Arriving in Southeast Aisa
Since last year when I got bitten by the travelbug I am now addicted to backpacking. After an unbelievable journey through central america in the summer of 2016 I decided to head for the other direction this year: Asia!
To be precise, southeast Asia. My first stop was Bangkok, where I stayed for 5 days. I have to admit I did not like Bangkok - at first. All the noise, people constantly trying to sell you something and the traffic. This was not what I traveled thousands of miles for. After a day of lying in the bed too sweaty and tired to move but also too hot to sleep I finally got up and went on a walk further than the next 7-eleven. There I found what my ears have been craving.
Silence.
I found this beautiful temple complex surrounded by big walls. As soon as you entered the gate all there was to hear was quiet talking and the singing of the monks. It was unbelievable relaxing after the stress of the city. My plan was to spend 5 days in Bangkok and then take a plane to Mandalay in Myanmar (former Burma). So I had some time to kill. When I met a nice psychology teacher in my hostel we decided to team up. Young and stupid as we are we decided to borrow some bikes and ride to the Lumphini Park.
A big park in the middle of Bangkok. Google Maps calculated that it would take about half an hour to get there. We ended up riding for over an hour through the craziest traffic I ever witnessed. I am pretty sure I nearly died about seven times on that single ride but it was great fun! In the end we reached the park and my friend - a basketball freak - played some basketball while I was lying on a bench trying not to die from the heat.
As I already mentioned the park is really big, but still you see people running and working out everywhere! There were so many that I even asked a local, if there was some kind of running event. He told me that every day that many people are running here. I was truly impressed and a little embarrassed thinking how few people one sees running in the parks in my home country.
The next day we took a train to Ayutthaya, which used to be the capital of Thailand several hundred years ago.
The heat was unreal, nevertheless we decided once more to get some bikes.
After visiting several temples both of us had run out of water so we stopped at a 7-eleven and bought some water and food. After half a day in the sun sweating on a bike we got used to the heat, but - as every Thailand traveler knows - every 7-eleven is cooled down to about 20°C by big aircons. The shock was not when going into the store, but when leaving! We stepped out of the doors and the heat hit us in the face like Floyd Mayweather. We hadn't noticed but the temperature had climbed up to 40°C and the humidity was close to 90%. The only time I witnessed such extreme weather was the year before in mexico where I only managed to lie in bed and not move. But now I had to ride a bike. The most unpleasant thing about it was not the sweating, the thirst or the weariness. It was noticing that my body was starting to stop working properly. We had to stop several times on our way to the next temple but the view was worth the drive.
There we laid down on the shady lawn for half an hour and everything was back to normal.
On our way back we also visited a floating market and also saw some elephants on the roadside. Unfortunately my camera gave up at the last temple so I have no pictures of them.
My last day in Bangkok me and my new friend spent - how else - biking! We went for one last suicide mission and rode all the way out to the big busstation because my buddy had to buy some tickets to Cambodia. On the way back we checked out another park.
This one was way different from the Lumphini Park. There were hardly any visitors but hundreds of workers.
The park was beautifully designed and cared for.
Since the weather had not changed since the day before the ride had made us tired so we took a nap on some park benches. I had a wet awakening when a stray dog we had played with earlier licked my face.
The next day I bid my friend farewell and we both left Bangkok, he on a bus to Cambodia, me on a plane to Myanmar.
Since this is my first post of this kind I would appreciate any feedback.
Am I going into too much detail, or do you want even more?
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