Since neither of us like visiting most tourist attractions, especially temples, Bruce planned a day trip to a nearby town. We got up early, for us, and caught a Grab taxi (90 baht) to the train station to catch the #8 Special Train to Khun Tan (50 baht each).
We had to ask for help as to which platform you got on the train. The man we asked told us platform 3, but everyone else was waiting on platform 2.
When we took a good look at the train, you could get on either side, so we strolled onto our carriage while everyone else pushed and shoved with their luggage on the other side.
We got off at Khun Tan so that we could take a picture of the Khun Tan tunnel. The Khuntan Tunnel is, with a length of 1,362 meters, the longest railway tunnel in Thailand. It took several years to construct, with construction stopping during WW1, they mostly used cheap Lao workers. The most beautiful part of the Northern Line is the stretch through the Khun Tan National Park. The train trip also took us over the White Bridge, which we see while playing golf at Gassan Khuntan (now we know where they got the name from).
We got off the train at Khun Tan since the train doesn’t stop long enough for you to get a picture of the tunnel and then get back on. I thought there would be a bit about the history of the tunnel at the station, but there wasn’t. Didn’t matter though since our first train ran late and the next train came on time so we were only at the station for 40 minutes.
The station was quite nice for our stop and we both had a drink while waiting. Then we caught the local train #408 to Nakhon Lampang.
Nakhon Lampang is the only town in Thailand that allows horse carriages on the roads, so we caught another Grab taxi (90 baht) to the Museum Lampang (after a couple of failures) where we found the horse and carriages lined up for us to catch. Bruce decided on the 1 hour ride (500 baht) since neither of us really wanted to walk around in the heat (even though it wasn’t unbearably hot). This also meant we got a few stops in on the way (at a couple of temples, yuk).
The first stop was the most interesting since it made reference to something we knew about, but also made a connection to something we didn’t know about. Louis was born in Lynton which was a townsite in the Mid West region of Western Australia. Lynton is situated at the mouth of the Hutt River. His father worked for the Port Gregory Convict Depot (known later as Lynton Convict Hiring Depot).
After this we did a couple of Wats (Temples).
Rosie didn’t really like being pulled around by the small horse, but Bruce assured her that pulling us around was better than being turned into pet food, so she nearly accepted it. Throughout our ride we passed by Gingerbread houses, which are ornate houses made out of teak (relate back to Louis above). We didn’t really see any of the big ornate houses, but saw a lot of the smaller type.
To end our day, we caught a bus back to Chiang Mai (the trains didn’t meet our schedule and the busses ran every 15-30 minutes , cost 100 baht each).
That evening we walked to a new street market and picked up some food from the stands. Bruce had some delicious crispy pork. Expand the photo above and see if you can find Rosie ordering her food.
It was a very enjoyable day for us, doing things we like. The most expensive activity of the day was the Grab taxi from the bus station to our hotel, at 5pm. It cost 200 baht for 20 minutes.
The total cost for the day was about 1100 baht which is about $25 each.
