The departure

Chapter, a period that is part of a larger amount of time during which something happens, and that was what about to be closed. This period of a couple of months was mainly filled with love from friends and family, from the celebration of my 30th birthday to the trips, dinners, coffees or just simple talks. There was some planning of the trip throughout this time as well as all the logistics involved, but what I recall the most it was really all the moments shared with people and I really thank all of them for that.

The last week was spent in Lisbon and after a last lunch with the closest family that was around off I went to this new adventure on the 6th of July. A normal hot summer day in Lisbon and at the beginning of the afternoon there I was about to board the Qatar airways flight QR342 that would head to Doha for a layover followed by the flight that would bring me to the beginning of this journey in Asia.

Bangkok

This was my first contact with SE Asia and what a contact! Bangkok is a city with 11 million inhabitants and you can feel it from the moment you are landing and you can see endless buildings and temples around the Chao Phraya river and all its canals.

For my stay, I chose RALPH Hostel, close to the historic center. It has a rooftop overlooking the river 🙂, and turned out to be a great choice — not just for its central location, but also for the people I met. As soon as I arrived, late at night, I met Vincent, a young Frenchman with a very interesting story as he had just returned from Antarctica and Nele, a German nurse very sweet and friendly that was doing a few months of travelling in SE Asia. They quickly became my partners in crime for the days in Bangkok ⚡️. Those were intense days: a lot of walking, but filled with culture. From the gold details and rituals of Wat Pho to the vastness of the Grand Palace and the energy of Chinatown — Bangkok truly has it all.

🛕 Wat Pho

After a much-needed night’s rest, my first full day (8th of July) began late, around 11. Together with Nele we went to a coffee shop close by the hostel and decided to start with something close by, the Wat Pho temple. It turned out to be a great first option as it was quite an immersive experience into Buddhist culture. Thai people are deeply connected with their religion and we could see that firsthand during our visits. The Reclining Buddha itself was stunning — 46 meters long and 15 meters high — but what struck me most was observing locals making offerings and praying. On one side of the temple we saw an area where locals would be praying and giving some offerings as well as sticking some gold petals to the gods they were praying to in order to ask them to fullfill their wishes. In a closed area next to this I observed two or three local people on their knees shacking what seemed to be a wooden glass with some sticks in it. I was quite curious about it so I decided to check it out and ask an old lady that was sitting inside what was that about. The old lady did not speak any English, so I pointed to the people on their knees and mimicked the gesture they were doing with their hands, however she pointed to a wall that was filled with open wooden squares, like a mailbox without a cover. We were quite confused at this point but we decided to go check it out anyway. On the wall there were some papers inside each square with some messages, I looked at it and the messages and then she pointed to the people shaking the box, so we went there. Eventually there a local guy explained that the glass had sticks with numbers, and each number was associated to each of the square. So we kneed as well in the mat and started shacking the glass with the sticks, eventually one came out and the guy that had explained the whole ritual to us brought us the message. After this we walked through the temple as the hours flew by and it was already time to leave the temple, so we headed to the hostel to rest a bit before dinner.

🏮 Chinatown

At dinner time Vicent joined us and we decided to head to China town which was 30 min walking from our hostel. It was a great way to get to know the streets of old Bangkok, most of them narrow dark streets with lots of electric cables hanging around and where scooters would pass next to people that would be walking by, an organised chaos. On our way there we passed by this really old lady that was trying to cross one of the main roads with a big hand car but being partly blind and with the speed at which the cars were passing she just was not managing. We decided to help and Vicent offered to go with her to the other side, at the time seemed something very reasonable, well turned out a bit more dangerous as the cars and bikes just did not stop and were going around them at the same speed almost as no one was there. Eventually he managed to get to the other side, and after quite a while had a successful comeback 🙌. We continued our way and eventually the shinny neons started to appear, a clear sign we were arriving. The initial feeling was how overwhelming it was with the amount of people, food and noise around, but at the same time vibrant and intriguing. We started going from one stand to the other checking al the different kind of foods, drinks and fruits around. As newly arrived intrigued turists we stopped in the most different stand we could find, basically the one selling all sorts of warms, scorpions and the most random things. We ended up buying a couple of warms and 🦂 to give it a try and surprisingly what I ended up enjoying the most was the scorpion. This was due to the way all of them were cooked. All of them were deep fried but there was always some flavour still there. I felt the scorpion tasted like popcorn, whereas the warms had a very peculiar taste and texture that I was not very found of 🙃. The rest of the night we wondered around the streets of Chinatown trying different foods until going back to the hostel.

