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Published: January 18th 2008
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Reyna Tai / Thai Queen
Trasvesti en el cabaret Caypso, en Bagkok por supuesto.
Kathoey at the Calypso Cabaret, in Bangkok, of course. Sorry taking so long to come with this entry. This time we had time only to do it in English. Hope
Our passports start to look very colorful. Our lives as millionaires in Laos came to an end when we crossed our fourth border to get into Thailand. Hitting Thai roads put us right away in context. The narrow gravel mountain roads of Laos became 2 or 4 paved and well kept roads, all of them lined with "seven elevens" and car dealers.
Sukothai was our first stop on our way north. Ancestral vestiges of Buddhist civilization, all of them easy to access by bike. We could not stop watching how the sun - from sunrise to sunset - shed its lights on those majestic statues expressing such a serenity of buddhist meditation practices.
I quickly discovered that Thailand - besides its coconut curries - has delicious ice coffees and coffee shakes that became my favorite during these biking journeys under a 95F (35C) sun.
Chiang Mai - a big city in the north- was our next stop. Trying to prevent an attack of Christmas nostalgia, we had booked our first 3 stars hotel in the whole
trip. And comfy it was, we had a spacious room on the 10th floor with a view of a gorgeous swimming pool - which was exceptionally closed for the holidays for reparation. Oh well, we spent our days locked in our room enjoying the cool aircon and watching mellow X-mas movies that made us feel nostalgic about our still fresh memories of the holidays in North Carolina. Gosh, guys, we really missed you!
Of course those days of luxury came quickly to an end as we moved to a guesthouse for a few more days of sightseeing in Chiang Mai. Although the city itself did not really impress us because of its chaotic and loud traffic, the temples however were beautiful.
On Dec 29th, we took the night train to Bangkok, prepared to dive in the hottest city in the world. Were we ready to brake the maleficio that fell over Manuel 15 years ago and marked the end of his trip around Asia? Everything we knew about pointed in the direction of an evil metropolis every traveller tried to avoid.
The true is that we found it charming, full of character, and we felt we conquered
it. We rode her back in a shiny new skytrain and jumped her rivers in every public boat we could jump in. Bangkok's streets were ours and we even felt our traveling an almost romantic experience.
A few days more and the year was gone. From the rooftop of a simple guesthouse we watched the sky of Bangkok burning with fireworks, every one reminding us of our plans to travel to one of the legendary beaches on the Andaman sea. And that is exactly what we did. The magic of internet gave us the gift of a last minute cheap flight and on Jan 1 we were a thousand kilometers far in Krabi, a small touristic town serving as a base to assault lost islands.
So, the next day we were off to Koh Jum, a small island inhabited by a muslim fishing community that hardly receive any tourists. A memorable arrival was something we didn't know until one hour after departing from Krabi: the ferry boat was not to stop but some hundred meters far from the coast. Our beach experience started when we had to transfer by small fishing boats that will take us to these
El Templo Mas Sagrado / The Most Sacred Temple
En el norte de Tailandia.
In the north of Thailandia. white sand perfect beach.
We stayed 5 nights on the island in a simple bamboo hut, visited by monkeys and monstrous dragon lizards. We lived the hard life of any beach goer: great food, warm water and cold beer.
As always those days of peace and quiteness end too quick and a few days after we were on our way to Bangkok to pick up the visa for India and completing the sightseeing of this great capital. We let our cultural life to expand going to a famous event of trasvesties performing in the also famous Calypso Cabaret. The pictures speak for themselves.
Having ridden the great dragon, we decided to get out and spend some days in the province around Bangkok. So, we headed to Kanchanaburi- a province town west of Bangkok bordering with Myanmar. Kan, as the locals call it, is famous for its bridge over the river Kwai and infamous for the horrific cruelty of the history behind the railway, built by allied war prisoner during WW II.
For my birthday- instead of drinking snakewine- I chose to ride an elephant in the forest (maybe I wanted to contemplate how quickly I became
Say Cheese
En el Doi Suthep, en Chiang Mai. 32 years old!)
The adventure did not stop with the elephants alone, we did some bamboo rafting on a beautiful river aligned with palm trees and swam in the Erawan waterfalls - a 7 tier waterfall of which the stream resembles the a 3-headed elephant.
Then the tourguide - how I love those tours where everything is arranged for - took us to visit the Death Railway of the river Kwai and watching teh sun set over the river Kwai while riding riding the train on that historic piece of architecture we ended our tour- satisfied and a year older.
Our last night in Thailand we are spending in Bangkok and on January 17th, we will be flying to Kolkata- India. A whole new chapter!
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Beatriz villafana
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Sin palabras!!!!
Inna, manuel!!!! Bien supongo que ni la mitad de lo escrito refleja todo lo que este viaje les está dejando a ambos...!!!!! Un besote