Mae Sariang (January 29-30)

When you think it can't get worse it gets worse. The trip from Mae Sot to Mae Sariang yesterday started in the usual pick-up truck but one little detail was different compared to the other pick-up rides - the roof was lower. At the beginning there was no problem because I could sit diagonal but when more and more people entered I had to sit upright, which I couldn't because of the low roof. After hours of torture stooping my back, I finally decided to do like the garbage men and stood on the footboard. I was even able to overlook the baggage stored above and could anticipate curves and other obstacles. We saw a huge refugee camp on the way. I guess there were some ten thousands of Burmese people living there. Again, we can only hope that things improve!! The landscape in Northern Thailand is really nice, mountains make it more diverse and there is no deforestation so far. Due to the higher altitude the nights get quite chilly with a minimum temperature of around 10°C. During the day the temperature can achieve 30°C, but there is no humidity, what makes the climate quite enjoyable.

Anyway, at the end of the pick-up ride we even loaded a motorbike which got broken. I have some funny pics which I will upload next time. Mae Sariang is a quiet little town with only few tourists. In the evening I had some beers with Al from Alaska, who is travelling Thailand every year with his off-road motorbike when there is no work in Alaska due to the strong winter. He is working for a construction company as a carpenter.

Today I rented a motor bike like everyone does here to go to the Salawi National Park. My Honda 125cc motor scooter (no, I don't have a driver's license for that) was really robust. Even though it is not designed for off-road trips, I went everywhere in the park. I first feared that it could have a flat tyre with all the spiky stones, but nothing! It was my first trip on a motor bike and I am really proud that I could even drive off the beaten track! After driving through the park for I don't know how many kilometers, I arrived at Mae Sam Leab, a small village outside the park, situated at the Eastern boarder of the Salawi river, the natural border between Thailand and Myanmar. I was the only foreigner there and everyone on the way was waving to me and smiling. The people are really so nice! Someone told me that in the village there is a petrol station. My scooter was terribly thirsty so I needed to refuel. I stopped at a small house to ask the way to the petrol station. As I don't speak a single word of Thai, I pointed towards the fuel indicator with my finger. Then they gave me two plastic bottles with petrol - the petrol station, it's that simple!

The landscape on the way was not overwhelming but it was nice to see all these remote villages. This part of Thailand is the most original, not yet packed with tourists and I am enjoying it a lot! I will try to go on a 2 or 3 day hiking tour tomorrow. It is really not easy because you have to wait until there is a reasonable number of people (maybe 5 in a group), otherwise it's getting too expensive. If I can't do it here, I will try in Mae Hong Son, my next destination.

Mae Sot (January 28)

I'm back to Mae Sot after a horrible pick-up ride with even more people on board than before. There were maybe 18 people inside, 5 standing on the rear part like the garbage men and I don't know how many on the roof top. When we arrived in Mae Sot they all came down, which was quite surprising because we haven't noticed when they climbed up.

Anyway, now I'm here in the Wi-Fi enabled guest house. I had a great lunch at different street eateries and now I'm taking the afternoon "off". I have to get used again to meeting other travellers after having spent 4 days with Marlene and Paul. Paul has decided to stay more time in Umphang and Marlene has taken the direct bus to Chiang Mai. I will decide later how to proceed, no stress!

Umphang (January 24-27)

Since Sukhothai I am traveling with Marlene from Vienna. We had a really fantastic ride on a pick-up truck from Mae Sot to Umphang. It took more than 5 hours, of which 4 hours we shared the truck with around 20 other passengers, 2 puppies, 2 hamsters and loads of food in large sacks. You can imagine that it was not especially comfortable but a great experience. Many passengers were from Myanmar and one girl spoke really good English. She told us about her difficult situation here in Thailand and we learned a lot from her. The friendliness of these people is really overwhelming and these contacts with locals are a great travel experience. It doesn’t occur too many times that you can hold a conversation in English so you really have to take advantage. There was also Paul on the truck, an Englishman married with a Thai woman. He is already retired and passes the European wintertime in Thailand with his wife. As his wife doesn’t like traveling he is on his own. He even speaks a little bit of Thai, which has been of great help.

We arrived in Umphang on Tuesday afternoon and the pick-up truck driver even took us to the guest house we looked up in the guide. Finally I found what I was looking for! Our guest house is a lovely piece of earth. Wooden bungalows within the nature and a terrace pointing towards a river, absolutely great! We are the only guests in this large guest house since our arrival and we have already figured out that there are hardly any other tourists in town. That is really strange because Umphang has an infrastructure for hundreds if not thousands of tourists. In the guest house they told us that tourists almost disappeared from one year to another, very mysterious! There used to but quite a lot of local tourism, but the growing middle class of Thais is now going elsewhere. Last year’s flood may also have had its impact because some people lost their houses and have no money left for vacation.

