The Trek Part 1: The night train and Kantoke Dinner

Our time in Chaing Mai is coming to a close, as I start to write this up; I am in a double deck coach bus (on the second level of course). On the TV screen I can see Thai Pop music videos, and the volume is at an annoying high level. The interior of the bus is mainly purple, but it also has day glow accents on the upholstery of the seats and the ceiling. The bus is the perfect place for a rave (which unfortunately we are not having) and the worst place for someone with a hang over (which fortunately I do not have).
In any case it looks like it will be a more comfortable, if more boring trip than our train ride to Chaing Mai.

Steve Jennifer and I arrived at the train station to meet Ashton and Will. We thought we had come early enough to get a second class sleeper car on one of the night trains, but such was not the case. We were able to get normal second class seats on the last train out. This gave us a few hours extra to sit around and chill. We first stopped by the Train stations KFC and found an out of the way corner on the second floor to chill. Ashton and Will ordered some food from there, and eventually we all went over to the 7-11 across the street to buy food and drinks for the trip. Still having time to kill, and feeling we had overstayed our welcome at KFC we found a spot in the middle of the terminal floor and someone took out a deck of cards. We played the game Yanif, which a group of Israeli travelers taught Ashton and Will when they were in Pattaya.

When we got on the train we found our accommodations not bad. It was at least better than the 3rd class trains I was used to riding in to Auyttaya and to Samut Songkram. The seats were upholstered and kind of reclined and we had air-conditioning. The car in front of us was the dinning car, which we had heard was where the real parties were on the night train, so after awhile we decided to check that out. Rumors were true, the place was loud and boisterous. Part of that might be the cars policy of kicking you out unless you were consuming either food or alcohol. We played more Yanif and chatted with other travelers. There was a group of Brits who said that they would meet us at the train station to see if we could trek together. (they never did, either they were just being polite or they were all too drunk to remember having said that), There was a group of Spaniards from Madrid who taught Jennifer a new card game (which she has yet to share with us, so either it sucked or she forgot how to play) and there were a couple of undercover Thai cops, who were too drunk to stay undercover. They were a joy to chat with, and insisted on sharing their beer. I do not altogether like beer, however it would have been rude not to drink with them (and they were cops, which made it a bit more important to not be rude to them) and it would have been ruder to not toast with them (“chaio!”). My polite manners, coupled with the fact that that they never let my glass stay less than half empty led to me consuming an uncomfortable amount of alcohol, which I will not bother to elaborate on.
At 2am the dinning car closed and most of us went back to our seats while some people stood on the areas between cars to smoke. I heard later that one of the cops was trying to sell Will and the Spaniards some weed. Luckily everyone was in a clear enough state of mind to realize that that would have been a very bad idea and angrily declined.

Upon waking up the next morning I saw a landscape out the window quite different than I see in and around the central plans of Bangkok. Our train chugged along in large valleys, with forested mountanis in the distance, and we ran through and occasional tunnel to punctuate our continued progress into the northern provinces.
We were served an American breakfast for 100 baht. I tried to eat the eggs, but that was quite unpleasant so I just stuck to the toast. After breakfast a Canadian traveler sat down to chat with us. Her name was Brette and she was traveling alone through Southeast Asia while her husband worked in the oil fields. She said that she didn’t yet have a place to stay in Chaing Mai and was hopeing to go on a trek. I had booked beds at the dorm for 6 people, since we were originally traveling with that many, but since we were down to five we invited her to come with us.

We finnaly arrived at the Chaing Mai train station sometime after noon. We found a Songtau that would take us to A Little Bird Guesthouse for 20 Baht each. We loaded our bags onto the top and pilled in the back. At the guesthouse, we checked in and were shown to the ten person dorm room that we would be staying in. I set to calling our trekking company to work out payment and confirm our trek and finalizing arrangements for our traditional Northern Thai Dinner that I had been trying to book for that evening. The rest of the group went to make copies of their passports and grab a bite to eat.

Chaing Mai is quite a ways away from Bangkok and unsurprisingly has a different culture. A northern banquet dinner is called a Kantoke. On the website I was booking from it was quoted at costing 200 Baht per person for transportation, dinner and entertainment. My email confirmation however listed the price at 350 Baht. I called the company and explained that I was very set on the website price and the lady on the phone conceded. Later, while I was busy dealing with something else, some body else called and when Jennifer answered explained that it had to be 300 Baht. When I was told of this I was rather frustrated and again called the company back. They offered me a ‘deal’ at 270 Baht, but I explained to them that 250 each was the highest my group of 6 would go. They agreed to that price.

The trekking company sent someone to the guesthouse to collect the money for the trek and then later they sent our trek guide to provide us with an orientation and a question and answer session. Our guide introduced himself as Ar. However, we all heard his name as Ah, and called him that until the second night of the trek. When we had run out of questions he took his leave and said he would see us at 8am the next morning.

Shortly after Ar left the minibus to take us to the Kantoke arrived. I made certain that we were only paying 250 each, and then we all paid and climbed aboard. We drove to an expensive hotel which had a space set aside for such events. It was an open air space, with a performance area in the middle, surrounded by rugs and pillows. We all had a triangular pillow for our backs and sat in a circle. We were brought out two communal platters of traditional, delicious, northern food to eat from, with sticky rice. The best part was when we finished a dish, more was brought out to us. It was all you can eat!!

Part of the way through dinner the dancing started. People from the different local tribes came to perform traditional dances. They ranged from the rather boring to exciting sword dancing. After we had eaten untill very full and told our waiters that we were done, we were served platters of fresh fruit. Luckily there is always room for more in my stomach, and in all of my friends stomachs it seemed. The fruit was delicious. (I’m rather certain that ill never be able to eat a supermarket purchased fruit when I return back home without thinking about how much better the fresh Thai fruits are)

After Dinner and dessert was done the night still was not over. We had a change in location to go see the Hill Tribe show. As we walked to the stage, we deduced that the only real reason for this change in local was so that we had to walk through a small marketplace. And of course they had my least favorite of all goods found in Thai markets. Wooden frogs.

The wooden frogs are frog carvings, with a stick that when you rub across its spine makes a kind of croaking noise. The vendors seem to think that by annoying you with the noise from these infernal devices that you will want to buy one of your very own. I personally would not be opposed to destroying each and everyone one in Thailand.
The Hill Tribe show was just an extension of the dinner performances, with the very boring old Hmong ladies chanting, to the much more exciting fire dancer.

After the hill tribe show we returned to our minibus and were driven back to the little bird to get some rest before the start of our trek.