After Phuket we headed to Ko Phi Phi and felt like real tourists (for a change!). The boat was packed and full of Europeans and Chinese and when we arrived at the pier in Ko Phi Phi 1000 s of people tried to sell you accommodation (starting with "where you go") and everybody told you that it s SOOO expensive to stay here and this is the price to pay etc. Of course, after 2,5 months travel we know that everybody is lying. Therefore we headed with a taxi boat to Long Beach, apparently one of the nicest and affordable beaches at Ko Phi Phi - and we found out there IS accommodation even for backpackers budgets!
All in all, YES -it s worth a trip, you also start to feel like Leonardo Di Caprio in THE BEACH as soon as you do another boat/snorkeling trip to Ko Phi Phi Don, where you will find the famous Maya Bay/Beach. However, the amount of boats and tourists force you to wake up from your dream: No, you are not Leonardo di Caprio, you are just a backpacker trying to get a nice picture! Anyway, the snorkeling was amazing and the tour with our private little taxi boat was definitively worth it. The island itself is of course overpriced and we tried to find out the cheap places to eat - that don t really exist.
After Ko Phi Phi we headed straight towards Bangkok, after we checked out Phuket beach for a few hours. Again, VERY touristy and it does not really feel like Thailand, apart from the cheap markets. The journey to Bangkok was alright, 12 hours in a really comfy bus, with toilets (oh yes - this was shouting out "Halleluja" - especially after our slight problems with diarrhea!) etc. We were a bit concerned as the situation in Bangkok seems to be a bit dangerous at the moment, as the "reds" try to dissolve the government and there were a few bomb attacks where nobody was hurt. But of course, not the best circumstance to travel there. In the end, we did not see anything at all and everything was peaceful. However, Bangkok is not a city where you want to stay more than a night. Again, overpriced and it takes ages to go from one place to the other, well, if you take local busses as we did. The short journey on a riverboat was nice though and we have seen the famous Wat Pho - temple of the reclining Buddha. Really impressive, definitively worth a visit.
We then decided to take a local bus (we learnt our lesson afterwards!) to the Nothern Bus station to get a ticket for Chiang Mai for the next day. It took 2 hours to get there and we were more than exhausted and annoyed as we thought that 4km should not take more than 20 minutes. Well, not in Bangkok!
After our slight mental breakdown in Bangkok we arrived in Chiang Mai - Oh my Buddha! What a great city! Not just that you feel safe and comfortable, with loads of nice little cafes, restaurants but also, you can do more than a few activities, such as elephant tour, rafting and visiting tribal villages. This is what we did.
We stayed in Julie s Guesthouse, a good decision, as we had a lovely and spacious room, a great atmosphere and good food. We felt great and relaxed. Yesterday, we had a really good time with the elephants and rafting. They brought us to an elefant camp where we went on the back of an elephant - at first it felt a little bit weird and you always thought you hurt the poor guy, but in the end you realise, their skin is like leather and they are so huge and heavy that you don t need to worry about touching them. It was great, you wish you could take them home! In the end we also paid the elphant directly - he picked up the 100 Bt with his trunk & also gave back the change, amazing! They even played a little concert at the end, 2 elefants with an instrument and the other ones dancing. You thought you are in a movie or something. After that, we headed to the rafting point. And it was so much fun!
The first part, white-water rafting was a good laugh and the second part, bamboo rafting, which meant you are more underwater than above, was more for the Thais to laugh at us Europeans:) In the end, we also visited a small village (a bit smaller than Unterwangenback where I come from and a bit less civilised, but pretty similar:)) This tribe was called "Lisu" and the people basically live of handicrafts and agriculture. Amazing how simple you can live your daily life and the houses they are living in are about 10sq meters for a family of 4.
What we also discovered is that most people say they speak English, but the majority of those does not understand and reply what they think they understood - a few nerve breaking conversations but now we know to be a bit more patient and to ask 3 people instead of one person.
Mel & Raf aka. lost in translation
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