On Wednesday Paul and I went to town in order to check out how to get to the big waterfall (biggest in Southeast Asia) but we couldn’t get any useful information because there were no agencies and the other guest houses we visited were abandoned. In our guest house they wanted to charge us a lot of money and that’s why we decided to crosscheck in town. In the evening we learned from Marlene that we actually went into the wrong direction, so at the end we didn't go to Umphang but to another town we have passed on our way from Mae Sot. That's why it took us almost an hour by foot and not 20 minutes as indicated, really stupid!

We did some shopping because in the guest house we could only get basic food and water. So we bought beer, some sweets and milk (Paul is traveling with a water boiler and a selection of English tea, that’s what we needed the milk for). There was a funny situation in the morning because Marlene didn’t know it was her birthday. She noticed it when she read SMS on her mobile. She thought it was the 24th and not 25th. To be honest I’ve never met a person who forgot the own birthday!  In the afternoon we had a great swim in the river. We walked like 500 meters up the river and swam down with the streaming. Really cool!

Yesterday, Marlene and I finally went on our tour to the waterfalls. At the end we booked it in our guest house because there was no other way of doing it. We started our trip with 5 crew members (2 steering men on the front and rear part of the boat, 2 girls from the guest house and a little boy. Later there was a sixth man who picked us up with the 4x4 car. We then understood why it's so expensive when 5 people have to be paid!

It was a great 3h ride on the raft through a beautiful valley, then 1h by car and finally a 30 min walk to the waterfalls. The waterfalls were not very impressive compared to what I have seen in South America (also it's dry season and the water level is quite low), but we had a swim in the turquoise blue water and enjoyed it a lot. At the waterfalls there were more tourists, but only Thais. Seems as if this place is not yet on the roadmap of backpackers. Better for us! All in all it was really worth it because the two girls from the guest house were really nice and seemed to enjoy it like us.

I am now sitting in an internet cafe in the real Umphang. I will spend this afternoon swimming and hanging out in the guest house and tomorrow take the pick-up back to Mae Sot. I will then finally upload some photos. I know you are waiting for it.

Mae Sot (January 23)

Today I had a 3h bus ride to Mae Sot (next to the Burmese border). Funny that geographically I am almost back to Myanmar! Mae Sot is a border town with a cultural mix of Thai, Burmese, Chinese and Western people who mainly work with NGOs. The other side of the border is populated by the Karen people (an ethnical minority within Myanmar). They have been persecuted for a long time by the Burmese military government and that's why they were forced to flee to Thailand where they live under very bad conditions. The local NGOs are mainly active in surrounding refugee camps. The Karen people have recently been mentioned in the press because the new (more democratic) government of Myanmar has signed a cease-fire treaty with them. Hopefully things will now improve!

Apart from visiting the local market (not good for sensible noses), the only thing I did today was trying to figure out how to go to the last remaining jungle area in Thailand, which is located around 160 km south of Mae Sot. I will have a 5h bumpy bus ride tomorrow to Umphang, from where I will try to arrange some trekking. Wish me luck!

Sukhothai (January 21-22)

Ok, my first week was really chaotic, I have to admit. I can finally live well with my decision to skip Myanmar (at least I have seen Yangon). The important thing is that I’m finally on the road (and not at the airport) and that the trip can now really start!

Yesterday morning I had an early flight back to Bangkok. I was heading directly to the bus station to get a ticket northbound. There was no problem of getting a ticket to Sukhothai, so I finally left Bangkok in the early afternoon. On the bus I met Pedro from Malaga who entered the bus in Ayutthaya. It was really cool to speak Spanish again! I think he was also glad because he’s temporarily studying in South Korea and it seemed as if he was really glad to switch to his mother tongue after so much time speaking English. It’s his first time travelling and he did the mistake of booking his whole journey across Thailand in Bangkok where he got ripped off in a travel agency. They told him they were run by the government. Ok, I will not comment, everyone has to make his experiences but did you ever see a travel agency run by the government?

Pedro and I finally arrived in Sukhothai. I went to the same hostel he had booked in beforehand because it was really nice (apart from the bed mattress which made me sleep like a fakir). The town is quite nice with good places to eat and drink. No need to mention that Thai food is world class, one dish better than the other (especially for people like me who like it spicy). And the fruit shakes are absolutely great! Seems odd but eating is really important for me, it keeps up moral, like in the army.

Today we went to the Sukhothai archeological park (that’s why tourists come here). It is a huge area with rests of the former capital of the Sukhothai kingdom (13th and 14th century), including palaces and pagodas. You can enter the park with a rent bike because the different sites are quite far away from each other. That’s what we did and as you can image, the size of the bike didn’t correspond to my body height. My back and lower parts of my body now really hurt!

