Breakfast here was complimentary with the room and was the best yet with eggs prepared to your choice, fresh fruit, juices, toast and several dishes like noodles, chicken pasta and salads.
Tonight we catch the sleeper train to Phuket in the south of Thailand. Until then we have to try and resolve a problem with our visas. When we flew into the country we were given a 30 day maximum stay and we planned to fly out on the day our visas were to expire. What we didn't realize is that when a tourist enters the country by air they get a 30 day stay but when they enter by land, as we did yesterday from Cambodia, they are only given a 15 day stay. Our flight is still 8 days after that.
We checked out of the hotel and caught a cab to the government complex. The stop where the cab dropped us off was across the street from the government complex so we needed to cross the highway on a walking bridge. Each entrance to the bridge had two armed soldiers. When they saw us they held us back for a moment and then told us to run. They spoke Thai of course so we really didn't know what they said, but they were waving and flailing their arms letting us know to hurry. When we reached the top of the stairs I only thought it appropriate to stop and take a picture, but much to my dismay it set off the guards at all four places, yelling and screaming and jumping and waving? They were moving their arms furiously and yelling, the ones behind us were waving GO GO GO and the ones in front of us were signaling COME COME COME. They way they were carrying on we were apprehensive about coming out the other side expecting a chewing out, but the soldiers looked happy and relieved when we exited the bridge and waved us on. Last week there was a travel alert issued by the US dept of defense concerning tourists in Bangkok due to some kind of terrorist threat. Travelers were encouraged to avoid public areas and apparently us meandering on a walkway way up high in the open was making us a target. We decided to find another way back to the hotel.
Safe after crossing the highway we found out we were not at the correct building and two motorbike drivers offered to take us to the correct place. There are four primary forms of transportation here; public (sky train, subway and bus), automobile, tuktuk and motorbike and perhaps there are more of the latter than anything else. They are small and cheap and fast and maneuver easily in and out of the harrowing traffic. Imagine a wild and crazy tuktuk running on granny's moonshine only on 2 wheels instead of 3. We held on for dear life zooming in and around cars like characters in a 3D movie. Parked car in road? No problem, WHOOSH! Cars too slow? No problem again, WHOOSH! No room between cars? No problem, sidewalk free, WHOOSH! All of a sudden we found ourselves praying for a TukTuk. Thankfully we didn't have far to go which was fortunate, much longer and we both our seats would have been wet.
The government building was massive and looked like it could easily house a football field in the interior courtyard. It was 8 stories up and at least one visible court below full of restaurants and stores. We went through a lengthy and frustrating series of different offices and lines before finally being told that since we will be staying in Chaing Mai for the next two weeks we would need to file the papers at the Chaing Mai office.
We caught a cab directly to the train station, safely avoiding the walking bridge, where we stowed our bags and went to see the river. We sat at a restaurant, had a drink and watched the boats going back and forth up and down the waterway. After returning to the train station we ate a quick meal at KFC and boarded our train to the South.
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