We are On The Road Again. No longer in our own car, no longer in the beloved Land Cruiser. But everything else as always: We travel as individually as possible. We only organized a minimum from home. We want to be open to the country, nature, people. We want to dive into the foreign culture.
If I had been born in America, I would have been a cowboy, “cause they never stay home and they’re always alone, even with someone they love!” Reinhard, if you read this – I would have loved to stay on your farm in Upper Franconia, but Canada was simply more attractive – not to mention “this Canadian” 😉 😉 😉
As far as possible we will try to keep a brief diary on our homepage. Let’s go 😉
Flight with Air France: from Basel to Paris (1 h), from Paris to Bangkok (11 h).
Service good, food very good, rich breakfast served in a small cardboard box, everything somehow French. 😉 The flight is quite long but an interesting route (Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangaladesh, Myanmar, Thailand). We were at 12,000m above the Himalayas. Unfortunately it was just dark.
Bangkok is sobering at first, 35 ° C, muggy and a lot of smog. We got a good taxi driver who took us from the airport to the city center in an hour. In the morning at 9:00 a.m. Incredibly heavy traffic. Left-hand traffic. Especially the mopeds drive like crazy. We are quite tired and notice the 6 hour time difference to Germany. It’s Thursday already here. On the flight to the east you “lose” time ;-). The night was short. I couldn’t sleep on the plane, Marjorie very little.
After our afternoon nap we walked 12 km at 29 ° C through the old town. Our goal was Khaosan Road. It is closed to traffic from 5 p.m. Then all kinds of food stalls and kiosks spread out. Incredible activity. We take each other by the hand so as not to get lost in the crowd. Everything happens here at the roadside, to the left and right of this stream of people. People eat, buy, get a massage. The barkers try to drown out the booming music. Not necessarily our thing, but interesting to experience this once. The alligator on the grill was only fascinating, not really inviting !!! Photos of the grilled scorpions, tarantulas, grasshoppers, etc. cost 10 baht – so we didn’t take any.
But we want to confirm one thing after just two days. The people in Thailand are really very friendly, as we already know from Canada. They put their palms together and lift them in front of their face. Then they bow, smile and say thank you. I’ve never seen so many people smile like here in Thailand. Wonderful people !!
We saw the first Buddhist temples on our “hike” through the city. At night they are illuminated and look even more golden than in pictures.
It is our first stay in Thailand. I have always wanted to go to this country by Land Cruiser (via the Silk Road, the Taklamakan, Tibet and Laos all the way to here). Some of you who may be reading this text have done so. We admire you. But I am glad and grateful that I am here at all, even if I merely flew here. At this point special greetings to our Swiss friends Monika and Tobias who have been traveling in a converted fire engine for two years – currently in Nepal.
Now a few more personal, emotional things, but very honest, as you are used to from me. 😉
I’m traveling without my cell phone because I still don’t get on well with that thing 🙁
Today you can hardly travel without a cell phone, especially not in Asia. I have it easy, I just have to focus on never losing sight of my wife. 😉 Because Marjorie masters the device confidently.
Travel not only educates, it also makes you more tolerant and breaks down prejudices. Two examples from our tour of the city yesterday: A young Russian (30 years) from Siberia explains the individual types of meat to us at one of these small eating stalls and then wants to lend us money because we don’t have any coins yet. After our sumptuous dinner on Khaosan Road we are tired of being on this big, noisy street and try to find the right one among the many taxis. A black man in fluent German speaks to us as to whether we need help. We start an intensive conversation. The man (34 years) comes from Stuttgart, born in Germany, mother from Germany, father from Eritrea. He was alone in Southeast Asia for four weeks. Tomorrow he will fly home. What a great person! We exchange addresses.