I'm at that moment of sadness and happiness again. Happy that i'm a great experience richer, sad that the experience ended. The tour that i booked on Thaiplenty.com was fantastic. Their guide was super fun and informative. It also helps that Thailand is an amazing country to explore. We went from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to see the Bridge on the river Kwai and trekking through the forest to a waterfall. Then to Ayutthaya to have a lunch cruise on the river while looking at ancient temples. We also went to Sukhothai for a bicycle ride and then further to the north of Thailand.
The last few days we went to Chiang Mai, Pai and Mae Hong Son. These northern cities are awesome in a relax and serene way. There were elephants, markets, temples and butterflies in Chiang Mai. Longnecks, mountains and forests in Mae hong Son. Hills, hotsprings, farmland and yes also a lot of backpackers in Pai. Each place that we visited had it's own atmosphere and unique ambience. I really feel like i witnessed a broad amount of variety from this unique country and would definately like to go there again. In a few years maybe after i finished my study and earned some more money. Till then i have my photos and memories.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Eating sticky rice with mango!
Am in Thailand right now and despite all the tumolt because of the political situation here, the atmosphere is actually quite relaxed. I read all the news about the protests and the fighting with people getting shot and was a bit worried but i believe that as long as you don't get involved, there is not much to worry about.
The Thai people are still smiling, and if it was not for the news on tv reminding me that there are occasional fights here and there, i don't notice anything from it. There are some roads filled with protestors close to my hotel, but they are not protesting. They are selling Thai food, and relaxing while playing some cards.
The other travelers in my group did not even know there were protests going on.
My group consists of a variety of people from all over the globe and they are all nice and social, so i feel lucky to travel around with them. The youngest in our group is 19 from Belgium and the oldest is 45 from Italy. I look forward to explore Thailand with them on our 2 week tour.
The best thing in Thailand so far? The food of course! All kinds of fruit of which i don't know the name but it taste all fresh and sweet. Tomorrow we will head to Sukothai and have a bicycle trip around the old ruins. Will write again later, have to finish my mango.
The Thai people are still smiling, and if it was not for the news on tv reminding me that there are occasional fights here and there, i don't notice anything from it. There are some roads filled with protestors close to my hotel, but they are not protesting. They are selling Thai food, and relaxing while playing some cards.
The other travelers in my group did not even know there were protests going on.
My group consists of a variety of people from all over the globe and they are all nice and social, so i feel lucky to travel around with them. The youngest in our group is 19 from Belgium and the oldest is 45 from Italy. I look forward to explore Thailand with them on our 2 week tour.
The best thing in Thailand so far? The food of course! All kinds of fruit of which i don't know the name but it taste all fresh and sweet. Tomorrow we will head to Sukothai and have a bicycle trip around the old ruins. Will write again later, have to finish my mango.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Catcher in the Rye S*cks
So have been back in Spain for a while now, back to my part-time job at the grocery and back to my study of English Literature. Am currently reading Catcher in the Rye and I totally hate it. Still not sure what the story is all about. It is just page after page some phony dude calling everyone else a phony while being a little b*tch and complaining about everything. The main character thinks everyone is looking down on him or something, but actually he is the one looking down on everyone else. Why does he has to be such a jerk? Nobody did anything wrong to him, so why be angry at them?
Not sure if i will finish this book. Cannot believe i bought it, which is normally not what i do. Usually i just borrow books. Now i am stuck with it. Is the book going to be better in the second half? Or is it just going to be more complaining?
Besides reading this aweful book i spend my free time watching movies and practicing Judo. Still missing Nepal a lot. I already feel the urge to travel again and decided to go to Thailand for my next trip. I have already booked a trip from Thaiplenty.com and my trip will be at the end of next month. It is quite soon after my previous adventure but i just want to get out of here and do more exploring. The trip I booked is a group tour. Usually i travel with friends or solo, so this will be a new experience to travel with complete strangers. I hope the group is nice and not filled with phonies.
That's all for now.
Not sure if i will finish this book. Cannot believe i bought it, which is normally not what i do. Usually i just borrow books. Now i am stuck with it. Is the book going to be better in the second half? Or is it just going to be more complaining?
