This Is A Lake - A travel blog

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 ...

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...

After a lazy morning at the hotel, today I left Siem Reap on a short, one-hour flight to Bangkok. This officially kicks off the Thailand section of my Thailand trip! Upon arrival in Suvarnabhumi airport, the first thing I did was to withdraw baht from an ATM, and then look for a taxi. There’s a million touts and car desks in the airport, so I’d studied where to find a regular taxi beforehand so as not to get lost: what you have to do is go to Level 1 (when you walk out of the arrivals gate it looks like you’re on ground level, but you’re actually on Level 2), get out onto the street, then pick a ticket from a machine that tells you which parking spot to go to for your taxi. These are the official, regular metered taxis; unfortunately, I was so preoccupied with getting the right kind of taxi that I failed to notice that the driver did not actually use the meter, and so he ended up quoting me a price that now I know is way more expensive than it should’ve been! Ah well, we learn from our...

Today I was booked for a second tour of Angkor. Since yesterday I got to visit the main central temples, this time I went on the bigger circuit, which includes smaller temples further away from the center. The driver took me first to Banteay Srei, which is the farthest away. It took us an hour to drive the 37 km from my hotel in Siem Reap to the temple, but it was pleasant enough: these roads weren’t dusty and the drive created a breeze. Most of the drive went through interior roads, where no English signs or tourist fare could be found. A lot of the houses here were built on stilts, which made me wonder if this area gets flooded in the rainy season. I also found the answer to a mystery: in every road here and there I’d seen roadside stands with rows of bottles holding a liquid that looked like dishwater. It didn’t look appetizing to begin with and it sat in the sun all day, so I couldn’t imagine it being a drink. Finally, today my driver stopped at one of these stands, got two bottl...

Today was my first full day of holidays, and I had my eyes on the prize: I signed on for a tour of the main temples of Angkor! Beofre this trip, I thought Angkor Wat was one big temple in Cambodia, but in fact it’s the name of just one temple in the vast, sprawling natural reserve of Angkor, a stunning 400 sq km expansion that used to be a big metropolis with many Buddhist and Hindu temples, many of which have survived to this day in different states of conservation. The temples are too far from the city and even from one another to walk, so you have to decide if you want to rent a scooter or a bike or if you want to be driven there. I hired a tuk-tuk driver via my hotel who drove me to each temple, then waited outside while I visited at my own pace. When I was done, I came out and he’d drive me to the next one. It covers all my transportation needs without chaining me to a group or a tour guide. Some drivers go the extra mile (pun intended) and wait for you on the other end of the tem...

It’s time for a new adventure! This time I’ve set my sights on Thailand, although first I’m gonna cross one big item on my bucket list by finally visiting the Angkor temples in Cambodia. I have the impression that most people see them when visiting Vietnam, but I didn’t find the time then, so this time around I built my two-week itinerary specifically to make time for Angkor. The way it worked out, I had to fly into Bangkok first, from where I then caught a flight to Siem Reap, which is the Cambodian city that is closest to Angkor. Since the temple compound is a natural reserve, when you come visit, you’ll stay in Siem Reap and you’ll have to figure out transport to and from the temples (I will expand on this tomorrow as I experience it firsthand!). The 11 hour flight from Paris to Bangkok was fine, really -mostly I spent it all chaining one movie after another like the junkie that I am- but it was the 3 hour layover in Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport that killed me. Because I had to book...