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Published: February 1st 2009
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Last Of Europe
I finally escaped the cold European winter of November & December. Having spent Christmas in Zürich with family relations again, I was counting on my first white Christmas....this was not to be, though there was plenty of snow around on the nearby mountains and along the road sides to make up for it. I did however experience a white New Years Eve day in Amsterdam, where at -1 to 3 degrees the snow fell and proved to be an exciting but very cold experience in Amsterdam. Snow cleared in the evening and myself and group of new friends celebrated on a pup crawl before heading out to Dam Square with the another hundred thousand or so revelers to welcome in the New year with an almighty big bang - Fire work display over the Palace facing Dam Square. This continued well into the early hours of the morning with locals and travelers setting off their own fire works. A great new year beginning......I headed back to London to experience their coldest winter chill in over 12 years, temperatures reaching -8 to -10 degrees, snow and just about every water feature and lake frozen. A miserable start to
the year compounded by the fact day light is only six to eight hours of the day - dark by 3:30pm in the afternoon - yuk.
Bangkok & Chiang Mai
I arrive in Bangkok to commence my South-East Asia tour, my home stretch before arriving sometime in mid year. Here I am met with warm to very hot weather, 27 to 32 degrees a welcoming change from Europe. The sun sometimes only visible mid to late morning obscured by the thick smog polluted air....it's no wonder a city of around 6 million and half of that using cars and motorcycles - road ways very congested. Vehicles and motorbikes weaving in and out to find a clear and continuous path of drive. What seems to be a short traveling distance is very much compounded by the bumper to bumper traffic.....So you draw your attention up high in the sky to the tall skyscrapers piercing through the thick polluted smog and you avoid thinking of what you are breathing as you slowly lift your T-shirt over your mouth to act as a filter. But beneath the elevated highways and Skyway's (train rail system) and tall building over shadowing the many
temples, I found small villages napping in the narrow lanes, street stalls selling every conceivable GENUINE COPY of clothing, jewelery and items you could possibly imagine, and food stalls serving up their traditional cuisines of Noodles, Rice, Chicken, Pork, and for the strong hearted stomach - fried Silkworms, Cockroaches, Scorpions, Grasshoppers can be something of the first - I'll think I'll stick to what I know is tasty, from past experience.
Bangkok is by no means a small city. It is sprawled out over a large area acquired through the years of unplanned and rapacious developments. Street names are unpronounceable, compounded by the inconsistency of romanised Thai spelling. So I made a quick friend 'Mr Wat' who was to be my personal 'Tuk Tuk' driver (motorised three wheel bike) and for around $10 to $12 Aussie dollars a day he would chauffeur me around anywhere I would like to go and wait for me at each stopover. Knowing I was to return to Bangkok for my flight back home I limited the stay to 4 days, where most of it was taken up by sight seeing the many temples, Street Bazaars, enjoying a river cruise and even treated my
self to some tailored made suits for pick upon my return.
Next I boarded an overnight sleeper train to Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand. Surprisingly the sleeper carriage was beyond my expectations, much more room and very comfy than the European sleeper trains - I enjoyed a good night sleep. I arrived in Chiang Mai early morning feeling quite famished and wanted to settle into my guest house as soon as possible. My pre-booked accommodation in Bangkok also included a transfer from the train station to the guest house. I was soon having breakfast - then off for a big day exploring the Old city and the many Temples (Wat's) it has to offer.
The Old City of Chiang Mai is a neat square approximately 1.5 kilometers to each of it's diagonal corners and bounded by moats and remnants of a medieval style wall. A furious stream of traffic flows around the old city but inside the narrow streets branching off the main clogged arteries, is a quiet world of charming guest houses, leafy gardens, markets and friendly locals. This was a place to relax and kick up your heels, sample the many fresh fruits and
cuisine's or perhaps take up the many activities on offer. Such as Trekking, Thai cooking classes, meditation classes, day tours etc. I opted to go on a 3 day trekking tour - making another 7 new friends and having a fantastic trip, filled with non stop laughter, we trekked into the nearby mountains through spectacular landscapes and sometime very dense forest, farming fields, and stopping at various water falls for a quick swim. And in the remote hills we came across one of the many Hill Tribes in this region where supposedly time has stood still for them - apart from the solar panels, twenty century clothing, Nike shoes and Coke soft drinks on offer. Our final day was a jammed packed fun day of rubber rafting down stream on the Meang River and followed by rafting on Bamboo rafts where white water rapids picked up a little to make the ride a little per-carious and an Elephant ride back to complete the day.
My other activity was taking up a Thai cooking class for the day, cooking up five different dishes was to be an hilarious fun day, but most enjoyable and filling - getting to eat the
many dishes created. Now with a few tips and a recipe book I'll think I can give this a go when back at home - minus the flames.......See photo's below.
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