Hello world! Here we are now
in Thailand where we spend a great time. Thailand is a country very touristy, c dy is very easy to travel because everything is done for tourists, no problem to find a bus, internet, or sleep ....
People are generally pretty friendly and smiling through cons it is quite difficult to communicate with them because of one hand, they generally do not speak very good English and the other they are always so many tourists that they are quite blazes.
Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and the king and queen are worshiped by the people. Most Thai purchafe permanently photos, pictures and posters of the members of the royal family to bring them home or in their shops. Similarly there are pictures of the king everywhere in the streets, as well as pictures of his sister who died two months ago (the country is in mourning for one year). All Mondays are many Thai royal yellow polo (Royal Flush) with the royal emblem to pay tribute to their king, but there are also a bracelet with yellow writing on it constantly "Long live the king." In some cities the national anthem rang at 8am in the morning or evening to 18h, at that time all the Thais completely stop any activity, they start standing and sitting are sils s s immobilize completely silent until the end of the song, then when c is finite and they all say thank you sometimes long live the king and life resumes. C is very impressive to see, life stands still for once! In
complement certainly enormously from Thai love their king, but really in the whole people are not so free either: First of all, there is enormous social pressure, it is unthinkable for a Thai example of not respecting the arrest and silence during the broadcast of the anthem on pain of being dismissed from other, more publicly criticize the king is liable to such imprisonment.
The country is less developed than Malaysia and Singapore, it has found common ground with India negative: we see a new child workers around the streets, beggars, the streets are very very dirty (feet are black dirt evening c is amazing!), people throw their garbage again on the ground said this here s they are caught they are fined and here there are garbage cans, waste does not pile to every corner . Here people speak very badly in the whole English (the English is not taught al public school, people must send their children to private school s they want their children learn English) and all merchants will serve as a calculator communicate the price of one hand to avoid any problems of communication with foreign countries, partly to avoid to make miscalculation, in fact, the schools in Thailand is not mandatory, most are not ny or very alles little and therefore do not know how to count or read. We see very little Thai reading in general (or other newspaper).
Cote religion, the majority of people are Buddhists, so there are lots of temples around the town and country (no more than 300 temples in the city of Chiang Mai for example!), And can often be seen on a mountains or at the turn of a path in the campaign a huge Buddha sitting or standing. The temples are all more beautiful than each other, gold and red with a lot of details in painting, sculpture. At the interior lots of statues of Buddhas and sometimes also wax statues of important monks who died (impressionant! it looks like the real monks! Even better than the Musee Grevin ...). At the outdoor statues of elephants often (sacred animals here) or dragons to protect the temple.
can also see the Buddhist monks, dressed in orange robes, everywhere! They are not only very numerous but also they feed only thanks to what people give them to eat so they are daily in the streets begging. Be a monk here has nothing to do with being a priest with us, this is not necessarily a vocation for life, for some yes but for the Most c is rather as a time of their lives, so many monks are a time (usually several years anyway!) and then stop to move on. Their life is hard enough, they must meet a whole bunch of strict rules (no right to touch women, not allowed to eat after noon, no right to possess or purchase (s rule which says it relaxes over the years and becomes not possess too many have all the same laptop, some books, but no jewelry, clothes, video games ...), no right to do sport (this says they have the right watch TV once a week when there is a TV and young monks love to watch football championships), bond getting up at 4am every day and spend three-quarters of his day to pray, beg, s deal with the upkeep of the temple or s instruction.
Cote landscape and environment, Thailand is a very beautiful country but unfortunately that will degrade enormously over time, partly because of certain forms of agriculture (in Chiang Mai people practice slash and burn, so there acres and acres of vegetation that burn every year and never have no time to grow back.) of deforestation in order to sell exotic woods like teak to foreign countries), but above all because of the massive constructions, anarchic and not at all respectful of the environment especially in large cities or tourist attractions (the beautiful beaches or islands, etc.), there is therefore huge ugly buildings built every year to make enn hotels and others who distort more landscapes.
Apart from that Thais speak Thai therefore, that uses an alphabet of their own, c is sometimes difficult to locate themselves as everything is not always written in Thai and English but hey!
We still learned a few words in Thai, the two most important in our eyes: sawadika (or when c sawadikrap eest man speaking) which means hello and khumpuka (or khumpukrap for a man) who wants to say thank you.