Yangon (January 19-20)

I woke up at 3:15 am on Thursday after 2h of sleep to go to BKK airport. The first thing I noticed when I got out of the airport building in Yangon was the nice climate, a little cooler than Bangkok and without humidity. Some other people and me were taken to the guest house in a let’s say 40 year old bus which didn’t seem to make it all the way – but it did! In the afternoon I hooked up with a French couple and a girl from Germany to see a temple with a huge reclining Buddha (bigger than in Bangkok) and then we discovered the surrounding area with more temples. We met an old man at the entrance of one of the temples when we were about to go to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. He told us that he can show us a shorter way through the monastery area and we accepted because it’s nicer than going on the dirty streets. He was very kind and the “abbreviation” to the Pagoda turned out to be a 2h tour, visiting different parts of the monastery. We even went to some of the monk’s homes where we had tea with them in their “living rooms”, really cool! It’s totally understandable that he asked for some help at the end of the tour (taking into account that this country is really poor) but we really thought that his intent was fully non-commercial. It’s really a pity because a feeling of being scammed remains. Nevertheless, it has to be mentioned at this point that the people here are overwhelmingly friendly to foreigners. Even in the most touristic places there is only little hassle and only few intents of selling you something.

We finally arrived at Shwedagon Pagoda. It’s difficult to describe it with words. It’s huge and it’s entirely covered with gold. It’s surrounded by neighboring buildings and temples, really impressive. I will try to upload some photos later on. We stayed there until after sunset to see it also when it’s illuminated.

After sightseeing, a Danish couple, two other German guys and me were looking for food and stopped at a street bar, not because it looked especially nice, but rather because we were so hungry after the long day. The food was, let’s say so, borderline. Cold rice with some rests of chicken and oily sauce. It was eatable but really no pleasure. We then went back to the guest house where I had a second dinner, better, but not very tasty neither.

On Friday, I went to the city center. It has some nice corners and interesting colonial buildings (some of them are almost ruins and seem to be abandoned for ages) but I cannot say that it is particularly nice. I ended my trip and the central market building where foreigners use to change money. In Myanmar the only way to get cash is bringing dollars and changing them at banks or on the streets, where you get a slightly better rate, but running the danger of being scammed. I met a couple from Switzerland who was worried about the amount of money they brought to Myanmar. There is no chance to get new money from ATMs or banks because the country is not connected to the international banking systems. If you run out of cash, you have a serious problem.

I all places I heard worrying stories concerning accommodation in Myanmar. In Yangon I booked my guest house in advance, which was a good decision, because there were people cruising around Yangon for hours looking for a place to sleep. Now in high season, the situation is really tough. In the other touristic places in Myanmar the situation is similar and people from the guest house were trying to get accommodation arranged in beforehand in order to avoid hassle. It seems as if tourism is increasing rapidly in Myanmar (still on a low level), but not the number of accommodations. I was then rethinking my situation because travelling alone is even more complicated and more expensive. Booking everything in beforehand is really against my travelling philosophy and so I decided finally to leave Myanmar. I know it’s a pity because the people are really nice and most travelers like it a lot but I had like an intuition, a bad feeling, that I will not really enjoy it the way I should. I couldn’t really imagine myself travelling there for over 3 weeks with serious logistical problems in the main tourist areas and with the risk of being totally alone in less touristic places. It’s strange because the charm of travelling in a very original country like Myanmar with few tourists can turn out to be a problem when you are travelling by yourself. Anyway, maybe my decision was totally unjustified but I didn’t like to continue travelling against this negative feeling.

Bangkok (January 18)

I’m happy to leave early tomorrow to Rangoon (Yangon), Myanmar. I really don’t know what else to do in Bangkok. This morning I went to Wat Phra Kaew, the largest temple and biggest tourist attraction here. It was so horribly packed with people (tourists and hundreds of school kids), that I wasn’t really able to enjoy. Furthermore I was still very tired because of sleeping only a few hours. I had a siesta this afternoon and now I’m hanging out down in the guest house's open air "lobby".

Yesterday evening I met a make-up artist from Berlin, working in the film industry. I got some very interesting insights into this world of the famous. If you believe this is a dream job, she’d probably be able to change your mind.

In Myanmar internet connections will be poor or not existing, so I don’t know if I will be able to update my blog on a regular basis. I’ll try my best!

Bangkok (January 17)

Today was kind of boring. I woke up very late and didn’t go to the big palace at the end (the main highlight in Bangkok). Now that’s the plan for tomorrow. Instead I did some sight-seeing in the north of the city (another temple and another palace). I did some parts of the itinerary walking and took an involuntary shower on the way. I thought it was dry season and wasn’t prepared in terms of clothing. I found provisory shelter under a tree (yes there are some trees here) and resisted all the taxi and tuk-tuk offerings. I thought that heavy rainfall is not the best starting position for me to negotiate the price.

