus was approaching the mountain ranges of North Thailand, with this came a severe chill in the passenger compartment. Apparently stopping four times to refuel the radiator and running the air conditioning at full blast (~15degreesC) and freezing the passengers for hours to prevent engine overheating is appropriate “VIP” service in Thailand. Being the fresh naive traveller I was left unaware of this policy, the only things that kept me going over the last three to four hours were:

1. My Bay of Plenty rugby jersey with my arms tucked well inside,
2. The curtain from the window that I wrapped around my head and upper torso, and
3. The fact that Matt desperately needed a piss, he was within seconds of filling two 350ml bottles while sitting in his seat when the “VIP” bus took another water stop, to my disgust and extreme disappointment.
   

On arrival I was in disbelief (possibly shock), very cold but some how excited to get to Chiang Mai at 7am being greeted by a taxi driver holding “Matthew Wallace” upside down ready for a day to explore the town.

PS. I am having an absolutely awesome time, I have just chosen to share stories of my misery as I know it is funny for everyone else involved.