Return to Thailand

It’s now nearly 3 weeks into my arrival in Chiang Mai and a hell of a lot has happened. The first few days were a bit of a rollercoaster. While it felt nice to be back, arriving at the peak of tourist season in a town that’s changing constantly does have the effect that some things had become a good bit different to how I remembered them from my last visit. Also having been completely tired out by my flight from Germany and a nine hour stopover in Phuket didn’t really help either.


My impressions were at first quite different to my previous times, as this time my plan was to stay here a bit more permanently I wasn’t looking out for the cool touristy things that I used to and instead had to organize a lot. It also came a bit as a shock to me to see quite a rise in some of the prices. Due to a huge influx in tourism from China, now my favourite guest house has become too expensive for me and I had to spend a quite some time looking around for an alternative. Luckily I found one that did the job quite well for the first months. This was also the place where I met Lena who I had become more than just a friend to me.



At this time the Sakura (Japanese cherry) trees were blossoming on top of Doi Suthep. This sounded like a great idea for a day out. So Lena rented a motorbike, took me as a passenger and we conquered the mountain. It had been crowded with tourists on the way up, but we made it to a proper adventure by taking a great downhill track that I discovered on my last visit.

Motorbike

Despite the day out, I was still in the middle of organization. The biggest task was to buy myself brand new Motorbike. My first new Vehicle!
It’s been a bit of a hassle as Honda struggles to keep up with demand for the model and colour I wanted, but now I’m the owner of a Honda Wave 125i.

Burma

With my bike sorted out and a bit of free time Lena and I thought it would be cool to do a trip up to Burma. As I have never been there and it would only be for a few days we thought: Why not?
So Lena rented an extra bike and we got cracking. It felt awesome to be touring again. We rode via Chiang Rai to Mae Sai right at the border of Burma. This turned out to be one of the most surprising town’s I had been to in Thailand. From there we did a daytrip into the Burmese town of Tachileik. We were on foot just walking around the entire city trying to get a feel for this country. Already when crossing the border it's hard not to notice that this is a much poorer country: There was less advertisement on boards and the town seemed a bit more worn down. Personally to me it had a lot of similarities with Cambodia but a lot friendlier and calmer.

Return Trip

We stayed in a guest house in Mae Sai which was run by an American expat. He gave us a few Tips for our return journey back to Chiang Mai. As we had a bit of time left we decided on taking a detour through the scenic mountains. Quite by accident we encountered what I would describe as the best road I had been to in Thailand.


I added a lot of commentary to the photos, so hop in my gallery for more info

Back in Chiang Mai

Now back in Chiang Mai my time to start working on my company has come. Ash has been working hard on getting some contracts, so over the coming days I’ll finally start with the work I had come for in Thailand. There will also be a bit of further change coming. Sadly Lena is leaving to her own job in Bali, also in the middle of February my Thai course finally will commence. I will probably also need to lookout for a different guest house as the one I’m staying in isn’t ideal, but that’s another issue. On a different note: I'll also try to upload my itinerary from my time in Europe, so staying busy busy busy