My Trip Through Thailand

We landed on Bangkok soil at 6:00 PM, after a 6.35 hours flight from Milan to Muscat, and another 6.35 hours flying from Muscat to the Thailand capital.

After collecting our backpacks we exchanged some Euros into Thai Bath, and immediately realized how respected and almost worshipped King Bhumibol Adulyadej was, as he is printed on every single type of local banknote and coin (Bhumibol died in late 2016 and left the throne to his son Maha Vajiralongkorn, new king of Thailand since October 2016). You can find pictures of Bhumibol and his wife everywhere across Thailand, from stations to shops to corner of cities, being him a true legend for the people of his country.

Once in the city centre, what looked fascinating from the windows of the overground train turned into pure chaos when we got off: at first Bangkok looked absolutely messy, busy, polluted, and extremeley hot and humid! Yet it was fascinating, too, for example in the way tons of 80's style cars were running alosgside tuk-tuk in a landscape of skyscrapers advertising billboards of mobile phones, or in the kilometres of twining exposed electric cables that you can find everywhere (in spite of not looking that safe).

In just a couple of hours Bangkok gave us the impression of being an extreme conglomerate of old and new, tradition and modernity, to the extent it feels as if the city is experiencing a sort of identity crisis.

With this feeling, we reached the hostel we booked before leaving, had our first street noodles and got ready for the following day.

The extreme hotness and humidity of the weather hit us as hard as possible, we were literally melting! We took a tuk-tuk and then followed the other turists heading, just like us, to the Wat Phra Kaew, one of the main attractions of the city. The architecture and decorations characterising the complex, with its golden details and extensive use of buddhism symbolism, makes you feel mesmerized at a first impact; and so do all the buddha figures, the rooftops, the columns, the paintings, the statues: you feel overwhelmed by such majestic beauty, where almost every single element not only decorates, but hides a deep spiritual meaning, too. I am particularly attracted by icons and symbolism, so you can uderstand how excited I felt in such an environment!

The Murals of the Ramakien and - I admit - the confused story told by its beautiful wall paintings concluded our tour, and we spent the rest of the day walking around the city, exploring hidden corners, Thai food, and hanging out at night with people met at the hostel.

We spent the morning visiting the Grand Palace - part of the Wat Phra Kaew complex we didn't see the day before - which buildings are now put to use to by the King only for certain occasions. After an immersion in its traditional Thai architecture with a touch of Chinese and Western style, we took the train that in 1 hour took us to to Ayutthaya, which has been the capital between 1350 and 1767.

The day went by cycling around the dozens of ruins of temples, designated an Unesco world heritage site in 1991. One of the most photographed sites here is the Wat Mahathat, where you can find the "Buddah head in tree roots", who became one of the most iconic images of Thailand. The visit to this sacred site is definitely worth a shot, as it is the tour of all the city: it's a literal jump in the past, especially if compared to the Bangkok atmosphere we left in the morning.

We enjoyed our staying untill sunset, when exhausted but staisfied we took the last train to get back to Bangkok. A bowl of shrimp noodles, a chat with our room mates at the hostel, and we fell asleep ready to wake up very early the following morning, when we would leave the city and start exploring the "real" Thailand.

The alarm woke us up very early, as we catched the 6.30 AM train to go to Kanchanaburi: here the landscape and the vibes totally changed, becoming wilder and more real. After reaching the city and leaving our backpacks at the station, we took a ride on part of the (in)famous Death Railway, built in 1943 exploiting forced labour of both civilians and prisoners of war.

The tour - which "included" a set of three matches at "Jenga" (that I won!) with us and the funny waiter of a bar in Nam Tok - took us the entire afternoon, after which we recollected our bags and headed to the hostel we booked, named No. 25". It's easy to find a place using modern technology, but it's much more interesting to ask the locals and see their reactions: Thai people revealed to be extremely nice and friendly, to the point that, one after another, the memebers of an entire family helped us to find the way to our (unexpectedly modern) hostel when we asked them, to be sure we could understand where to go. And, nedless to say, they almost didn't speak any Englih at all! :)

Another early rising day, this time to catch the bus to go to Erawan National Park. It is a very popular spot for the locals to pass the weekend, famous for its 7 levels of waterfalls. Unfortuntely, given the dry season in May, we didn't see any of them, but anyway the trip was worth: we were surrounded by nature (even though less wild than expected) and we enjoyed a bath in a series of natural swimming pools made by the accumulation of streaming water in certain parts of the soils, surrounded by trees and rocks, where you could find living fish swimming inside (ready to tickle you as soon you bathed and stopped for some seconds).

