Cultural Must-Sees in Bangkok

I arrived back in BKK sometime during the morning - the bus ride had been ok, but still I felt tired and it was already hot again. With my heavy backpack I sat down at the bus station in between other tired looking Thais, mostly men, looking at me puzzled and probably wondering what I was doing here. Well - this was the only empty seat I had found. About every other minute I was asked, whether I needed a taxi ... no, I just wanted to sit here. Until I decided someone looked nicely enough to get into a car with ... Luckily I had booked a hotel in advance and when I got there, I could rest a bit, before meeting up with Martin and discovering the cultural highlights of Bangkok.

Which proofed not to be the easiest thing in the world:
- First no TukTuk wanted to take us to the Great Palace - Wat Phra Kaeo.
- Second every TukTuk driver told us, the palace was closed today.
- Third a guide took my travel guide and showed us on the map, where we should go instead (lucky buddha) - he took my pen as well and drew it into the map. But he would not lead us the way to the palace.
- Fourth the entrance we got to was closed, i.e. protected by some armed men.

Finally we got in and could enjoy all the beauty and the tons of gold:

Wat Arun

Wat Pho

Enjoying delicious street food in between

Discovering Pai

This day started rather slowly. Ruth and I enjoyed a nice healthy breakfast at the Witch Cafe and made a plan for the day. Since we experienced biking in high temperatures and high humidity yesterday already, today we got us a driver. We decided to go to Pai Canyon first. In some travel guides Pai Canyon is very optimistically and picturesque described as the answer to the Grand Canyon - whereas it is not as large as one would expect. But the small red earth path with steep-sided valleys on each side is quite exciting and one really has to watch ones step.

Afterwards we drove over the WWII Memorial Bridge which was meant to be a comparison to the Bridge over the River Kwai. We did not feel a need to stop though. Instead headed right to the Tha Pai Hot Spring. This area was used during WWII as a Japanese military camp. Nowadays it has two hot springs - but as time goes by new springs pop up and run dry again all the time. In the hottest pools one can even boil eggs.

On our way back, we stopped at a nice cafe with wonderful views to the surrounding mountains. It was just perfect to get into one of the swings and just relax and enjoy the beauty of the world. Finally we headed back into town, walked along the river and strolled through the shops. One the streets we met some guy from the Netherlands who I had met before in Sukhothai - small world - he joined us for some delicious food, before I had to head back to Chiang Mai and then catch the night bus there to Bangkok. So off I was again in a small mini van with 10 other backpacksers who where heading south towards the isles for a full-moon party.

762 kurves till Pai

Oh my dear, I am feeling so sick. I have no idea whether it was too much beer last night, something I should not have eaten or the absence of a proper breakfast since Ruth and I made the spontaneous decision to go up to Pai today. We met some three guys yesterday who were just over-enthusiastic about that place... So we met this morning around 7.30 at Tapae Gate and got into one of the red auto taxis. Which was a mildly large mistake... there were already two other people on the benches in the back - who were dropped off before us of course... which meant we were cruising about 45 minutes through the streets of Chiang Mai before finally heading out to the main bus station. Once there we had no problems getting our tickets for the next bus and I also made arrangements for my trip back to Bangkok. But oh my... the feeling in my tummy just did not get any better... I had the constant need to have a restroom somewhere really close and I also felt really sorry for Ruth to have to put up with my complaining and for postponing our trip for one hour..., but I needed something salty and sweet to eat, some coke and a decent restroom. And luckily - the only decent company I could rely on now was also there - McDonalds. This might have been the one and only time I felt grateful for being able to rely on some standardized service from a huge american food chain. But it did help.

On the bus (like a small VW bus) we were the only tourists among 9 other locals or so plus the driver. The bags were strapped to the roof, which made me a bit anxious, but I reckoned they know what they are doing. At first we did sleep a bit - but as soon as we reached the first switchbacks I was awake and smiling towards the mountains. It looked all so untouched and peaceful. After a roadblock where we had to show our passports we finally reached Pai. Surrounded by mountains. Everything green and blossoming. 2000 inhabitants. 2 main roads. That´s it. Amazing.

We soon found a place to spend the night, had a delicious lunch and rented some bikes to explore the surrounding area. We wanted to go to a well-known waterfall, which has stones underneath that serve as a slide. About 12 km away. 32 degrees Celsius. High humidity. And once again: while I know what I would be able to put myself through, I am always suspicious when others claim it was not a problem for them at all... It was always going a bit uphill - not very steep though, but it didn´t take long and Ruth was well behind me. Oh well... some more time to enjoy the beautiful views over the valley and the surrounding mountains. And I have to say... Thais are masters of motivation: there were so so so many signs stating "Waterfall 2km" it was amazing. The signs were approximately 10 minutes apart from each other... so it just kept you going... And finally reached the place... when it started raining!! Oh no! Maybe it was just one of those really short rain showers, one get´s every now and then... but no, it just kept on raining. After about 45 minutes we figured we would just have to accept to get wet. And rode back to town. Which was kind of fun in the rain. Had not done that in ages and it felt so good.

