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Published: January 26th 2009
After the whole journey consisting of a long track of train, bus and ferry-trips we got on a airplane - and flied to Thailand. This is something that didn't feel very nice (neither flying or going to Thailand) but there isn't really any other way to get to India from China without passing either Tibet or Burma.
The first thing we did here was (strangely enough!) going to a travel-agency to book another flight - this time from Thailand to Germany (with a stay-over in India). So the whole thing led to a lot of anxiety and bad feelings for me:
1) breaking the proud line of going to the other side of the world without flying
2) missing so much of the nature and climate-changing by simply just getting picked up in a cold China and being put back in a hot Thailand
3) damaging the nature by flying/supporting aircompanys and flying-business in common
4) being in Thailand, surrounded by thousands of scandinavian people and somehow indirectly supporting the sex-tourism here just by being another tourist here
5) now having a set date for the flight back to europe, and "going home" to reality again
After booking the flight we decided to escape Bangkok almost right away (it is a city so full of traffic-jams and pollution, that it made my asthma even worse than Beijing and Tokyo together!) and went to a small village named Kanchanaburi. There we spent most of the time at the riverside, just resting and reading, and a whole day paddling down the river in rented kajak's. It was really nice, and we also found our own "beach" (referring to a book by Alex Garland if someone doesn't know it) - all white and silent, and no other tourist as long as we could see... Next day we went to swim in another nice place we discovered, and realised the whole place smelled like cow-shit. It didn't bother us much thought, but halftime through our swimming there we found ourselves surrounded by shouting villagers, and muuing cows... 😊
Now we are in another city, Mae Sot, up in the north very close to the borders of Burma. Here is a lot of refugees from Burma, both living in refugee-camps, and working as migrant-workers. We are staying with an organisation that has a internship program for young burmese women. It feels really good to be here and have the opportunity to meet and talk to burmese people about their lives in and outside of Burma, and I feel both a bit ashamed of dropping the subject of Burma after the solidarity-demonstration (that me and two friends organised in Helsinki at the time of the saffran revolution in 2007) and very inspired to get involved in the question again once being back in Finland.
So, I guess coming to Thailand wasn't all that bad after all...
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Hanna
non-member comment
interesting,
Hey! I´ve been following your trip here on travelblog from time to time. And I must say it sounds like one hell of a good trip. Probably is... Its been extremely interesting of reading about your tie in Japan and in the same time hearing another friend´s experiences from his trip to Japan. I hope you both have had a wonderful trip and that you gotten very much information about your project. I guess it's always hard when a trip comes to its end but life do go on and the memories you have will follow you through out your life. Reading about your trip has inspired me to go around the world as a backpacker of course. And I probably will some day thanks to you. Anyway, take care and cant wait to see you again. Greetings from a very cold Helsinki, Hanna S