Thailand. Day 6-7.

Day 6. 

The last few days were pretty quiet. Nothing really happened. 

It's getting really boring for me without people of my age or any good buddies... I  at least have free wi-fi, so i can spend my time writing my blog, surfing through facebook or just doing... well i guess nothing more to do. 

Would love to just go and sit in the sea with a coconut in my hand and couple of friends around me (or my special one which i don't even have!) or go to a club, or simply lie on the highest floor (they have a small terrace), stare at the starless sky (it's too light out here) and chat about everything and nothing with my friends. None of which is gonna happen. 

Yesterday we went to some kind of crocodile farm with elephants and lots of flowers, wild roosters and swings where i spent lots of time, since the park was way smaller than expected. "At least they have flowers" i thought while putting my macro lens on, but soon i came to realize that even though it looked like lots of flowers, it was basically the same one everywhere, so i just sat down in the shadow and thought and talked to my mum when she joined me. I got to hold a baby tiger in my arms, but it was pretty hungry and not really calm which for me made it look way cuter, but for the rest it looked like a scary beast when he was growling (or actually crying out, since he still couldn't growl). I didn't even touch the rest of the animals, cause of the stupid short chains... Some of the animals were still doing ok-ish, but a bear that they had could barely move, so i just saw it and walked further. 

The crocodile show was really stupid, the guy just walked around, stuck his head into crocodile's jaws couple of times and asked for tips.  I don't like those kinda shows in general, but this was just foolish... i took a couple of pictures for my father and left before the rest even got off their seats. 

The evening was really quiet. After walking around in the streets without any goal or destination we went back to hotel and i managed to spend the rest of the evening at the computer. I told my mom also that it's not interesting at all to be with her all the time, so she booked some more sightseeing tours. We'll at least have something proper to do. 

What's really striking me is girl business here. I couldn't count anymore how many (especially) old men buy them. You should just go out and most of the guys you'll see will have a thai girl on their side. Most of the guys are already old, some of them already hardly walking - but a thai girl as a must! I guess there's nothing wrong with that in itself, but when you see hundreds of them just in couple of minutes it makes me sad and feel sorry for those people. 

I wonder how much is a beautiful thai girl out here?

Day 7. 

Another stupid day is over... 

I even don't have anything to write about! That's definitely not the vacation i have expected. Well it is nice, but i guess the thoughts that are bothering me buzz inside my head every morning when i wake up and every evening when i have a free minute, so it messes up with my vacation. 

Since i have so much time lately, i can think about lots of things or i would say, many things come to my mind and asks me to think about them and wants my attention. Some of the topics want more attention than the rest. I am however making some decisions, but really slowly. For some real decisions i would need some time off, but my mom wouldn't do much alone. So everything's just buzzing around in my head and cannot come to peace until i haven't decided on things. 

Today we spent most of our day for sightseeing or visiting places, doesn't matter how you call it. Another park with animals and plants, which made me rather sad. And this time - really sad, i even started crying in the middle of one show! 

We went to Nong Nuch - a place with lots of gardens and fake animals (really stupid idea to make flamingos out of plastic and call that area flamingo garden). Most of the gardens were closed or so tiny you barely can see the difference between all of them, so the time passed really fast although when we looked at the map before entering we were worried if we're gonna make it in time.  

After taking a short walk through Nong Nuch it was time for shows: thai dances, thai box and elephant show. Thai dances were quite nice and i quite enjoyed it, thai boxing was really disappointing since it was just a show and wasn't real fighting. Not that i like fighting, but if it's thai boxing then it should be real. I even didn't bother taking pictures after realizing it's fake. 

