This Is A Lake - A travel blog

It is on for the last leg of my Thailand trip! This is the “beach paradise” part. I am not a big fan of beaches (I grew up on a beach town so maybe the novelty just wore off) but I figured it was worth checking out the turquoise-water-white-sand experience at least once, and this seemed as good a chance as any. I’m telling people I’m going to relax, although if you know me you know that I don’t relax and that my secret plan is to tour around the neighboring islands. When looking for Thai islands to visit, it’s difficult to choose from several dozen options, from all-night party islands to remote natural hideaways. Because I had so little time, I wanted one that was easily accessible, which shortened the list to the biggest and most popular ones (inevitably, well connected means frequented, and vice versa). Ko Phi Phi, the famous Beach, has a reputation for being drunken/trashy so I didn’t want to stay there even if I still want to visit Maya beach; Ko Samui looks great and I love that

If you remember, I wasn’t sure whether I was up for a full hike, but I also wanted to get out of the city a bit, so I booked myself a tour of Doi Inthanon National Park. The van was supposed to pick me up “between 8:00 and 8:30”, so of course I was waiting for it in the lobby at eight o’clock, and by nine o’clock nobody had appeared. I remembered a piece of advice I was given about pickup arrangements in Southeast Asia: “It will always feel like they have forgotten about you, but they’ll always appear”. Altogether good advice, it is tempered by the fact that one time in Vietnam they did really forget about me and left me as the only foreigner in the Lao Cai train station at 5AM, but I digress.  Sure enough, five minutes after nine the tour guide walked into the lobby and waved me over. On my group there were three other Spaniards (we’re taking over!) and a Malaysian family of seven. I was shocked to find that the drive to the national park would take nearly two full hours; the distance

Today was my first acquaintance with Chiang Mai! I had originally planned to take the bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai early yesterday morning, but all tickets were sold out and I could only book the 16:15 bus; so I took the chance to do my laundry, hung out at a café, then hung out at the cat café, then hung out at the hotel until travel time. The bus ticket cost me 160 baht (€4), which is not bad for a 200 km journey! It felt really long, though: it got fully dark outside by 18:00, and we would only arrive at the bus station in Chiang Mai at 20:00. Since I didn’t get to do anthing yesterday, this morning I walked out of my hotel (the Golden Bell) and crossed a street to reach Chiang Mai’s Chiang Mai Gate. You see, Chiang Mai’s old city lives inside a near-perfect square delineated by ancient city walls and a moat. A lot of hotels and other lodgings are outside of the old city, so you’ll have to find the nearest gate to cross the moat and get into the city proper. The contrast with C

This was the day where I had to see Chiang Rai province... all of it! I was signed on to the tour that I found yesterday, if you were reading, which was officially called “Popular Sightseeing Tour” but which I refer to as the See Everything Tour because it’s absolutely packed with Chiang Rai highlights! So a van picked me up at 8:30 and sure enough, in addition to the French girl and the American guy from yesterday they’d also picked up three pairs of Chinese people to fill up the group. Also, turns out the American is originally Mongolian and has also been to San Sebastian! What are the chances? Our first stop was the famous White Temple, which is around 13 km south of Chiang Rai. It’s this stunning Buddhist temple, all painted white with mirror tiles on the edges, which has become one of Thailand’s most recognizable images. It is easy to asume that it’s a historic temple, but in fact it was only built in 1997! By one artist, because he wanted to! How crazy is that?! As you arri

Today I waved goodbye to hot, sweltering Bangkok at nine in the morning, by taking a cab to Don Mueang airport. The whole trip took about an hour and around 300 baht (€8), including two separate tolls that the passenger must pay directly. It’s not expensive, by any means, but it is annoying to have to get out your money on three different instances for one ride! I took a short flight to Chiang Rai, in the north of Thailand, close to the mountains and the Myanmar/Laos borders. Bizarrely, the airport has green wall-to-wall carpet in its arrivals area. There’s a taxi counter right outside, and they quoted the price to take me to my hotel beforehand (160 THB, or €4.28).  As I looked out of the taxi window, Bangkok seemed very distant indeed. This landscape is more mountainous, and where Bangkok seemed in a constant battle with its own jungle, all overrun with trees and shrubs, the vegetation here seems drier. It’s also less hot, at a comparatively breezy 28°C, with the sun peeking in a

It’s day trip time! My plan for today was to go on a day trip to Ayutthaya, Thailand’s ancient capital, just 70 km north of Bangkok. Its history is fascinating: it was a thriving metropolis as early as during the 14th century, became a center of culture and arts, but then was invaded and razed by the Burmese in the 18th century -the loss of literature alone would have been staggering. The ruined city was abandoned, and the Thai capital moved to what is now Bangkok, so a lot of remnants of temples and buildings have survived to our times and can now be visited as a mini-Angkor of sorts. I had considered doing the trip as part of a tour, but I couldn’t find any that I liked: they all pad their time way too much with river cruises, Thai massages, cooking classes... So I decided to chance it and do it all by myself, which proved to be a bit of a challenge. First off, if you want to go to Ayutthaya from Bangkok, you have to go to Mo Chit station, so first thing I did was go get a cab to Moc

Bangkok is mine for the taking! So this morning I seized the day by going temple-hopping. I took a Grab (Thai Uber) ride from my hotel to central Bangkok, which cost me just 90 baht (€2.4), so I’m already doing better than yesterday! My first stop was Wat Pho, the famous temple of the Reclining Buddha, which you’ve undoubtedly seen in dozens of pictures. It was built in the 16th century, renovated in the 18th, which makes it one of Bangkok’s oldest. I got dropped off right at the door, where they charge 100 THB (€2.7) for a ticket. In what I would later find is a bit of a common theme in Thai temples and complexes, once you hand in your ticket and get in, you’re pretty much on your own, with precious few maps or indications as to where to go. I didn’t much mind, though, because I found myself surrounded by gorgeous architecture everywhere I looked. All the walls and buildings are topped by sharply inclined roofs that end in little horns, and they’re all tiled with beautiful reds, green