We started off in Bangkok in a really sub-average place. My mom's 70, and I'm 36, so the varying abilities for what we can both handle are quite different. 

Let's just say that for that first night she was pretty upset. Which was a nightmare for me. I didn't want to drag my mom to a place she hated. 

We were in some budget Chinese digs in Ratchattewi, a suburb with its own Train station. We had to scale a lot of stairs to get to our room. It was a double-bunk room for two. I slept on the top bunk and my mother on the bottom bunk. 

First of all, I got my directions wrong. I didn't know that our place wasn't round the corner from Payatai station. So when we got out of the train that took us from the airport, we got completely lost. 

So we had these two massive suitcases we were trawling along. And then after a fair bit of dodgy darkness, and asking one or two people where our hotel might be - my mom getting more flustered by the second, we finally hailed a cab. Which was something I really didn't want to do, given that this was meant to be a budget holiday.

So we weren't exactly off to a great start. A cab driver eventually took us to our place. Which had a guy inside - indian perhaps - who was happy to open the door for us. Then we had to wait for the guy whose hostel it was. It was a long drawn-out process. And it definitely felt longer at 8:30pm in the less salubrious parts of Bangkok.

 And you know how these things are. . . They're always worse when you don't know what you're doing. When we're flailing around in the dark hoping for someone to save us. 

Anyhow, so eventually this Chinese guy named Tchoey helped us. He was amazingly friendly. He showed us upstairs to our room, which was up a massive flight of stairs, and then he took us to the nearest 7/11. It took a while for my mom to come to her senses. But despite a rough start, she decided to make the most of it. 

Lessons Learned

Okay, so lesson number one for me, aside from knowing where you're going in the late hours of Bangkok: 

Don't go by Tripadvisor pictures. Never, never, ever again!



The budget hostel where we were to stay looked great, and it might have been workable for a while, but in the long run, it was was more of a potential "spirit-killer." I say that half-jokingly because, yes, I was depressed for a few days thinking about my mom's state of mind, but there was literally so much to see in Bangkok that eventually all was okay. 

But this place was on a major freeway! I feel like this kind of thing should be mentioned a lot more on rating websites. It was really awful to be facing a major highway and then on top of it to deal with other budget-travelers shouting up and down the stairs, half drunk. 

So on that point, also be sure that you're with the right tier of traveler. There are distinguished travelers who will respect your mother's right to sleep and there are those who wont. At all. 

I used our initial leg in Bangkok to refamiliarize myself with the mass rapid transit system (MRT) and the sky train. These are two different things, and if you mix them up, it can get you pretty confused about where you're going. Most times though, if you ask the nice lady or gent on the other side of the glass window where you buy tickets, things will be okay. But a good start is to know that you can't reach the underground railway line from the skytrain and vice versa. 

The first call of duty was to get our train tickets sorted for Chiang Mai. From Chiang Mai we'd be traveling to Pai, an out-of-the-way hippy refuge suggested by one of my mom's friends. So we got up fairly early to do get our tickets for Chiang Mai ready. I got my bearings from Google and trying to be the upbeat traveling role-model that I always try to be when others are weak and lost - like my  mom in this case - suggested we head up a highway next to which we had our room!

This was great and a real treat compared to South Africa where you always end up feeling traumatized by beggars and potential thugs every two meters. A nice girl helped us at one of the crossings. She was so cute! We asked her where the station was and she told us straight away. So we climbed up the stairway to the sky train. 

The ticket lady told us to get off at Salad Daeng from whence we'd take the underground to Hua Lampong. That's the station where you organize all of your national railway tickets. 

Which is something we luckily did early. Because seats were filling up. So much so in fact, that we didn't really get the seats we needed. My mom would have to sleep on the top bunk. Which involved a lot of climbing. Luckily for her, she's a fit 70 year old. 

That done, I decided on a whim that we should see China town. 

Which is where I'll pick up with you, my loyal followers, next time!!!

Thanks for Reading!