Back in town, we took a hot shower and went straight to a Thai Massage Center. They gave us some clothes to wear for the procedure and then we enjoyed an hour of pure relaxation... it was soooo nice. After that we did go to the night street market and had amazing food and drinks out of bamboo wood. Like.

Chiang Mai - It´s cooking

Today I actually was planning to go to a lake some 15 km out of Chiang Mai. Ruth and I wanted to get a swimming hut there and spend the time sun bathing and swimming. However, waking up around 9 am I thought the sun is just rising, since it seemed still somewhat dark. I soon realized, that that was due to the clouds - which would obviously bring rain today - so no sunbathing for us. But I wouldn´t be I if I couldn´t come up with some other great plan (correctly assuming that Ruth did not really think about an alternative...). Only after a few minutes I found GAPs cooking school - courses started at 10 am (perfect - 45 minutes to go and still time for breakfast!) - so I made arrangements for us to participate. Best decision ever.

We were a group of two cooks, one couple from the US/Brasil, three grannys from Israel and the two of us. With one of those refurbished Pick-up trucks we went to the local market. The cooks showed us all kinds of different vegetables and fruits and bought all we needed for the class today. Then we drove a bit out of the city - to a private hide away, surrounded by trees and bushes and a really big house in the middle of the premises. There was also the outdoor kitchen area we would be using. The guy owning this must be well situated - or its damn cheap around here... but he does run a restaurant, hostel and the cooking school.

Everything was set up already - 1000 bowls, knifes, aprons, ... And then it started. In a very humorous way the two cooks explained how to make green curry paste, fish burger, soup, phad thai, ... and kept watching us, helping, explaining again, ... It was great. The stuff we cooked in the first part of the course (about 5 meals) served as lunch, afterwards we prepared another three dishes to take home. Wow. At the end, everyone got a certificate, a cooking book and a bag from GAPs cooking school.

Chiang Mai - W(h)at a town

Around 6 am the sun is already up in the sky and so I was up early as well. Since my travel mates Johannes and Valerie booked some organized trip for today, I was on my own to visit all the wats in town. One could really say wat a town. Chiang Mai is a wat town. Finally of use was then the long dress I really made a bargain on at H&M.

In my guide it was recommended to visit the meditation lessons and monk talks which are offered for free at some wats. So I had the lady from the hostel desk call the wat, but no one answered (I guess all in meditation already) and of course there was no such thing as a webpage with information ... So that was my first destination this morning - Wat Srisuphan. It´s located outside the southern walls of the city. To get there I had to pass through several streets with one jewelry next to another... even longer it took me to get to the monks... This being my fist wat I have to say - good choice. It was beautiful, yet not overloaded with gold, rich with plants and very relaxing and comfortable. After strolling through the premises for a while (unfortunately being a woman I was not allowed to enter every building) I entered the main building, where there was finally a real monk *happy*.
Being a woman I also was not supposed to touch or to go up and talk to the monk. However I needed to talk to someone to accomplish my mission and find out about the meditation. But it did not take too long and the monk, his name is Thu, came up to talk to me. He was originally from the South of Vietnam but has lived in this monastery for quite some years now. For him (as for the others I suppose) it was a great chance ... He told me, he only had an uncle left, who send him here to do something good with his life. Lucky me also learned that the meditation classes as well as the monk talk would be the same evening. Great.

For now I was on the streets again, visiting the main Wats and a few more that came along the way... Altogether it must have been around 10 I saw that day... The one I liked best was Wat Pan Tao - it was almost completely made of teak wood, the garden was filled with small dark yellow flags, red bells and a fountain. It was all so calm and had it´s very own type of attractiveness - without tons of gold.

At some point I just could not bear it anymore. I could not walk any further. Luckily I passed an old wat which offered food massages with essential oils. While from the outside it did not look like some professional modern massage salon (mattresses on the floor, simple roof, no walls, ... it did help! Afterwards I was able to walk again without any pain!! Amazing. Simply amazing.

In the meantime I got a bit hungry and went to a nice cafe, ordered Phad-Thai and enjoyed an iced coffee. Once again I was really happy and satisfied. Soon a guy sat on the table next to me. He told me, he got to Chiang Mai while travelling through Thailand - like so many other backpackers - just that had been about 4 weeks ago. Now he is learning Thai from the lady who also runs this cafe and after a short trip to Laos with his sister, he will return to Chiang Mai and start working here in a call-center. He already organized himself an apartment...  Wow. I can so feel with him... And I cannot think of a reason why I couldn´t do the same... besides maybe, that I am not so sure whether a call-center job would make me happy... But just the fact, that it seems quite easy to move here, get a job, an apartment, and just set up a life in paradise. Thailand seems just like the perfect place to go... the people are always friendly and helpful, the food is just yummy, there are constant high temperatures... But enough of the daydreaming... I still had to find a trekking guide book or a map. I was looking for one all day, but neither the tourist office nor any other shop did have appropriate things available. I was told, everyone just books a guided tour... That is not what I had in mind though. I did not want to be shown set-up villages with set-up locals... and pay for this reality show. And as I turned to leave the cafe, I finally saw a tiny little bookstore. Like a real bookstore. I had not seen one all day. And when I asked the guy for a trekking guide he smiled and showed me a small book, regretting that this might be the only thing he could offer me, but not sure whether it really is what I was looking for... Well, it definitely was. A small booklet, describing 20 day tracks around Chiang Mai, including difficulty levels, etc. It was perfectly fine and would be of great use the next day. Some advice was irritating though: One should watch out for snakes (ok), leeches (ok) and elephants (ELEPHANTS??).

