The last stop in our mini eight day Thailand adventure was a brief visit to Bangkok, where we could catch a flight on to Bali.  Instead of getting back on to another bus for what could be a long eight to twelve hour drive, we opted for the much comfortable night train option. The Bangkok Express departed from Chiang Mai Rail Station at 6:30pm, right before sunset.  For the first three hours of the train ride, the seating was configured so that every two seays faced one another.  Dinner was provided onboard, complete with the challenging task of eating soup onboard a moving train. Promptly at 9pm, the cabin attendant hurried down the aisle and converted the seats into two folding bunkbeds (impressively enough, it took him only about two minutes to make up two beds at a time, including linens and pillows).  The beds were comfortable and provided lots of leg room. We both enjoyed some zzzzzs until the train felt like it derailed around 2am (it didn’t, but the train manuevered some sharp and sudden turns on the tracks- for about 3 hours).

We arrived in Bangkok shortly after 6am, and got to our hotel around 7am. We were on the 25th floor of a hotel located on Embassy Row (directly nextdoor to the US, New Zealand, and Dutch embassies). We had a great view of the Bangkok skyline from our room. When we finally left the hotel later that afternoon, we discovered we were in a very swanky part of Bangkok, where inexpensive meals were hard to come by. We unknowingly wandered into the most expensive shopping mall in Bangkok trying to find a late lunch, The Central Embassy Shopping, where a celebrity save-the-wildlife press shoot was taking place (at least that’s what we gathered based on dozens of photographers and groups of excited Thai gathered around a handful of sharply dressed people).  We finished the day with a fine dinner of crepes and cider at Crepes & Company.   We woke up painfully early the next morning to catch an early flight to Singapore (an airport with touch screen “rating” displays everywhere, so you can rate the quality of the service you just received or the cleanliness of the bathroom you just used), and then on to Bali, Indonesia.