Voyage , Voyage

And there I was, sitting in an airport express bus bringing me from brand new Suvarnabhumi Airport to the city center. I recognized that particular smell of a big city in the tropics, and lots of cars, buses, trucks, scooters and other air polluters were forming the daily traffic jam. In the streets of Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, the starting point of my journey.

After a good night sleep in Chinatown I headed to Auythaya, the former Thai capital, with lots of ancient ruins. My guesthouse was like a Dutch settlement - a good place to get used to the Asian timezone, food and toilets. Since we wanted to learn some basic Thai and the staff was eager to learn some basic Dutch, we wrote down a list of English phrases and taught each other the translations. Thank you very much, I was ready to go on.

I went on to Sukhothai, Thailands first capital. My guesthouse was a neat place with nice people, there was a German couple who gave me a helpful hint for dirt-cheap air tickets to Singapore - which I've actually booked - and two cheerful French girls who apparently didn't mind travelling with this bad-french speaking old man ;-) The old city ruins were impressive and fun to visit by bike, some of the streets however were flooded and the minibus from the new to the old town acted as a hoovercraft. This picture shows a man walking on the street in Sukhothai.

Full of expectations we took a bus to Chiang Mai, food was delicious and wats were nice indeed, but Northern Thailands highlight was definitely peaceful hippie Pai. Thailand is the land of smiles, but many farang travellers also had suspicious smiles on their face ;-) The scenery was awesome and nice to visit by scooter or motorbike, but I wouldn't be myself if I didn't choose for the mountainbike (see my previous entry). I was a rare sight for the people in the villages, and also for their dogs chasing me in large numbers and keeping the pace in my trip.

I was amazed how tourism had thrived everywhere, even in this peaceful town. There were rafting possibilities, elephant treks and mountain treks to remote hill tribes. Remote villagers as a tourist attraction - I wondered if it was a blessing to have new groups of backpackers, of varying IQ levels, making an organized visit to your village every day. I preferred to take life easy - something Pai was made for - and in my hammock on the riverside I started the side project of this trip: learning some Malay / Indonesian. It will come in handy during the coming months!

Sander