Thai-land

Baan Chang Elephant Park

Flying from Taiwan to Thailand was just the beginning of a new adventure. It wasn't so fun to wait approximately 5 hours for my next flight in the airport to Chiang Mai. However, I had the chance to a bit discover and get a first impression about Thailand. It is definitely poorer and they charge extra fee every time you withdraw money, quite annoying. And 7eleven does not have any ATM or a printer... At least I found a good simcard for 15 days for a cheap price. But then I flew to Chiang Mai in the morning and there everything was different.

Yes, country is still poor but I stayed in a luxury hotel located very central close to almost all temples. It was really nice to visit these temples. I am kind of impressed in the way that people still believe in handcrafted gods! So many of them everywhere, many of them are made of cheap material and still have a big impact on people. It feels strange. Although I am not a big fan of Islam, I still think that if you want to believe something, first start with Islam and see how other religions don't make so much sense in terms of 'believing a handcrafted god' and then question a bit and discover that God only exist because you believe in him...

I love how Thai people thank. I feel like they treat me as a god. Because only for god you would put your hands together in front of your face and pray for him. At least as I saw from Christians. However, in contrast to Taiwanese people, I found Thais a bit more aggressive and less friendly. It might be due to extremely hot weather though (they claim it is a cool season here :D).

My second started awesome in Chiand Mai. I have visited Baan Chang Elephant Park. OMG!OMG!OMG! How cute and giant elephants are! They are so lovely and trained well. Once they saw us with sugar, they basically ran to us and touched the bags full of food with their trunks. The youngest one was very naughty. He wanted all the food :D. And there was also pregnant one. I touched her stomach and it was really warmer than others. Touching them is amazing but you have to be harder if you want them to feel you. They have a very thick skin. We fed them, walked with them and played in the water. Naughty one was so cute in the water, he basically dropped himself in the water and let use brush and play with them. It was a great experience! I also learned that Thai people respect to elephants because they helped them during the civil war with Myanmar (if I don't recall wrong). How they helped is still a question :D. Other surprising thing about this elephant park is that they buy elephants in cost of millions of Bahts... They save, train and keep them. They dont release them back since they loose their wild life abilities they cannot survive in the nature.

And the last day I joined a tour to visit the biggest and most important temple Doi Suthep. Driver, Mr. Pan, was very talkative and complaining a lot about poorness of Thailand. Well he didn't even know that Turkey is not that reach and super developed either. I was in a Chinese group (ofc) and he was fluent in Mandarin. First we visited Hmong Village and saw people live with their traditions who came centuries ago from China. They had a small waterfall and garden around. It was lovely. I saw people producing handcraft stuff which was very impressive. Later on we went back to Doi Suthep and visited the Temple. Well it is just another one with full of buddha =) and a giant pyramid like golden covered thing which I dont know what. It looks like it is their Kaaba, monks were touring around this golden thingy. We also seen Chiang Mai from this mountain temple. City looks nice and lovely!

And finally that night (3rd of December) I arrived to Phuket. This city is amazingly expensive... 650B to go to Phuket Town from the airport. And my hotel was not that impressive either... I was excited for the next day anyway. So in the morning I came to Chalong Pier to take my speed boat to Koh Hey (Koh Hae) - Coral Island. It was so rainy and we waited long and then we passed the ocean with the speed boat. It was very dangerous and scary adventure for me. I was praying not to sink all the time. It was that much scary...

Coral Island Resort.... a total disappointment... There is NOTHING except this resort in the Island and this hotel truly sucks! First they gave a shit Bungalow, smells like my aunts old apartment (cause of humid) and no hot water because there is no sun... Even the toilet was not functioning good. Anyway, reception is a Turkish and very helpful :D. They changed may room, yet still there is no hot water. And this time there was also no water to drink and towel in the room. I waited long as receptionist told me that they will drop by but I had to pick up myself in the night... And everywhere is full of cockroaches... Very allergic! The only good thing is the see, it is really warm and very nice to swim in although it is a bit wavy. But not as much to convince me to stay here for 5 nights.. Tomorrow I will check-out for sure either after breakfast if I cannot do scuba-diving due to the weather or afternoon. Unfortunately I have to take the boat at 9am or 4pm... This island is very isolated and not very necessary. I am just a victim of very bad planning due to time constraints. I did everything in last minute. This is the best can be done, at least by me :P.

