Thai jungle

Hiking across a field of marigolds

Hiking in the jungle was ... different than I had imagined. I had no idea it would be so hot and unbelievably humid. I was dripping with sweat all the way. Now I understand why all the hiking tours end with water sports: after sweating for two days and sleeping in a hill tribe village without water and electricity, there is nothing that could keep a group of tourists away from jumping into the river at first opportunity.

A makeshift Seven Eleven shop

As we hiked up the mountain towards the hill tribe village where we would spend the night, we didn’t have to bother carrying lots of water to replace all the sweat. The local people set up makeshift Seven Eleven shops with hiking necessities along the way. Beer, Coke, water, and snacks were available whenever we wanted them. I downed a cold Chang beer when we reached our destination. I so deserved it, not from the hiking itself, which wasn’t too strenuous, but from suffering in the stifling humidity.

Hill tribe village

We were told that there is no electricity in the hill tribe villages and we had to use headlamps to find our way after dark. We did notice, however, that the local people all have mobile phones and wondered how they recharge them. A short stroll through the village gave us the answer: they do have a few solar panels. Life in the village is pretty basic. Small children, chickens and cats run around freely. In the evening, the women of the village convened in a clearing where they smoked and gossiped. And laughed at us tourists, who knows what they were saying about us. Unfortunately they didn’t speak any English so we couldn’t communicate.

Crossing rivers

After our night in the village we descended a different way than where we came up. It was very steep and slippery due to frequent rains. Almost each one of us in our group slipped and fell down into the mud at least once along the way. The path ended at a waterfall where our guide invited us to take a shower. Yes! Cold water after two days in the hot jungle! We all jumped right in.

Waterfall to cool off

The vegetation in the jungle is made up of many plants that are grown as houseplants or annuals back home. I recognized bamboo, bananas, hibiscus, and for some reason that I haven’t yet figured out they seem to cultivate marigolds (tagetes) in fields. Some interesting wild animals that we encountered included termites, huge spiders, beautiful butterflies, and this fellow, about 20 centimeters long (I'm not exaggerating!):

Unknown animal

The guide told us that it may bite and it is poisonous. If anyone knows what it is, let me know.

On the tourist trail

Riding an elephant

We all have the same Lonely Planet guides. We all visit the same places, take the same tours, stay at the same hotels, and eat at the same restaurants. So it's no wonder that it's all touristy wherever I go. Even the Lonely Planet guide warns that the hill tribe villages specialize in Coca Cola and souvenirs. Still I underestimated the tourist factor when I booked my hiking tour.

I only wanted to go hiking. I can’t go alone into the jungle in a remote place so I had to book a tour. There were dozens of tour options to choose from, none of them just for hiking. When I asked the agent for a tour with “no elephants, no rafting”, she dug through the many leaflets and all she could offer was a visit to the orchid farm. While I’m not generally opposed to orchid farms, it’s not the kind of hiking I had in mind. In the end I had to choose one of the tours that included elephants and rafting in addition to hiking.

I’m not much of an animal lover so I decided just riding an elephant was enough, rather than also feeding, training, and bathing the beast as some tours included. I’m not much of a water sport fan so I wanted to avoid rafting. But all the hikes go up the mountain to a hill tribe village and descend by way of water one way or another. Rather than whitewater rafting I chose bamboo rafting which seemed calmer. It’s just a raft made of bamboo poles tied together and it floats on the final leg of the river where it’s very flat and shallow.

Long neck woman

The tour included a side trip to what they call the “long neck” village near Mae Raem. The village is populated by the Kayan people of Burmese origin, whose women wear rings on their necks. According to the Wikipedia, the village makes a living self-sufficiently on tourist revenue. I have to say they do their jobs well. The entire village reminds me of a Hollywood movie set, all prettied up and ready for filming. The people in the village, including children, are dressed in what I believe to be costumes. Whenever a tourist points a camera, they immediately snap into a smiling pose. Each house sells souvenirs such as hand woven shawls or jewelry and they also demonstrate how it is made. There is a school in the village where children sing happy songs (a performance for the tourists rather than a music lesson was my impression).

Children in the long neck village

I don’t know what to think about the situation in this village. In a way, I find it fortunate that the people take advantage of a source of income that allows them to make a living, even if it means being on display for tourists. On the other hand, is this really an authentic village, where everything is staged to look pretty and happy?

***

There was one more tourist related incident on this trip. Our group stopped for lunch in a restaurant before we started hiking. Another group of tourists came along and they were making a scene. We could tell they were English guys, totally plastered and it was only lunchtime. To ensure they wouldn’t run out of fuel, they each carried a plastic bag with extra cans of beer.

Raining again (yes, an elephant is passing by)

As luck would have it, it started raining during lunch. Both of our groups had to get going because we were on a schedule, so we bought raincoats from a vendor outside the restaurant and got going. One of the guys in the drunken party decided he didn’t want a raincoat and just stripped naked, displaying a large Arsenal tattoo on his back (he also displayed his entire front obviously, but I thought it best not to take photos of that side, I don’t want my blog to be flagged as a site with inappropriate content). 