The following two days were spent visiting several temples such as the Phra Maha, the Wat Phantum or the Wat Paknam and the Golden Mount. All these temples had their own peculiarities and in all cases was very interesting the different interactions with either the local monks or locals in the temple praying. In each occasion there were some learnings from things that would go beyond religion such as how the temples were used by local community as not only a temple but also as the place to go in case of need either for a family member or even for their four leg friends. Apart from this cultural immersive experience we also had time to enjoy Bangkok’s night life and in my second night we decided to head to one of the most known rooftops in town, Tichuca, despite being quite touristy the truth is that the views over the city were just astonishing and we had a blast 🕺.

My fourth and last full day in Bangkok, the 11th of July, was spent only with Neele as Vicent had left the night before. On this day we headed to Amphawa market, 90 min away from Bangkok. We went there through a guided tour and it was a bit of a let down at first as we expected to go to a floating market, however we ended up not seeing one. As soon as we arrived to the area the first stop was the train market which was very interesting to watch the whole dynamic of having the whole market turned to the train line and 2 min before the train arrives everything is pushed back in order for the train, quite slowly, to pass right in front of us. After this experience we took the bus to the “floating market” which we got to know that only happens in the morning and we only arrived there at around 15, so nothing happening 🙃. There was a nice river and some commerce on the sides which was still nice though. Before we returned to Bangkok we still went for a sunset boat tour to check the fireflies which was really nice as we managed to see plenty of them. One of the things that shocked me though was that while we were on the boat going through these very dirty waters I saw a man, in front of his home cleaning himself on the river. After seeing this I decided to ask the captain of the fast boat we were in if the houses didn’t have clean water to which he answered that they did. I have to admit I was a bit surprised by the answer as I didn’t see a logical reason for that behaviour so I asked him why was the man cleaning himself in such water to which he answered that he had been doing it all his life and therefore it was what made sense for him. This scene made me think and during the trip back in the bus I tried to reflect on it.

These 5 intense days in Bangkok would end up with a visit to the Grand Palace, that I felt ended up being too short as it had so much to see but I had too little time, 2 hours, before heading to the airport. This was because the previous night I had decided that it was time for a change and booked my flight to the main city in northern Thailand, Chiang Mai. So I said goodbye to Neele, passed through the hostel and took a Grab (Asian Uber) to the airport.

Chiang Mai

I arrived to Chiang Mai in a rainy evening on the 12th of July. Right before boarding I had booked my accommodation, the Angmo Hostel, an hostel with very little reviews, but good ones, which ended up being one of the best of the whole trip. It had just been inaugurated a month before and it immediately felt like home. This was really good because the heat and all the walking in Bangkok had been quite exhausting so I mostly rested in my first days in Chaing Mai. I decided to work on the website of the Blog during the day and plan my days not only in the city but also around it.

Although the days were mostly spent on a very low key note, still did some things. On the first night I headed to the night market on the outskirts of downtown Chiang Mai, which was very nice because I ended up having dinner with a group of Spanish that was there too. On the second day, 13th, I spent the day mostly at the hostel and started drafting the plan of what would be week 2 and my biggest adventure in northern Thailand, to do the Mae Hong Son loop. At night though I went out as it was Sunday, and weekly the big market would be on the main streets downtown during the afternoon.