The next show (and thank God the last one there) was the elephants' show. It was indeed impressive how much an animal can do, they could paint and play football and it was nice on one side, but on the other side it crushed me from inside... It's all business here in Thailand, it's all just money-making. There's no love towards animals, or appreciation or even caring. When my mum said we're going to Thailand i was hoping i could go to some kinda village in the middle of jungles and see some real pure nature, play with tigers and go swimming with elephants, but all i've seen was how to make money with animals and how to scream at them if for example an elephant doesn't sit down on a chair - as if he had to do it! It made me sad so badly i started crying and had to pull myself together. My mom noticed that and agreed very much. It was sad too look at the chains of all those animals - big and small ones. Even though Thailand is not expensive and you can get some cheap clothing, i don't think it's gonna be a country i'm in love with. Or if it's as i have wanted all the time, then the agency and marketing made a huuuge mistake somewhere. 

There's lots of russians here and they don't really care about that. It's all about spending money for them or getting drunk or seeing tigers do tricks, so i guess it's a lovely place for them. Lots of shops and bars have things written in russian, thai people would talk to you russian first and then say "no speak english" if you asked them to repeat it in other language than russian. So this commercial Thailand is good for them, but for me it's not the nicest place. 

I found some peace in the aquarium we went to afterwards, it was quite relaxing and interesting to watch - boy can i watch fishes for ages or what? Unfortunately, the tunnel we went into came to an end after maybe 10-15 minutes walking which was way too short for me. And a short tunnel meant long evening doing nothing for me. 

So, here i am - writing my blog in Thailand, surrounded by hotel guests in the lobby, most of which are russians or indians. I've already packed my stuff since we're leaving to another location tomorrow. It's gonna be a smaller island and i do hope i will find at least a little bit of nature i've wanted and so i'll be able to have my peace over there. I'm cautious though and do not put any high hopes in the rest of the trip, so i don't have to be disappointed anymore. 

(Back in) Thailand. Day 5.

Pattaya is definitely the worst place to visit with your mum. Period. 

We left to Thailand early in the morning and after 8 hours we were in our hotel with the most gorgeous receptionist ever who looks even better and smiled at me! 

I spent my time in bus really well. I finished reading a book and started reading another one which is way more interesting. Then, i just listened to music and watched the sky pass by and imagine that i am actually living here and not in Germany. I imagined i had another life, i imagined i had another partner, another way of being loved (although i would keep my cats and dreadlocks no matter what!), and was exploring all kinda possibilities, but more or less it ended being very similar. This outcome scared me a little bit, but well.. it was just my imagination. And at the moment i am not really clear even to myself, so i just left myself drift away, go back, get lost... 

Since we spent so much time in the bus today we didn't do much afterwards. I did although try to relax, went into the sea, but after couple of minutes went out. My mom didn't swim, cause it was too SOMETHING to swim, she was just walking nervously back and forth on the beach, so i've decided to let it be and do something else. Also, i had to be honest to myself: it's my mom, i cannot say: "Hey, lets grab a coconut and just sit halfway in the water and chat while the sun goes down into the sea.". Nope, not happening. Damn. 

Then we decided to take a walk and simply went down to road to the Walking Street - the most lively part of Pattaya with all kinda clubs, bars, shops etc. On the way we did some souvenir shopping and with that i think i'm actually done with that so that's something done which is always a good thing - having something done. 

But then again... The moment we reached Walking Street i wanted to disappear. I didn't want to be there with my mother! And i even told her that... It's not fun at all, it makes no sense to be there with her. I told her that she can go back home if she's tired (she wasn't very fond of that part of Pattaya since she doesn't approve if i may say that of transvestites and Walking Street is full of them), and i will stay here alone, but she didn't get the hint, so i just went back to the hotel together with her. Great! I'm on vacation in Pattaya filled with people i could talk to and laugh with and maybe argue about something not really seriously and all i do is go back to the hotel and do nothing. Then it hit me - part of  my mood swings is exactly the fact i'm with my mom. The sightseeing isn't the problem, but the time after the sightseeing is not really nice when your only companion is your mom. 

I either need some time off just on my own, or sex, or a good d'n'b concert, but all i have is free wi-fi in the lobby of our hotel, my blog and that beautiful receptionist which makes me horny. 

Viva la vacation with your mom! I cannot believe i still have so much time left. That's gonna be a challenge. 