Drunk Arsenal fan

We laughed at first, but we were hiking through a village area where local people could observe the wonderful tourist behavior which was far from funny. The guide frantically tried to get the guy to put on pants, to no avail. Someone from the village must have called the police, because eventually a policeman on a motorcycle caught up with us. Our group continued our hike while the drunken guys had to deal with the police. I don’t know how it ended, I can only say that once again I am disappointed at the impression tourists leave when they visit foreign countries.

Trains and monsoon rains

All bundled up on the night train

Choosing transportation from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was easy. After three years of work-related frequent night train commuting between Ljubljana and Belgrade, it felt natural to take the night train to Chiang Mai instead of the bus or flying. The Thai train was much nicer compared to the Serbian trains I used to ride to Belgrade. It was spacious and clean, an orderly came to make our beds, and porters served food and drinks in the evening and in the morning. My only complaint would be the air conditioning which was set too cold for my comfort. I had to dig up my warm fleece jacket which I had packed at the very bottom of my backpack in Bangkok, believing I wouldn’t need it in the foreseeable future.

I made it to my hotel in Chiang Mai just in time before it started raining, again. October is the last month of the monsoon season so it doesn’t rain every day any more, but there are still occasional downpours. This is my first experience with monsoon rains and I can confirm that a monsoon rain is as if someone suddenly turned on the water faucet on full and then just as suddenly turned it off. It’s hot and humid before and after the rain, and it just slightly cools down while it is actually pouring. I encountered one such downpour in Bangkok a few days ago, but not to worry, there are plenty of roofed bus stations and roof overhangs where one can take cover in such situations. An umbrella isn’t helpful because the rain comes from all directions and I was wet even while standing in the shelter adjacent to this one:

Monsoon rain

There are several temples in Chiang Mai and I took a quick stroll to look around. I noticed a group of school age teenagers near the temples, taking photos of each other. The school kids around here are easily recognizable due to their uniforms. Their favorite activity seems to be taking photos of each other and of themselves. I witnessed such photographing sessions on several occasions in Bangkok as well as on the night train. I shared a compartment with a teenage girl who was traveling alone and she appeared to be constantly taking photos of herself on her mobile phone. I then asked her to take my photo with my camera (the one above) and she happily obliged.

Temples and teenagers in Chiang Mai

So far, all the Thai people I came in contact with were kind and friendly. Even if they don’t speak English they know how to smile and I can usually communicate what I want by pointing and gestures. Sadly, I can’t say the same for other tourists. Many of them prefer to mind their own business. True, I didn’t come all the way to Thailand to socialize with other European tourists especially since I’m not much of a talker myself. But some of them don't even say “Good morning” when we share a table for breakfast.

Eat what the locals eat

When I travel I usually don't have a problem eating what the locals eat. But this time I'm seriously struggling with street food. Here are today's top picks:

1. Dried pig's head

2. Crabs

3. Sea creatures

And what did I finally eat? In order to avoid nightmares about giant sea creatures, I went to McDonald's to have a salad. OK, I admit it: I went to McDonald's to have a salad. I know, I should be ashamed for going to a fast food place and not eating local food. At least I hope the lettuce is locally grown.

Bangkok, 23 years later

River boats

This is my second time in Bangkok, after almost 23 years. I don't remember too many details about that previous trip, only a few impressions stand out: the pineapple vendors, the ubiquitous tuk-tuks, the street food, the fresh produce market with heaps of various sorts of chilies, and the awfully polluted air. Naturally, this time around I was curious to find out what has changed since then.

The pineapple vendors are still here! They serve the pineapple chopped up in a plastic bag with a wooden skewer, to be eaten on the go. In this hot climate, it's the perfect lunch, light and juicy and I love it. The vendors have diversified by adding other types of fruits to their selection, including melons, coconuts, pomelos and local fruits for which I have no name. I do recognize apples. They are polished a shiny red and packed in clear plastic gift bags. I can't decide whether they are meant to be eaten or taken to a Snow White production. The price of an apple (that is one apple, not one kilo) is two and a half times the price of a pineapple. Apples seem to be the expensive imported delicacy just like pineapples are imported tropical fruit back home.

The tuk-tuks are gone. Well, most of them. I realize this is good because the air pollution has gone down due to a lack of tuk-tuk exhaust fumes. The occasional tuk-tuk that I see around now doesn't emit anything black like it used to. Public transport now consists of buses, the metro and the sky train as well as the river boat. I took the river boat to get me to the sky train station. The sky train is clean, air conditioned, efficient, and not too crowded. Nice, but to me, Bangkok will never be the same without those crazy tuk-tuk drivers.

Street food

Street food is what travelers eat in Asia. I don't remember exactly how it was 23 years ago, except I ate delicious fried rice from street vendors. Now the vendors display too many animal parts that I wouldn't want to see, much less eat (think chicken feet, intestines, liver pieces in cloudy liquid, seafood with tentacles and so on). I still haven't worked up my courage to order anything from them. I don't know how to explain in Thai that I don't want any of those unmentionables in my fried rice.