Let's talk about our trip: We first went to Krabi in the south west Thailand and we are leftovers briefly before joining Kho Phi Phi, an island in front of Krabi. The arrival on the island was a huge shock to us, it s is proved to be rather crowded and packed with tourists ... On the main beach we could see hundreds of boat moorings (all types: taxi boat type boat, sailboat, yacht, speed boat, ferry ...), a dozen ferry disembarking or boarding hundreds of tourists Thousands of tourists swarming the beach, in the streets of the city, hundreds of buildings, bungalows, shops (scuba diving, internet, clothes, memories ...). In short the horror! As we said at that moment, the island could be without beautiful buildings, boats, thousands of people everywhere, without the infernal noise (boats, loud music in bars and restaurants, etc.) and the smell of gasoline. What a pity! In a quick look you could really understand and visualize what is the mass tourism and its consequences. It has now migrated to one of the few beaches still a bit quiet the other side of the island. The bottom we took the opportunity to snorkel (scuba diving and snorkeling), c was both beautiful and sad. Wonderful because we could very easily see a whole bunch of beautiful colorful fish. Not only the turquoise water was so very good visibility but also very hot so full of tropical fish! But sorry because many corals were dead either the tsunami or by consequence of hundreds of boats are constantly moored s in these waters and that there has nonetheless seen a lot of waste in the water. Moreover, the fish came to meet us, some even had us taste, at the beginning we found it funny but it was quickly understood by seeing how people from here very regulieremment distribute bread to the fish to make them come and meet tourists They thus disrupting the ecosystem. The fish came to us so that we thought was going to feed them. We have also made a trek on the island, we first went to a walk in the center of the island, or the search did not track, or there is therefore much less guest houses and more houses in a local incredible state of disrepair, then on the heights, we have first to cross the forest to reach the summit and thus able to observe the tremendous amount of waste everywhere, and then reach the top we could contemplate this a little more depressing. In addition there were pictures of the island 20 years ago, absolutely gorgeous, and the island before the tsunami already badly damaged by tourism and then the photos after the tsunami, everything has been devastated c is incredible, trees, buildings .... And now a little over 3 years after the trees have no regrowth yet but little or buildings yes, even more than that before ... can you imagine the decor!
short we do not dwell on this island, we then went to a small khao lak town on the west coast north of Phuket Island, the lower we tried to visit a school to no avail (no one spoke English and it was not far from the big holiday so we were kindly sent to graze) and we went diving in a luscious site: the Similan Islands. C was absolutely wonderful, it's a protected national park it is necessary to pay for it, more and c is a set of tiny islands well offshore (1h30 by boat) so no hotels, shops etc. c is not to say tourism if n is divers and dive down are extremely expensive so not many people ... A little piece of paradise, clear water, white sand beaches and under water wonders: rays, turtles , small sharks (Not dangerous we can assure you), moray eels, lobsters, lots of clown fish, parrotfish, barracuda and other ... During the boat ride we even had the opportunity to see manta rays than 2 meters in diameter follow us and do somersaults .... genial!
We also went to visit a rehabilitation center for gibbons (apes). In Thailand many poachers capture the babies gibbons (often by killing the mother of elsewhere) and then sell them to Thais who keep them as pets so that they are babies (when they become adults at about 5 to 7 years, they become too large and too aggressive people so rid s), or who stand to make people laugh tourists and thus earn money, they apprenent their example has to do somersaults, shake hands, they dress them in bars they make them drink beer or smoke ... All these situations are illegal and most monkeys besides being deprived of their natural habitats are poorly treated (sometimes beaten or malnourished, etc.). The Centre therefore aims to recover the maximum possible with the gibbons with the authorities (so thanks to denunciations) and then try to rehabilitate c is to say of them used again to live independently, without rights, in their natural habitat, and when it works they release them from detention in the forest of a protected national park (s they release them outside a park they would again catches). C was a day very interresting, very informative ... we must now learn a lesson!
Then we returned to Bangkok where we spent a few days. Nudes were staying down in the tourist district, a district has both very pleasant, very lively, with lots of small shops of all kinds of food stalls, all cheap, all the lights, music ... But at the same time very upset, yet there has been deviance tourist: prostitution, excessive consumption of alcohol or the drugs, brief this stuff. So we spend our entire days away from this place to visit temples or ancient palace, very beautiful! We also surveyed the streets of Bangkok in the heat (45 degrees ... and yes!), as everywhere in Asia we have seen lots of food stalls everywhere, of men or women mending clothes or repairing soles, but also lots massage parlors out of the street, the Thai loves getting a massage.
Here c is amazing what is the order of coquetry or well being is rather popular among the things unlike us or c is rather a luxury. So here it costs nothing at all (implying even for the locals) to get a massage or a manicure / pedicure, clothes, jewelry, bags, shoes are not expensive at all and so on. The Thai are generally pretty cute, well dressed, well coiffed pretty!