It must be said that the trip to get there and go back can get very adventurous (and probably dangerous) given the nature of the bus used to carry people: an "old style bus" (I am sure it was from the 80's), colorful, decorated with lots of stickers and statues of buddhas, totally overpacked with tourists (people literally sit everywhere they could find a feasable spot), without door, and with a gangsta-rapper looking driver wearing sunglasses 24/7. Definitely worth a ride!

On day 4, after speaking with some backpackers at Ayutthata, we started to think about taking a detour from our original itinerary, and heading north before swimming in the crystal waters of Koh Thao. On day 6 we finally made up our mind, and after getting up we biked straight to the train station to book our train to go from Ayutthaya to Chiang Mai (we were forced to get back to Ayutthaya as no train was leaving from Kanchanaburi). After securing our tickets, we spent the morning exploring the city: we paid a visit to the Allied War Cemetery with its incredibily symmetric disposition of almost 7,000 graves, then we took a walk on the bridge over the River Kwai and visited the close Chinese temple.

At 1:30 PM we catched a private van that, from our hostel, took us and a few other french tourists to Ayutthaya in 2.5 hours. Here we spent our time visiting the beautiful floating market close to the Elephant Camp, feeling astounded every time one of this huge pachyderm was passing by. The day passed by, too, untill at night we took our overnight train. Destination: Chiang mai!

After a freezing night (thanks to the crazy AC they have in Thai's trains) the train got us to Chiang Mai in the morning, at about 7:30 AM. Since we left Ayutthaya, we started breathing a different air - not just because we moved from center to north Thailand. You feel it as soon as you see it: Chiang Mai is a different city, and maybe this is what we really wanted to see on Thai soil: an authentic, far-less-modern and way-more-interesting sanctuary city. We had breakfast at a buffet bar close to the station, and then took one of the many folkloristic local taxis to go to the hostel booked on the internet a couple of days ago. With surprise we found it closed, but luckily we immediately found 2 free beds in another place next to it!

Chiang Mai, called "the capital of the North", is known for its beautiful centre surrounded by brick ramparts and moats, literally packed with buddhist temples. After dinner, we spotted a small laid-back place where local bands were playing music, including a great rock band who played Foo Fighters, Nirvana and Guns'n Roses, which I had to generously tip for their talent! It is crazy to think that I found one of the best guitar player ever heard here in Chiang Mai!

We decided to take a local boat tour on the Ping River, on the east side of Chiang Mai. More than the river in itself, the tour was peculiar because of the funny guide who drove us (and just one more French tourist) along the way and told stories about buildings and places we were seeing while navigating. It was this 50-ish years old Thai man who clearly tried to look as "Weastern" as possible, wearing 80's style sunglasses (though it was not that sunny at all :-) ) and talking in a very "American way", often mixing interesting bits of Thai history with low-level jokes. I have to admit we were expecting a much more traditional guide and almost got disappointed by him, who was trying too hard to overimpress us. He was funny, for sure, but sounded a bit sad at the same time, too.

The most interesting part of the tour came when the guide took us to his private little garden right across the river. The impression he gave us completely changed, and we finally re-evaluated him: he shown us all the flowers and fruits he was cultivating all by himself, including some species we have never seen before like "jackfruits", "dragonfruits" and carnivorous plants! And the best part was the he offered us a great meal based solely on all the different kinds of delicious fruits from his garden, great sweet sticky rice in coconut milk and fresh lychees juice. Definitely one of the best meal we had during the entire trip!

After the tour we decided we couldn't leave the city without trying one of the famous traditional Thai massage, and so we did! 1.5 hours of cracking bones and stretched limbs, but it must be said we felt great at the end! We were ready for the next move: we catched a flight to Bangkok and immediately headed to the Hua Hampong station, to take the overnight train to go to Chumpon: awesome beaches, we are coming!

The morning came, and at 9:10 AM our airplane was ready. Time to go back to our usual lives, with that typical mix of happiness and sadness of who is aware had a great adventure that comes to an end.

During this journey we traveled for more than 2880 km on every type of mean of transport: bike, tuk-tuk, scooter, car, minivan, bus, train and ferry! We explored temples, ruins, imperial palaces, natural parks, islands: a variety of landscapes we could have never imagined! Of course we know 13 days are not enough to visit a country, but we are proud of what we we accomplished in such a small amount of time. I personally felt great everywhere I went, no matter what I did, eat or saw, and I am sure I will come back to this amazing country some time in the future! Looking forward to the next trip!