Dear friends,
As most of you y now know, Floor has joined me to see the world from July 25 (my birthday) onwards. After a brief, but gamewise very lucrative few days in Marakele, we headed on to Bangkok, Thailand. It's been great, these first couple of days! Thai food is simply amazing: you can pick something from the menu blindfolded and will still succeed greatly. We moved on from touristic Bangkok to less touristic Chiang Mai in the North, where we have set camp for short trips into Northern Thailand. Tomorrow we'll set off to a trekking into the some remote jungle villages, home to some of the Hilltribes (e.g. Karen, Lasu). It promises to be very exciting!
We spent the last few days hopping on to tuk-tuks (those three-wheeled motorbikes), driving to many beautiful destinations such as impressive Bhuddist temples and recommended restaurants. We're in the rainy season, so have had the occasional shower now and then, but so far it's only been refreshing and not unpleasant at all. We bought a couple of cheap rip-offs, forcing us to send back other stuff from our backpacks to make room. I ate -but did not particularly enjoy- the odd collection of incects such as crickets, ants and locusts (grasshoppers). They tasted of cheesy Doritos with the consistency of popcorn. The foodstalls along the roads here are amazing! People here seem to spend most of their day eating, and we don't blame them. The trainride BKK-Chiang Mai was good. We drove at night time, but before that (the trip took 15,5 hours in total) we were able to see, hear and smell much of the landscape. Those open trains really let you experience the surrounding countryside. And now for some pictures...
A Buddhist monk performs a string-binding ritual on Floor. It's called a
Sai Sin and is put on after a small ceremony of praying and blowing air onto your wrist. You're not supposed to take of the piece of string (it's common cotton), but let it wear off by itself. Pretty extraordinary, especially since they're normally not keen on touching women.
Just before my first bite of insect. Locust (grasshopper) to be exact. I also had a taste of ants and larvae, special price! It tasted of Doritos Cheese tortillas with the substance of that last bite out of a bag of popcorn; much to chew, little meat. They were not bad, though.