But times have changed and now there are huge air conditioned shopping malls with food courts serving Thai food. This is much easier, I can order by pointing to a picture. It's just like a typical fast food experience: the pictures show bright, crisp, fresh food but what they really serve is wilted and soggy. I avoided stalls with too many eyes or claws or tentacles and so far I managed to eat well.

Because I arrived in Bangkok on a weekend, my first destination was the Chatuchak weekend market. On first glance it is just another sprawling Asian market. But on closer inspection, it's very clean and was less crowded than I expected. That's probably because half of the visitors were in the adjoining air conditioned mall. Not one single vendor at the market pressured me to buy anything which is a miracle. In fact, I saw several vendors passing time by watching movies or playing games on their electronic devices, oblivious to the potential shoppers they could harass. I was able to stroll through the market in peace and look at anything that caught my attention without having to worry that someone would run after me insisting that I buy it just because I looked.

Fresh produce market

The fresh produce market was disappointing. There are no more heaps of various sorts of chilies like I remember from my previous visit, it is all packed hygienically in bags. Therefore the intoxicating smells that I associate with a produce market are missing. With the white tiles, it reminds me of a pharmacy rather than a market.

Palace and skyscrapers

If it weren't for the occasional palace with a golden pointed roof or a piece of some animal's interior organs displayed on a food stall, Bangkok is just another modern city, not typical of Asia at all. They even have functioning street lights where cars stop on the red and pedestrians cross on the green.

My stuff

Checking in at the Ljubljana airport

I was going to create a page where I would display a list of all the stuff I took with me on this trip, similar to what other long-term travelers have done on their blogs, to help others decide what to take along. But this resulted in a major fail on my part. I packed waaay too much stuff!

Come to think of it, what do you pack when you go away for 6 months? It’s not the same as packing for a two to three week vacation or for a business trip.

I know I can’t take 6 months’ worth of toiletries with me. I will sure run out of this or that and will need to buy replacements. I can’t take tons of clothes with me because I will have to carry everything on my back so I will have to take less and wash them frequently.

Will I need my computer with me? OK, that’s not really a question. Should I take my hard drive along to back up my computer? Is the camera on my phone good enough or do I have to bring my pocket camera as well? I should probably take headphones, a mouse, and my Kindle. How many devices is that, how many chargers, how many cables? Don’t forget the universal plug adapter to be able to charge them all.

What about a sleeping bag? I plan to be in warm climates so it shouldn’t be necessary. But what if I decide to go hiking (most likely) and it gets cooler in higher altitudes? Hiking shoes. Running shoes. Yes, I need both. I can't run in hiking shoes and I can't hike in running shoes. Should I give up either of these activities in order to bring one less pair of shoes? That's a tough one. Warm clothes, jackets, raincoats? I have no idea what I might need.

It goes on and on...

I was overwhelmed by so many packing decisions in the days before departure. I finally decided to throw everything that I think I might need on a pile, stuff it into my 65 liter backpack to see if it fits and weigh it to see if it clears the 20 kilogram airline baggage allowance. It did on both counts.

So I took it all.

I know it's too much. In fact, some items were actually packed in order to be ditched later. I wore an old pair of shoes when I left home because it was too cold to go in sandals. These shoes will be the first item to be discarded. I also packed about 2 kilograms of my son's old school supplies that he doesn't use any more since he has gone to university. I'll give them away to schools in some of the poorer regions I plan to visit. I also packed some duplicate toiletries because I had an extra toiletry kit when I traveled for work and I will use them up eventually. I'm going to throw away some of my old cotton T-shirts as they get worn and ugly from hand washing. Hopefully the amount of stuff will diminish with time.

I expect to have a good packing list at the end of the trip, that's when I will surely know what was really necessary and what wasn't, what I used and what I didn't.

The announcement

Here goes, the announcement.

I have been procrastinating telling everyone, mostly because I wanted to avoid the questioning and having to explain my decision.

But time has run out and there is no point delaying any longer: I quit my job and am on my way to travel in southeast Asia for about 6 months.

The reactions of those whom I have told so far have been from »Yeah, I knew you were going to do something like that!« to »Hey, good for you, enjoy yourself!« all the way to »What? Where are you going? All by yourself? Are you nuts?«

It has been brewing in me for a long time. I read so many books by people who have done just that, gone traveling. And I always dreamed how I would want to do it someday.

But.

There was no time, I had a job, there were family obligations, I didn’t have enough money…

There was always a but.

For some reason, it all came together on a Friday afternoon when I came home completely stressed out from work. I had some money saved up that I couldn’t spend on vacations because there was no time because I had to work. My children went off to college and Marko and I became empty nesters which considerably reduced family obligations. And as far as waiting for retirement goes, in these times of economic crisis, the government is increasing the age at which I would qualify to retire. Who knows if I would still be in good health to travel when I finally do reach retirement?

If not now, when would I ever go?