Besides reading this aweful book i spend my free time watching movies and practicing Judo. Still missing Nepal a lot. I already feel the urge to travel again and decided to go to Thailand for my next trip. I have already booked a trip from Thaiplenty.com and my trip will be at the end of next month. It is quite soon after my previous adventure but i just want to get out of here and do more exploring. The trip I booked is a group tour. Usually i travel with friends or solo, so this will be a new experience to travel with complete strangers. I hope the group is nice and not filled with phonies.
That's all for now.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Nepal was freaking awesome!
I want to start my blog with a summary of my trip to Nepal which i made about 1 month ago. It was my first trip outside of Europe that i made by myself. I needed some adventure away from the boring office work, something completely different with cultural variety and the possibility to enlighten my soul. I found all of that at the rooftop of the world and more.
But it did not start that great. Kathmandu was filthy and a layer of smog occasionally covers the city. The dirty water coming from the hotel sink did not help much either. I felt sick the first day on arrival and was mostly stuck on the toilet. Next morning i fel a bit better and started exploring the city and it was quite an adventure. Loads of people aproached me to buy this or that, the occasional beggar, and many more people that i still have no idea from of what they wanted from me. Just ignore them and push myself through the busy streets. It can be a bit of a hustle but eventually i got rewarded.
The streets are filled with many colorful shops. Oh the colors, the many many colors. It makes everything i have seen so far in the many countries i visited in Europo look pale. The Nepalese culture is heavily influenced by the Indian culture in terms of clothing, religion and food. I have never been to India but i imagine it to look similar to Kathmandu. Besides shops there are temples and countless little shrines in almost every street. It almost made me forget about that strange feeling in my stomach. This second day i saw some beatifull temples, saw the famous river ganges. I also witnessed an open cremation ceremony at the edge of the river. The ashes of the dead person would be spread out in the river and it is surreal to see people drinking and bathing in the same river. It also made me wonder if that strange smog covering the city had particles of dead people in it. The same smog i was breathing in.
I decided to leave the city and move to a nearby village. After several hours in a crazy death defying taxi ride I arrived in the late evening and felt sick again. No time to see the village, need to hurry to bathroom. Fell down on the bed with a mighty headache. Next morning i wake up and the headache and weird stomach feeling are gone. I feel surprisingly good and look around in the room that i did not take a good look at the previous day.
Room looked nice and clean and hey i have two giant balcony doors. I stood up and opened the giant doors. The next moment was the turn around of the holiday. The beginning of an awesome trip. I was looking right at the mount everest. Holy ........!! I had not seen the surroundings of the hotel when i arrived but early in the morning everything was clear. No fog, no darkness, no sickness. My hotel stood on the edge of a cliff overviewing a green valley and on the other side right across my balcony towering above the vally the impressive Mount Everest. And the air felt better than ever.
After sightseeing around the village i then moved on to my next destination. Pokhara, Nepal's second largest city but totally different than Kathmandu. This city outside of the Kathmandu valley is super relaxed, much cleaner, less busy and has a lake right next to it. Everything moved much leisurly here and no mob attacking me with their sales offers. I explore the lake for a bit and decided just to rest a bit before my trekking the next day.
The trek: The absolute highlight of my trip. This 10 day walking through the valley and exploring some mountain settlements was fantastic. I hired a guide and together we just kept on walking. We were walking so much that the guide had to alter the normal route and add some detours. Glad we did because there is so much to see. One early morning we climbed up to 3200 meters high to the top of a hill. It was freezing the night before and snow and ice coverd the whole path and surroundings. Once on the top there was a great view with mountains and hills in a 360 degree circle all around me. Wherever i looked there was no sign of life besides my guide of course. No cars, no houses, and especially no sound. I never "heard" total silence before. You might not realize it untill you are actually surrounded by total silence. Normally back in Europe there would always be some distant faint humming even at it's most silent. But here deep in the Himalaya, you get to experience true silence. There was not even a breeze of air that morning and all the sound were the sound that i made myself. The sound of my cloths, my own breating, my footsteps. Everything became more clear.
It was one of the best days in my life.
During the trek i encountered several nice people, from local people, soldiers, and a few other tourists. During the 10 day trek i saw 2 groups of tourists. 1 group of 7 people and 1 group of 2 people including their guides. There were sometimes hours of walking without seeing anyone. It gave me a good opportunity to just look at the nature around me.
