Sampling countries

Today is the third day of Songkran here in Thailand and I’m now hiding inside an internet café. The past few days were awesome, with many people celebrating on the streets and my guest houses being either nearby the water war zone (Chiang Mai) or right in the middle of it (here in Bangkok). Starting a day early and people continuing their fun well after dark, I feel like I’ve had my share of water. Maybe it even feels like I’ve had my share of exciting adventures here in Asia. But no wonder, since I have done so many fun things in the past few weeks.

After Shangri-la I took a bus to Lijiang to stay in the old town and be invited into a bar with only Chinese speaking people and ended up learning a dice game as to interact with them. The next day I flew to Jinghong in the south of the Chinese Yunnan province to do a two-day trek through the jungle, including home stay with a Dai family. Still getting used to the heat and humidity I went on for some busses to Mengla, across the border to Luang Namtha, Udomsay, Pak Mon and Nom Kiau, and took a boat to Luang Prabang. There I taught some English to a monk and told him about the Tibetan prayer flags, and the monk and his friends told me what their lives look like. And since you don’t often get the chance to do so, I went for an elephant ride and swam with the elephants until the other tourist and me were both too tired to continue (hello sore muscles!), of which the most amazing thing might have been playing king of the hill with the mahouts.
That same night I took a sleeper bus to Vientiane and met a Polish lady who was my travel buddy for two cities: Vientiane, in which we took it easy, walked around and I rented a motor bike for a day, together with another traveler. In Chiang Mai we tried recovering from illness, took a Thai cooking course and participated for two days in water throwing. With the moats being surrounded by masses of people and some even swimming in it, these festivities looked a bit like a warmer version of Queen’s Day in Amsterdam.
After another night bus I arrived in Bangkok, on my own again. Getting some extra sleep in yet another new guest house got me ready for some more water throwing – and white talc paint smearing as they do here – and a visit to China town, the red light district –it is indeed totally different from Amsterdam!- and some sky train riding. Today I enjoyed the view from the ferry and some more from the sky train during daylight. Bangkok seems all right, but after a second night it will be time to move on again.

Moving through three countries in four weeks has been producing little indications that I'm looking forward to go home again. Perhaps the first one came when leaving China. The language I had put so much effort in to learn had suddenly become useless. And with only a week in the new country and no necessity to use it, I was never motivated enough to learn any Laos or much Thai. This changed how I went around and enjoyed myself, since hanging out with locals was what I liked to do in China. Now I find myself more and more surrounded by Westerners, and the fact that I seem to enjoy it makes me think I’m getting ready to leave this continent and trade it for my own little country again. But first I’ll take tomorrow’s daytime bus to Phuket Island and sit on my bum, before I get back to working again.