To be honest, I am looking forward to leaving the city. For urban-loving people and those who like endless party it’s great but not for nature-loving people like me. Even parks turned out to have no trees! For tonight I found someone to hook up with, so at least I can spend a nice evening with some Chan beer in one of the countless open-air bars.

Bangkok (January 15-16)

OK guys, here we go, my first blog entry. I arrived yesterday morning at BKK airport. My seat neighbor in the aircraft from Dubai to Bangkok was Nyo, the kind of seat neighbor you wish to have, offering me some of her leg space in order to avoid that my knees get damaged on this 5h flight. As she was Thai, I was able to skip the long immigration queues for foreigners and pass with her through local’s immigration. That was cool!

I took the new skyrail train to somewhere in town. At the airport’s tourist office they told me where to get off and which bus I have to take from there in order to go to the centre. Thanks to my good travel preparations I didn’t know that they drive on the left here and almost got hit by a motorcycle because of the habit to look to the left when you cross the street. Anyway, I found the bus passing by but no bus station so took a taxi at the end. I walked around the backpacker’s quarter heading towards the street my sister told me I should go. Not a bad idea compared to Khao San Road, Bangkok’s most horrible tourist strip. As it’s high season, it was difficult to find a room. At the end I managed to get an overcharged room without window, only a bed and aircon (in the guest house my sister recommended, thanks Iris!). I didn’t even know where to put my stuff. But I had no choice because I needed to sleep in the afternoon. I was unable to walk around more with my entire luggage.

This morning my first action was to find a better room because I slept horribly during the night. Apart from having the sensation of being a prisoner it was noisy because of the people coming back from their drinking tours. I finally found a decent room in another guest house with outside window for 230 instead of 600 Baht. I have the impression that the hostels recommended in Lonely Planet can charge more for less...

Today in the afternoon I took a river boat to the south and walked all the way back crossing different quarters such as Chinatown and the “temple district”. I visited Wat Pho (temple with the reclining Buddha) and tomorrow I will go back to see Wat Phra Kaew. Walking around is really stressful because of the traffic and the habit to occupy every single cm of the sidewalk with mobile food stands and other types of commerce. It’s interesting to walk around because you see things like Buddhist monks buying lottery (unfortunately I didn’t take a photo).

Today the plan is to sleep early and stand up early tomorrow to see Wat Phra Kaew before the crowds do. The jetlag and the climate still make me feel tired although I have to say that heat is not unbearable.

With regard to what I wrote about Bangkok in my prologue… to be honest I doubt that the city will become one of my favorites. Anyway I still have two days left to discover more.

My trip to Southeast Asia - Prologue

I love this feeling, when the airplane is about to land in a country or city you haven't visited before. It's a mixture of pleasure (because you will have the chance to discover the unknown) and fear (because you must face the unknown).

I have no idea what is going to expect me on my next trip to Southeast Asia. Maybe if I knew it, the whole trip wouldn't make any sense. Why all this? Why giving up everything? After thinking about it, the answer is not: I need to relax, I need recovery. I could have done this in an annual leave staying at home, stop working for two or three weeks, without quitting my job. What I need is the opposite: I need to wake up in the morning without knowing what the day holds ready for me, the positive stress related to getting food (without making you sick), find shelter and maybe most important: find companionship. It makes you feel that you are alive.

Not long ago I had a discussion of whether it is a good sign that time has passed by fast, the typical question raised at the end of the year. A friend recommended the book "The Magic Mountain", written by Thomas Mann, with "time" as central topic. I haven't read it yet but the subject seems interesting. Obviously by doing new thing or other things you are changing the perception of time (shouldn't be a big surprise). Looking retrospectively at time, you have the impression that a year full of variety has passed by slower compared to a year full of daily routine. That means that psychologically you can extend your lifetime - what a great perspective! Doing other things can be pretty much everything, in my case it's travelling. After all I can say that from this point of view it's a good investment. I am able to buy time, the most valuable thing you have in your life.

As departure comes closer, you start to imagine how Asia is like. There is one city, whose name has always attracted me, whose name has always stimulated by imagination: Bangkok. It's not rationale, maybe reality will disappoint me, I don't know. Another city which has provoked a similar feeling was Buenos Aires (what a beautiful name!) - it hasn't disappointed me. I will not principally be travelling to see cities but my imagination starts to create pictures associated to those names I have heard of before many times.

Tomorrow I will have my backpack ready! I hope you will enjoy my blog!

Please don't hesitate to comment on my posts. There may be larger periods without entries depending on the availability of internet connections but I will try to catch up on everything once a connection is available.