At least i had some banana pancakes with condensed milk and a fresh guava. (And fried octopus for a change)

Note to self: never ever go on a vacation just with you mom. Never ever... 

Cambodia. Day 2.

I am still here. 

It's not really fun anymore and my mood is magically getting worse and worse. 

It's already reached a point where i have to take time and analyze it. And find a reason. 

We spent the whole day in Siem Reap - a wanna-be big city without normal streets, which would be perfectly fine, but there's a "but". I have indeed had that in the past and that was not a problem, but it just caught me unprepared this time for i was expecting something completely completely different. Also, i'm a bit edgy and get tired really quickly, i want to have my own pace a little bit more, i want to have my peace, i want to just relax and maybe be with my people. 

I'm taking more and more time to keep to myself and read a book in silence. 

Today we visited Angkor Wat temples... There's so many buildings that belong to the same complex! It's been quite a long day, but at least i had for the first time the whole night to sleep and recover. We left just around 8 a.m. or so, so i had plenty of time. The walking and stairs climbing (in every f.... temple!) didn't really tire me, but what got on my nerves when the day went on was our guide. He was a really warm friendly cambodian guy, but he TALKED. Fucking a lot! And especially on a day when i need my peace more than ever it got me and i got really pissed about it. On the last location i even didn't wait for him or wasn't listening to what he had to tell (do not forget - in bad russian), i just went on my own and tried to have a little bit of blissful peace, even though it didn't really work in a place with hundred million zillion tourists. I would just sneak into some corner of the biggest temple, look through the hole in the wall (or an ancient window so to say) and think about gray filters and a tripod, so i could erase those people at least with my camera and have peaceful pictures. But of course, i had neither a tripod, nor gray filters - not even one! And that's not the best thing for erasing people on a really sunny day. 

Our guide at first was quite cool and did tell us some interesting things, but it started getting on my nerves already in the morning, when he every 5 minutes would emphasize the fact that the movies "Lara Croft" and "Mowgli" were filmed there. Well, cool fact, but it's enough if you say that once, but he just kept on repeating it... It just got worse, when he would start telling us stories about him climbing the bamboos and explaining the techniques of climbing and showing us how to climb if you want to be really quick and how to climb if you don't want to scratch yourself and so on. He would stop every 4-5 steps and start another story. It got worse and he went into politics - he started talking about Lenin and Brezhnev and i just couldn't stand that anymore, so i got headache. Also, my mood wasn't helping so the mix of being pissed off, upset, confused and lost made me stop for a while, even though i didn't show it too much. 

We've been sightseeing for good 6 hours and all i wanted was be in a group of friends and not surrounded by either unknown tourists or by the group which shares the same bus, cause that doesn't make us friends. I think i was thinking the whole time how great it would actually be to travel with friends, but then i started thinking with who could i really travel?? After i left Lithuania i haven't found friends who have bound to me, it's just buddies, or even good buddies or maybe even friends, but unfortunately i don't think i have really GOOD friends who i can travel with and ask them to join also if it's an expensive trip - we could simply save up together and then go, but that is not possible for me anymore. And i don't know if i'll ever have really good friends, not just for a bar or club, but for something like talking for hours about real things or problems, or such friends who would be crazy enough to spend 2000 euros and go on a trip. And that's something that was on my mind the whole time. But enough of that! 

It might sound really stupid, but the free 2 hours i had between the sightseeing and supper with an evening show i spent at the computer: sorting my pictures, talking to friends, being angry with myself for being in a relationship with someone who even doesn't care about me, trying to figure out how to stop the pain, because there's nothing i can do until the right time comes. I just took the time for myself, doing things i would normally do and it felt great! 

Supper came and i had a belly-fiesta with lots of steamed vegetables, fried tofu and pineapples! We got to see some traditional dances, but all i was looking at was japanese couple and i was trying to find a way to get a visa and be able to live in Japan in a country i fell in love with and still do love deeply and madly and maybe a little bit too much. 

