Hey fans,
today I finally can tell you about my travel experiences from the past. I apologize for my long absence from here, but very often I prefer catching some sunlight, dealing with friendly Thai people around me, and eating the delicious Thai food, instead of spending hours in front of the PC with sorting and postprocessing photos etc. So, sorry for the inconvenience!
As I already announced in the last post, I went to travel to Bangkok, the old historical site Ayuttaya, the floating market of Damnoen Saduak and finally Koh Chang, the "Elephant Island".
After a 10 hours ride with the very comfortable VIP bus we arrived in Bangkok in the early morning. When I stepped of the bus, I was struck by the enormous heat all around me. It made me feel so uncomfortable that my thoughts more and more focused on where I could find the next air-conditioned (AC) area. Fortunately this area materialized in form of a taxi, that took us to Tew's house. After the ahh so refreshing taxi ride we encountered crazy temperatures again in Tew's house, but since there was one AC room, everybody knew where they would find me for the next hours.
So my first impression of Bangkok was: Crazy heat, crazy traffic (almost everywhere we went we got stuck in a huge traffic jam), and crazy people, who somehow manage to stand the craziness of this mega-city for longer than a few hours. Well, actually I was becoming part of them, since my first stay lasted for 3 days. But on the first day we already fled to Ayuttaya, which is an ancient historical site from the old Thai kings, and is a well 1 hour drive over endless highways on giant concrete pillars north of Bangkok. I could take many nice shots in the heat of the day until we went back in the evening in a AC car, which was driven by the niece of Tew and her friend, two nice looking girls who somehow didn't really communicate with us and hardly participated in the activities.
The next day we got up early and visited the floating market of Damnoen Saduak. People sell food and goods from boats there and use old waterways to get from one place to another. The whole market is in constant movement, and if a seller does not find enough people to buy his stuff anymore, he just moves on with his boat to another spot, where the business might bloom again. We even went on a 1 hour canal boat trip, which we enjoyed a lot, since we saw a lot of the simple Thai life along the old canals, and plus the boat was going fast, which made the temperatures a lot more bearable.
The next day we left Bangkok with the bus (this time a normal bus without comfort) and a toilet that didn't have a regular flush but an overfull water bucket that threatened to make me wet each time we drove over a bumb. From the main land south-east of Bangkok we took the ferry to Koh Chang, which is called the Elephant island due to it's shape. We checked in to the Magic resort, a cheap accomodation with only a small bedroom, only a whole in the ground as a toilet, no basin and a shower with cold water only. But since this wouldn't be the place to stay for most of the day, we made ourselves comfortable with the circumstances.
I rented a motorbike there, which was a bit of a hazzle, since the bikes were in such a bad condition. The funny thing is that the island doesn't have real petrol stations, but many places just sell the fuel from whiskey bottles. If nobody would have told me that I would have probably tried to drink from the bottles, because the fuel has a warm reddish brownish colour, like whiskey. Anyway, the bike is the most convenient thing to have on this island, so we were driving a lot. Since the island has very steep mountains, some roads are so steep, that I could hardly go up there with the motorbike. See the video inside the picture gallery for that. :-)
During the next 4 days we relaxed at nice beaches, listened to chilled-out music at the beach bars and on the last day, I even went scuba diving with Michael. I must admit, that I could not remember so much from my scuba diving course at the Great Barrier reef two years ago, but since almost everything is no problem in Thailand, I had a lot of fun, although the water didn't have so many attractions like the great barrier reef.
As a summary, I would say that Koh Chang is a nice island, but developes much too fast. On the more crowded westside, new hotels and accomodations are created very quickly to attract even more tourists, while environmental questions play only an underpart. But who likes it more quiet, can explore the beautiful east side, where a winding road passes through steep green valleys, sugar cane plantages and dreamy villages. At the far end, even a rough off-road adventure awaits the tourist, that makes it that far.
Plus, apart from the more luxurious tourist locations, one can see Thai families living under most simple conditions, that reminds the blessed western tourists of the so called "Third world". People have simple bamboo houses with a roof made of leaves, live and cook directly on the main road, sometimes don't know where to put the garbage. And little children play in that environment. Although I had been staying in Chiang-Mai for many weeks now, I first had to get used to that kind of conditions.
Back from Koh Chang, me and Tip stayed 4 more days in Bangkok, where we visited the Grand palace, where the Thai Kings have lived in the past, took a ride on the river and visited the marvellous temple "Wat Arun", which has steep stairways for brave european hikers, that are not afraid of height. In the evening we went up on the Baiyoke sky tower, which is the highest building of Thailand. We enjoyed an endless view across the Thai capital and I shot a few nice pictures of the sunset and the always pulsating highways, appearing like the veins of Bangkok from far above the ground.
When we finally got back to Chiang-Mai after a crazy 14 hours train drive, on which I didn't get much sleep due to heavily shaking waggons, I was pleased by the cool temperatures and little traffic in Chiang-Mai. After 2 weeks in the hot south and especially 4 days in the Bangkok craziness I was glad to be back "home".