Phuket

I haven't seen much in Phuket Town, just spent a nice in a hotel. Day after in the morning I went to Chalong Pier and waited for the speed boat to transfer to the Coral Island. Speed boat was crazy! It was rainy, cloudy and wavy... Waooov what an adventure it was! I was quite excited but also a bit disappointed due to not really good weather :/. It went worse! They gave me a Bungalow (reception was Turkish) next to the pool with a twin bed. But the room had no warm water, because there was no Sun to run solar electricity system. And it was in the whole facility... They first changed my room to another better one with a double bad but then there was again no hot water and moreover they totally forgot to give me towel and water even though I have warned them. Oh nooo! It was too much already. Was trying to chill out in the coast and try to convince myself to stay 5 nights as I reserved the room. But no, it was impossible, it was a torture after seeing many many cockroaches around even in my bathroom. Rooms were not clean AT ALL!!! And this is 3 star Coral Island Resort... Excuse of the reception is that we are in an island so leave the Survivor.... Only good thing was the sea. I liked it. It was warm, wavy but cool. Next day I checked-out and with a sudden decision I went to Patong Beach and stayed there in a luxury hotel for 4 nights :P. I am so glad that I made such decision.

Patong is a great experience. Although I am a bit surprised that it is not as crowded as I have expected (possibly because it is not the season yet), I enjoyed it a lot. Bars and clubs in Bangla Road start making extreme noise in the evening, everyone tries to convince you to go to this bar, that club. Extremely lots of sex advertisements and bfff soul sucking sellers. They sell everything. Food, cigarette, souvenirs and they cross over again and again and keep asking while sitting in the bar. This was really tiring. At the end we bought a wristband (written Mr. Dick) and was showing it every time they come and ask again... This was hilarious. They were angry because we had them :D :D :D. I am a bit shocked that usually these people have no memory. They don't even remember they sold us the wristbands and kept asking again. I have to note that there was a guy and collecting money from these poor sellers. There must be same mafia around. On the other hand sitting in the bar and watching people walking from one side of the road to the other is amazing. With a beer (Shinga-tiger or Chang-elephant) and salted roasted peanut, I enjoyed the music a lot in Kangaroo Bar and have seen many Russians/Chinese and Germans walking around.

Clubs were mostly empty but also fun. Especially the one in Paradise Complex was really interesting. So many lady boys... bff what shows they do... I thought it would be again boring alone but I met really nice people around and spend time in the beach, bars and clubs. Traveling is really good unless it is not sooo long and so much adventurous ^_^. I also liked chilling on the sand and swimming in the warm Andaman Sea although the sea was time to time was wavy and the sun is extremely hot. Funny thing is that I haven't figured out completely how the Sun moves. It feels like it rises and hangs where it is and then bum! it is sunset :D. 4 days were enough. Next target Bangkok!

Bangkok

Lets put a few lines about Bangkok. It was the way underdeveloped than I thought. I was expecting more like fancy buildings and kinda rich people around. At the end it is the capital, right? But instead I found really poor people and quite old buildings. There are two things I have enjoyed most in Bangkok: Thai massage in Wat Pho Temple and Moon Bar. Temple is also a medical school for training Thai masseurs and my masseur was a man which was unusual to me and my first time. He wasn't less brutal! Thai massage hurts. And Bar is on top of a hotel building and as extremely fancy as it is expensive but the view was great! I met other visitors from Sweden and spent time with them in the Bar. It was around sunset and Bangkok for the first time after one day looked so beautiful. It seems like Bangkok is cool from above :D. Birds must be enjoying a lot.