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Wonderful trip to Thailand
Wonderful trip to Thailand
Thailand is a popular tourist destination which tempts with beautiful nature and interesting culture. Picturesque beaches, Buddhist temples and good food are the things which make travelling around Thailand worthwhile. We can still afford the Thai adventure.
Last time I was in Thailand in 2004, but mainly to train Thai-boxing and have a good time. This time I was also very nice but most of all I wanted to get to know and travel Thailand the best way I could. Since 2004 several things have changed. First of all the prices have gone up a little, although to me it was even more expensive because I took a woman and a child with me; “the two who bring only chaos to my expeditions and completely ruin my budget.”
A brief description of our route around Thailand
After Thailand, we had to travel “only” about a month but we were in a total about 2 months and 1 week. We started our adventure in Bangkok, which I used as our base because we were coming back there many times. After exploring in depth all the beautiful temples we went to the south, to the paradise islands and beaches surrounded by turquoise waters, which are among the best in the world. In total, we established our adventures on about 30 islands, but it doesn’t mean that we were lazy. On one of them (Koh Tao) we did a scuba diving course, and now we can dive worldwide down to 18 meters.
Then tanned, happy and broke we returned to Bangkok, and after few more days we went to Central Thailand and then to Northern Thailand. First we went to Kanchanaburi where we saw the famous bridge over the River Kwai and we learnt about its tragic history. On the other hand Kanchanaburi is only about sad history. We also rode an elephant and did bamboo rafting on the River Kwai.
Then we went to the ancient cities of Thailand: Ayutthaya, Sukhotai and Si Satchanalai where we admired the centuries-old ruins of temples and great statues of Buddha, beautifully set among green gardens and picturesque lakes. We also went to the capital of Northern Thailand – Chiang Mai, to see even more magnificent temples, and then we travelled to the “Golden Triangle”.
Whilst there I organized trips to the mountains where we visited remote villages and people living away from civilization. It was very beautiful, but especially when once again they put us on an elephant. We had close contact with the nature and in one of the villages local people kept a huge tiger python. Then to extend our Thai visas we went to Burma for 2 days, Later, exactly the same way we slowly came back to Mae Sai and returned to Bangkok. Right now I’m waiting for the bus going to the north of Thailand, and from there I will cross Mekong river into Laos.
I mentioned briefly just about few places where we visited, although there were many other wonderful experiences. Some of those things are Thai cuisine and quite frequent, endless massages.
Prostitution in Thailand
It was beautiful and Thailand is a beautiful country and a wonderful adventure. Unfortunately there were also other things that made me think about the overall beauty of it. In Thailand there is still huge prostitution, ladyboys and older White men walking hand by hand with young Thai women. I’ve also noticed that Thai people do not smile so much to me but rather to my money. I’m not talking badly about Thai people, although I am under impression that they don`t welcome tourists. They only welcome our money which is slightly different than for example in neighbouring Burma.
I can also say quite a lot about the Thai traffic rules because for more than 2 months I was riding a moped without a license. The police stopped me only once because I had no license, so I had to pay 300 baht and they let me go. I think it`s a great, relaxed solution!
Just for the time being I have almost 4050 photos plus those from 2004 and many films. It might be hard for me to choose those which I will publish on Kompas Travel.
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