Hello all!
Today you find 2 picture librarys below: „Bangkok“ and „Thai Food“ –> check them all :-)!
Back to Thailand felt like entering a completely different world. Why Thailand, now? There is a good reason: In West Africa the rain-season starts and its no fun to drive on muddy roads when it is rainging, having hot temperatures ander heavy humidity. So we had to make a break …and we liked that idea anyway ;-)!
After spending a long time in West Africa we arrived in Bangkok on June 24 and immediately found ourselves surrounded by colors, restaurants, shops and people everywhere. Even before we could check into our hotel, a really good bowl of Boat Noodles reminded us of one of the things we love about Thailand: food is simply everywhere. Our neighborhood was not touristy at all, the huge local food court around the corner gave us enough culinary choices for the coming days. And yes, Bangkok was as hot and humid as expected.
Bangkok became a kind of reset for us. We enjoyed the Train Night Market, local restaurants, massages and simply having an enormous choice of things to do again. Carsten also declared the swimming season officially open, mainly because the Senegalese ‚Gazelle Beers‘ had obviously left some traces around the belly. The plan was simple: more sport, less alcohol and somehow getting five kilograms off again. But Bangkok was just the location to arrive and to settle down.
Leaving Bangkok for the Thai hinterland showed us a side of the country that we had hardly experienced before. With our rental car we drove northeast through Saraburi, where we were often the only Farangs around, and visited Wat Phra Phutthabat with its footprint traditionally revered as Buddha’s footprint. Driving through the countryside was enjoyable in itself: green hills, small towns and restaurants at almost every corner. Eating is not simply something the Thais do between other activities. Sometimes it seems to be the activity around which everything else is organized.
For this trip through the hinterland of north Thailand we will publish a separate blogpost next week! So today we have the gerneral overview with focus on Bangkok and food 😉
Khao Yai, Korat and the road north brought quite some variety. Khao Yai gave us beautiful tropical jungle, although most of its famous wildlife apparently had decided not to show up for us. In Korat we visited the completely crazy Wat Lak Roi with its endless collection of strange figures and sculptures, followed by the enormous Save One Night Market, definitely one of our food highlights. Further north, the well-preserved Khmer temple of Phimai gave us a small taste of the architecture we knew from Cambodia before we continued through Isaan towards the Mekong and the border with Laos.
Something became increasingly obvious on the road: Thailand was much more developed than the picture we still carried around in our heads. Roads were excellent, cars were modern, shops and services were everywhere and even far away from the big tourist centers things generally worked surprisingly well. Our perception was obviously still partly based on a Thailand we had experienced many years earlier. Traveling is good at exposing outdated perceptions, including your own.
Northern Thailand was beautiful and often surprisingly quiet. We followed the Mekong north, stayed in Chiang Khan with its pleasant Walking Street and continued through Dan Sai and Nan towards Chiang Rai. Rice fields, mountains, jungle and rainy-season clouds accompanied us. In the durian-growing region we naturally bought some of the wonderfully creamy fruit. It tasted fantastic. Unfortunately, the car then smelled fantastic in a completely different sense. Around Doi Mae Salong we drove through the green tea hills before slowly turning south towards Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai gave us a different kind of travel experience. Instead of moving on every few days, we stayed for about four weeks and developed something close to a normal daily rhythm. Carsten regularly worked on Relevantor and his other AI projects, sometimes spending six or seven concentrated hours in a coworking space. We combined this with sport, massages, restaurants, markets and meeting new people. And we also got to know Thailand’s medical system. Heike’s knee was examined in a private clinic, including X-ray and MRI within a very short time, and both of us had a new dental crown made. The quality, speed and organization of the medical and dental care impressed us enormously, in some respects even more than we would have expected in Europe.
Food remained our reliable companion. Chiang Mai offered everything from simple breakfast soups and Khao Soi to Chinese restaurants, street markets and sophisticated restaurants and bars. The city also seemed much busier than during our earlier visits, with more restaurants, bars, stalls and activity everywhere. Thailand had not stood still while our old picture of the country had.
Returning to Bangkok reinforced that impression. We explored the city by local water taxi, visited the Golden Mount, Chinatown, Lumpini Park and later Chatuchak and Ko Kret. Bangkok seemed almost endless, loud and sometimes exhausting, but also incredibly dynamic. Public transport, modern buildings, restaurants and entire neighborhoods seemed to stretch forever. One of our strongest impressions after these weeks was how much Thailand had developed since our first visits and how slowly our own mental picture had caught up with reality.
Our last weeks in Thailand also brought an important decision. During the previous weeks Carsten had seriously questioned whether he still wanted the permanent Overlander life in the truck. After almost five years on the road, constantly changing places, dealing with borders and logistics and trying to combine all this with concentrated work had become tiring. And more important: Carsten wants to much more intensively work deep into the topic of ‚Artificial Intelligence‘ (this is his new business area…). After many discussions, however, Carsten agreed with Heike that we would continue our African journey all the way to South Africa. Once the decision had been made, the doubts largely disappeared. The issue was basically settled. We would continue, but change the way we travel: less moving every few days, more longer stops and regular periods in hotels or other places where concentrated work is possible.
Thailand therefore became much more than a pleasant break from Africa. We rediscovered a country we thought we already knew and realized how much it had changed. At the same time, these two months helped us find a better idea of how traveling, working and normal life can fit together. We still love traveling, good food, new places and unexpected encounters. But the way we travel does not have to remain the same forever.
Best wishes from
Heike & Carsten