Around 6 pm Valerie joined me and we went to the monk talk and meditation class at Wat Srisuphan. We learned how to meditate while standing, sitting, laying and walking - although I have to admit, while laying one could easily go to sleep. It was actually pretty hard to just concentrate on one thing - the breathing. Thoughts just kept travelling somewhere else... but it definitely helps to calm down. During the monk chat we also learned that most of the monks here were from the south of Vietnam. Valerie and I were the only people participating in this activity - which is a shame, since the monks are so friendly and seemingly happy to get to now other people and to explain there way of life and their values.

Then we met everyone again at Johns Place. It occurred to me how easy it seems, to feel familiar in a place, how people one just met the other day make you feel like long-known friends. It was a fun evening. Johannes and Valerie said, that they were unfortunately not able to do their tour today, because of a not-so-ok stomach  - although they are always taking those pills after each meal.

Off to Chiang Mai

It´s travel time again. This means 5 - 6 hours in a bus from Sukhothai to Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand, but still quite small. Most passengers were sleeping - I was lucky enough to have a window seat, so I was busy watching the landscape pass by and with every new mountain showing up, a smile crossed my face. Finally everything around was green and blooming and just beautiful.

At the bus stations we stopped there were the typical thai toilets where one had to squat down and usually use water to clean up. But so far they always had paper available for the western tourists. So far I didn´t have to use my own roll of toilet paper I had brought along just in case.

As soon as we got off the bus in Chiang Mai we were surrounded by a crowd of taxi drivers. We found one lady who really offered a fair price. To me it seemed like every town does pretty much have their very own kind of taxis. In BKK they were yellow-green or pink limousine cars, mostly Toyota, here they use pick-up trucks equipped with benches and a roof - most of them dark red. And of course the tuk tuks are always around as well.

There was not really much left to do that day... so we met up for dinner and afterwards entered John´s Place - which turned out to be a popular spot with other travellers. With some Chang beer we all agreed that we liked this city a lot already. It did not seem crowded at all, the bars and restaurants were nice and unique, small shops did sell quality products and not the everywhere available odds and ends for tourists. This could only be a good thing.

Sukhothai - the old temple town

Early start into the day - since it was supposed to be hot (as usual) and we had a lot on our itinerary. The tuktuk took us down to Old-Sukhothai where all the ancient temples are and dropped us of right in front of what seemed to be the only bike rental around,. Interesting enough Thais only pay about 1/10 the price of foreigners to get into the temple area (Something I would see a lot more the next days). The first wat was Wat Mahatat, which is the biggest of the temples and was build in the 13th century. Between the destroyed pillars and chedis there were some still intact Buddha figures - decorated with some yellow flowers and yellow ribbons they looked quite impressing. I was totally attracted the moment I stood in front of the wat.

One after another we made our way through several other wats, among them Wat Si Sawai, Wat Sa Si, Wat Trapang Thong, Ramkhamhaeng Monument. They all had something quite special to them, Either some hundreds of years old trees with roots winding across the ground, small lakes or other amazing details.

After spending a couple of hours in the central part of the area, we took the bikes to the northern section. The complex around Wat Phra Phai Luang was very much destroyed and one needed a lot of imagination to see how beautiful it might have been once.

In the western area was just one main wat, which was Wat Si Chum. It is known for the 15 m high Buddha statue inside. This one was truly astonishing. The hands of the buddha were golden - it must have taken thousands and thousands of pilgrims each adding a little tiny portion of gold to those large hands.

It was well after noon by now and we really needed a break, since the sun had been shining on us for hours and my friends already had quite a reddish colour... We had a delicious rice meal and some nice real italian coffee afterwards. The owner of the coffee place also has a guesthouse in town and got stuck in Sukhothai about 15 years ago. Wow.

Around 4 pm we again got on our bikes to venture to some wats further away and right after returned the bikes. Since the travel guide proposes to definitely stay for the sundown, thats what we did. We met another couple also enjoying the fine views and the finally really calm atmosphere. Later on we all met at the night market - unfortunately this time there was nothing there from that spectacle we had seen the night before. So we went into a bar, enjoyed some nice food and finished the night on the roof top terrace with a cold Chang beer.