After Bangkok we went to Ayuttaya, a city north of Bangkok, which was the ancient royal capital there very long. A very nice city, smaller and less developed than Bangkok is therefore found the huge cockroaches, rats running around the streets, what kind of things not very nice but c is also in this kind of town that there are fewer tourists and so that the contacts with the locals remain possible. So we had the chance to meet three Thai, Wanida, Kha, and Aun (two girls and a boy in order ...) with whom we stayed virtually throughout our stay in Ayuttaya. Together we rented bikes and we surveyed the city to visit the ruins of ancient temples and palaces, very nice! We also went in several modern temples, still beautiful, and we visited a large walk very nice, everything lein of colors and scents, or things DRIED fries. So we tasted a bunch of new things, like pork rind fried in batter (not great ...), fish dry (not bad but very very dirty!), Or has cookies coconut rape (delicieux. ..).
We then went to Lopburi, a little further north, another town full of temple ruins of the same period and infested with monkeys. Indeed, this city is one that brings together the largest number of monkeys in Thailand, c is the positive side that we see everywhere it s great to watch them as close to (feed the babies, play etc. ..), c the negative side is that they are a real blight on the premises, they climb everywhere and thus spoil everything (tv antenna, son electric ...) and suddenly they are very accustomed to people, they are no longer afraid of everything, they climb so we desssus without hesitation. C at the beginning is rather surprising and even funny but it quickly becomes oppressive because they are 3 or 4 times you jump from behind, you do not see them .... So we quickly learned not to hang out too close to monkeys, gwen said it has still had time to be bitten by a monkey (he was afraid we do not really know why and s is then set to bite ran away), a bite deep enough that we may need to go hospital to al him injections against rabies prevention (rabies being frequent here).
No hospital in Lopburi, we therefore took the first train to chiang mai, 15h commuting sat with doors and windows not closing, lights on all night, and as people in India who spend all night selling food, drinks etc ... Well it was not overslept and arrived to find that it has a guest house we went to hospital for gwen al. Everything was very clean, the doctors spoke English impeccably short if n is waiting like home ... So we spent the day al hospital! As Gwen would make several injections we have been "stuck" a time to Chiang Mai, schools being closed due to summer holidays so we played our visitors. We first of all, a massage, it has discovered the Thai massage, really great! Then we took Thai cooking classes, as you said it is rather fans of Thai cuisine is that if n is too much fat, it has taken a lot of fun to cook good food and the devour after! We also walk a lot and crisscrosses the city by visiting many temples (or we could include talking with young Buddhist monks who are available to tourists for more information on Buddhism and thus improve their English) and thousands of steps, still anime , Colorful and fragrant ... ours will seem very dull to us back! We are also going to a dance thai, unfortunately not terrible, only intended for tourists, dances lasted 45 seconds to 1 minute maximum, some dancers had the air of profound boredom s even yawned, but hey ca us all the same allowed to discover a whole bunch of local costumes and dances! We also spent a day in a sanctuary for elephants. C is a center that occupies recover s elephants that people no longer want because they are too old and / or disabled and can no longer work and therefore bring more of the money, treat them and provide them the best life possible until the end of their days. Unable to release it into the nature not only because most do not necessarily survive (cartains are blind or with a foot in etc.) and secondly they might be captured again. Indeed the fate of elephants is not always better than sgibbons in Thailand, many elephants are used to work in shipyards transport timber for example, and especially since the arrival of machines for many yards are used for tourism either to make the tourists trekking to elephants, or to do tricks, they are taught by example to do a kiss, grab a hat and put on the head of someone, sometimes even painting. The big problem is that the Most of the time these elephants are not well treated, they are beaten, malnourished or drugs for which they remain quiet. In the center so the elephants are cared for (some arrive in a bad way), then they live quietly. Tourists who come to spend the day do not go over it since they no longer work, they just feed them, wash them (it goes in the river with them and then rubbed to remove their mud), and admire ... This is a wonderful experience! We spend hours and watch them play elephant calves! In short a well-supported in Chiang Mai, while alternating with visits al hospital still long ...
After Chiang Mai we then went on an island Kho Chang al is large in size but not very busy last say over the islands west at least, and frequented mainly by local tourism. We had the opportunity to swim in incredibly hot water and make a new snorkel, we discovered while walking with a pen fifteen alligators in it, probably a farm ... We have also been invited several times has to join a table of local example but those who speak virtually no English our exchanges were limited to exchange our names, or say they came from, how long it was in Thailand and what we saw then be smiles ...
Then our Thai visa expiring us are parties to join the Laos we're going to blow across the south to north, not north to south so you can return to Thailand one week before going to Cambodia to visit the schools. We arrived in Laos yesterday, not even enough for a section so but for now everything seems much quieter, less urban, less touristy. For cons the people speak English let alone that in Thailand, we're screwed!
It tells you more soon ....
pending
Noemie big kisses and Gwen
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