We hope you guys are still present regularly at our blog spot because we can just feel that a lot of adventures are yet to come. As you could already have concluded from the little title, we are still travelling through Thailand having a very good time! At the moment where we decided to visit Thailand, our picture of the country could be described roughly in three words: beaches, prostitutes and spicy food. Well, as we have already been travelling through Thailand for about a week now, our opinion changed completely. We didn't know that Thailand was such a nice country with that much of abundance on a lot of different aspects.
Our day trip to Chiang Mai
After our instructive passage in Bangkok, we decided to move towards the north. When we were waiting for some Taxi in Bangkok, we got to talk with an old women and she advised us to visit the northern part of the country too because over there, life is very different compared to the southern part of the country. We believed her because we knew that Thailand is a very big country so that's why we decided to follow her advice. The day before yesterday, early in the morning, we left our hotel in Bangkok to move on to our next destination, once again by plane. Our flight to Chiang Mai went by clean as a whistle as we have already become experience flyers right now. A little before the noon we arrived at the renewed airport of Chiang Mai. We took a bus as fast as possible to our little hotel to have enough time left to visit this potentially beautiful city. Thanks to the fast and dangerous driving style of the bus driver we did not have to wait long to travel around in the city. We all agreed promptly that we were not going to visit a temple once again because we had seen enough of them (unless they were very beautiful). Other options were parks, old city walls and shopping and we decided to combine all of them. If we would have to describe the city of Chiang Mai in one word, it would definitely be evolution. It was so clear that the city was undergoing huge changes. There were building projects everywhere and there was a large contrast between old buildings surrounded by cranes and brand new, shiny buildings. It was clear to us that Chiang Mai will probably be a second Bangkok in the near future. After our relaxing, enriching day in the city we had some energy left to spend the night in the city too instead of in our hotel room. People told us that there was a special Night Bazar in the city so we decided to spend the evening over there. What we saw over there was a surprisingly busy and cozy night-market where people were able to buy all kinds of products. We felt really comfortable over there so we felt it was like the ideal moment to collect some souvenirs to surprise our family at home. After the shopping moment, we settled at a nearby café to have a beer while recapitulating the beautiful day.
Off to the countryside...
When we woke up the next morning, we had not decided yet what to do. Because we found ourselves now in the more rural, nature-based part of Thailand, it seemed like an ideal occasion to have another adventurous day, far away from all the city trips. We went a little eastwards to visit some authentic tribes which are very popular in the eyes of tourists. We went to that counryside by boat on one of the hundreds of rivers in the region. On our way to the activity, we got once again confronted with the frightening poverty that still exists in this world. There were some villages near the river that were in a miserable state. Because we did not want to ruin the atmosphere, we didn't stand still with it and we navigated further. After more than an hour of navigating, we finally arrived at a village in the middle of the woods. To our surprise, we were welcomed by the head of a local tribe himself. After some negotiating about the price, we agreed that the man would guide us through the local environs. As we were walking through the woods between the mighty mountains, the guide started with telling stories about the history of Thailand. Those stories were not really stunning but that was also due to the guide's typically asian voice, a type of voice that can sound very annoying sometimes. It seemed to us that Thailand did not have a really rich history. Some interesting aspect that we caught up is that in Thailand, there is also a parliamentary monarchy, similar to our Belgian system. After crossing some woods, we arrived at an enormous open space where there were a lot of plantations. We saw some children working there under the burning sun so we got the impression that the agriculture was quite important for the local tribes. Our guide (who had an almost unpronounceable name) explained to us that the cultivating of products like sugar-cane, cotton, soybeans and some others where the most important source of receivings for the local population next to the touristic incomes. Near the end of our 'guided tour' our guide brought us to a spot where there were a lot of huts all together. The huts were situated next to the enormous mountain Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain of the country. We got into a bit of a chat with some habitants and we understood that we were at a holy place for them because the mountain means a lot for those people in religious terms. We took some cosy dinner over there with overall nice people, but the food was hardly eatable for us. We thanked the people over there and especially our guide and we went back to our boat that would bring us back to our hotel. Once arrived at the hotel, we were of course very exhausted and after some quiet words, we all fell asleep very quickly.
Today, we have decided that we saw enough of this quite fascinating country and that the time came to move on. We can already give away the name of our next destination as it will be the mysterious country of Laos. Make sure you keep refreshing this blog not to miss our next post about our adventures in Laos. Greetings!
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