After the show we went to the night market of Siem Reap and i was wrong thinking my mood's getting a little bit better. As if the problem would be actually following me no matter where i go. We decided to have a 5 minutes time-off and sat down for watermelon drinks. And i wanted to kill myself the moment i put my ass on the bench and heard japanese around me - 3 guys were also sitting there and just having a chat over the drinks. I went numb and just listened, not even to words they were saying, i just listened to the WHOLE as it came to me and again, thought of being over there and not wanting to come back to Europe. So yes, my mood is getting heavier every day. 

Cambodia looks pretty poor. Prices are for some reason pretty high, corruption is just too wild. Tomorrow we're going back to Thailand and somehow i am waiting for it and looking forward to the rest of the trip. I wish i could speak thai though... It's not really fun to talk to a wall and with most of thai people you have the same feeling as if you were talking to a wall - they don't understand a word and just smile to you. It also tires me a bit. It might be stupid for me to say since i'm not a native speaker as well, but at least i can communicate.

Anyhow, i do find small things that cheer me up so it's not as bad as it might sound. It's just what's on my mind and when i unleash my fingertips my thoughts flow through them and that's what's coming out. Or would you want to read about how many stairs i climbed today in the temples? 

I find details very important, since i'm sure that the small things are what makes the whole picture. I do enjoy petting a tiny kitten on the street and watching a cloud which looks like a heart out of fluff, i do enjoy fresh guava or coconut, but for that i need to go to my own world and shut off a bit. Well sucks to be me. 

I will reveal one life-changing fact though. You can (and should) eat lotus seeds. I've never tried this, but right now i would love having lotuses all over in Europe and would them ALL! If you're visiting Asia, try it and you won't regret it! 

Cambodia. Day 1.

Very very tired... That's my general mood today.

We spent most of the day on the road going to Cambodia in a not very comfortable bus. 

Right now i'm in my hotel room and don't wanna leave it... I tried it though! I went out and took a walk, but after 10 minutes i turned around and went back, cause i just don't have any energy left - no idea why. But i will try to write... It's gonna be a short post though, since we didn't do much today. 

We left early in the morning and drove for nearly 5 hours to the border. It was the first time i entered a country on foot (you have to walk through the border there) which was somehow amusing, but the amusing part was soon over after we were told we're gonna have another 2 hours in the bus. Our new guide is a little bit friendlier, but speaks just bad russian and bad russian is even worse than russian! But i'll get used to it. He speaks english at least, so i can communicate. The previous one barely understood a word. 

After we started moving from the border i fell asleep soon enough because that's something i do in buses, so i didn't see much, but whenever i was awake i would look through the window and observe the country. It seemed completely different from Thailand direct after entering it. It's quite flat and with lots of fields (mostly rice fields). You can clearly see its climate from the plants, trees and grass, but it doesn't look as wild as Thailand with palms and crazy bushes all over. Cities and villages look rather empty and abandoned, there's not much going on, cars are worse than in Thailand. It seems to be a really poor country, but the whole time our guide was telling us how awesome Cambodia is and how all of the bad foreigners wanted to have this land, because it's so rich and good, he said Cambodia has everything and there's nothing missing, but what we saw told me a different story. At least that was the first impression. Probably i shouldn't judge a country after being there for couple of hours... Our hotel is in Siem Reap - it's a city with 1000 000 inhabitants, yet it has only 9 traffic lights and lots of the streets are still plain soil or mud. Of course you have also the wanna-be city centre with KFC and stuff like that, but it just doesn't feel like a city, it feels like couple of villages without a border which were fused together. 

It is somehow more of what i was expecting, but it also gives me a somehow negatively cold effect. Our guide told us that knowledge is really important here and i yet again i cannot judge it, but everyone speaks way better english than in Thailand - finally. They still don't understand well and you have to repeat it many times or even go to primitive english like: "teacher. money. get. how much?" if you wanna ask how much does a teacher earn, but at least they'll give you an answer. 