The whole experience made me feel reliefed from the constant pressure of everyday life. The work, study, other responsibilities. I really needed this break. Now i'm back home and still feel relaxed although the work and study pressure slowly sips in again. When it all gets a bit too much, i close my eyes and think about that moment on top of that hill again.
But it did not start that great. Kathmandu was filthy and a layer of smog occasionally covers the city. The dirty water coming from the hotel sink did not help much either. I felt sick the first day on arrival and was mostly stuck on the toilet. Next morning i fel a bit better and started exploring the city and it was quite an adventure. Loads of people aproached me to buy this or that, the occasional beggar, and many more people that i still have no idea from of what they wanted from me. Just ignore them and push myself through the busy streets. It can be a bit of a hustle but eventually i got rewarded.
The streets are filled with many colorful shops. Oh the colors, the many many colors. It makes everything i have seen so far in the many countries i visited in Europo look pale. The Nepalese culture is heavily influenced by the Indian culture in terms of clothing, religion and food. I have never been to India but i imagine it to look similar to Kathmandu. Besides shops there are temples and countless little shrines in almost every street. It almost made me forget about that strange feeling in my stomach. This second day i saw some beatifull temples, saw the famous river ganges. I also witnessed an open cremation ceremony at the edge of the river. The ashes of the dead person would be spread out in the river and it is surreal to see people drinking and bathing in the same river. It also made me wonder if that strange smog covering the city had particles of dead people in it. The same smog i was breathing in.
I decided to leave the city and move to a nearby village. After several hours in a crazy death defying taxi ride I arrived in the late evening and felt sick again. No time to see the village, need to hurry to bathroom. Fell down on the bed with a mighty headache. Next morning i wake up and the headache and weird stomach feeling are gone. I feel surprisingly good and look around in the room that i did not take a good look at the previous day.
Room looked nice and clean and hey i have two giant balcony doors. I stood up and opened the giant doors. The next moment was the turn around of the holiday. The beginning of an awesome trip. I was looking right at the mount everest. Holy ........!! I had not seen the surroundings of the hotel when i arrived but early in the morning everything was clear. No fog, no darkness, no sickness. My hotel stood on the edge of a cliff overviewing a green valley and on the other side right across my balcony towering above the vally the impressive Mount Everest. And the air felt better than ever.
After sightseeing around the village i then moved on to my next destination. Pokhara, Nepal's second largest city but totally different than Kathmandu. This city outside of the Kathmandu valley is super relaxed, much cleaner, less busy and has a lake right next to it. Everything moved much leisurly here and no mob attacking me with their sales offers. I explore the lake for a bit and decided just to rest a bit before my trekking the next day.
The trek: The absolute highlight of my trip. This 10 day walking through the valley and exploring some mountain settlements was fantastic. I hired a guide and together we just kept on walking. We were walking so much that the guide had to alter the normal route and add some detours. Glad we did because there is so much to see. One early morning we climbed up to 3200 meters high to the top of a hill. It was freezing the night before and snow and ice coverd the whole path and surroundings. Once on the top there was a great view with mountains and hills in a 360 degree circle all around me. Wherever i looked there was no sign of life besides my guide of course. No cars, no houses, and especially no sound. I never "heard" total silence before. You might not realize it untill you are actually surrounded by total silence. Normally back in Europe there would always be some distant faint humming even at it's most silent. But here deep in the Himalaya, you get to experience true silence. There was not even a breeze of air that morning and all the sound were the sound that i made myself. The sound of my cloths, my own breating, my footsteps. Everything became more clear.
It was one of the best days in my life.
During the trek i encountered several nice people, from local people, soldiers, and a few other tourists. During the 10 day trek i saw 2 groups of tourists. 1 group of 7 people and 1 group of 2 people including their guides. There were sometimes hours of walking without seeing anyone. It gave me a good opportunity to just look at the nature around me.
The whole experience made me feel reliefed from the constant pressure of everyday life. The work, study, other responsibilities. I really needed this break. Now i'm back home and still feel relaxed although the work and study pressure slowly sips in again. When it all gets a bit too much, i close my eyes and think about that moment on top of that hill again.
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