Most of the men have longer nails than i do which makes me stare at it even though i know i shouldn't, but it's just sooo hollywood for me i cannot hold back. I've seen those asian guys with long fingernails in the movies all the time and there you have it - it does exist. Hilarious! 

The only thing we've done today was visiting a huge lake with lots of illegally living taiwanese. That lake is the biggest one in the south-eastern Asia as he said and it had about 50 000 families living there. It was quite interesting and shocking to think about it... 

They live simply on the water in their small floating sheds, doing everything in the water: using it as a toilet, as a shower, as a playground and so on. 

They do not live as bad as i have thought, but you cannot call it good either. It makes you sad seeing small kids growing up there without being able to actually go anywhere. But they do have television and electricity from batteries. Not every household has it, but lots of it... Some of them have dogs and cats and even pigs!!! Yes, pigs on water. 

What actually shocks you is the mass of it - it's huge! And it is unfortunately real, they just simply live there on their free will and do not want to move anywhere... 

However what shocked me mostly was the fact, that those people here still have a pretty good life, but what about those in the middle of nowhere? Without any geeky tourists who buy this and that and give children money? That is reality with a big layer of make-up. 

I hope i can lead my life well enough to be able to adopt one of those kind of kids one day and offer them life. You cannot really say they're not happy - they do have friends there, pets, and even food or school, but i know i could offer them much more and i will try to do that. If i can.

Tomorrow we're going to the Angkor Wat, so i want to rest... Tonight is a night-off for me with a book and my blog and maybe retouching some pictures i have to work on for a client. 

I wish you all a peaceful day/night/morning/evening! 

Thailand. Day 3-4.

Day 3.

Yes! Finally! There’s finally some action, baby, and i’m loving it. 

Today was quite fantastic: interesting, at some points saddening to see the reality, new - it was a mix of all kind of things to see, to taste and to photograph and to think about.

We had an early start and left Bangkok right after breakfast (by the way, here the sun's getting up dramatically fast: at 6 am it's still completely dark but at 6:30 am it's already light and at 7 am it's completely sunny). When leaving the city we saw lots of slums where the poor ones live in the north of Bangkok. Entire neighborhoods were filled with small houses if you can even call them like that. Next time i'm coming here, i'm going there with my camera and experience raw Thailand. Bangkok as i've already mentioned wasn't the most pleasant place for me, i didn't really enjoy it, but it was interesting to see. And so i was feeling good to leave it and was hungry for something more natural and thank God i got it. 

We drove for hours, but fortunately we did make constant stops at various places. We visited a coconut plantation, where we got to see how a fresh coconut looks like (they do differ extremely from what you normally see in the supermarkets), i also tried coconut juice from freshly cut fruit and ate its flesh which was heavenly! They showed us how to make coconut syrup, and pralines, soap, dried coconut and so on. I took interest in their surroundings more and then started taking pictures of women working there - they totally liked it! If you're going to a plantation like this one day, try fresh coconut flesh with warm coconut sugar - that's something everyone should have when in Thailand. I do think of how good they have living in this kind of weather: they have all kinds of fruits, they don't need winter clothes (well some of them do buy warm coats, because 20 degrees is already pretty chilly for them), nor do they need heating... I would love that.

We made a stop also at another pretty distant location, where we got into small boats and were taken to the floating market. The floating market was ok-ish, basically the same crap as any other market, but of course, it was interesting to pass by - most of the vendors are in the boats, so you just stop for a moment if you want to buy something and then go further. Way too many tourists, but i enjoyed the whole experience so much! I loved going on a boat, being so low and close to the water, also i saw so many people and promised to myself i have to go back for a couple of days and just take pictures! I liked it very much and somehow got emotional and even was close to tears for a second. If i ever lived in Thailand it would be somewhere near a big river so i can have my own boat and just go anywhere i want after stuffing myself with bananas, coconuts and papayas from my own garden. 

Before we stopped for lunch on a boat, we visited a teakwood factory and observed people working. It was way less commercial than the gem factory in Bangkok (dreadful dreadful place!), and i actually liked it. I was a little bit surprised by how they work. I know already that such factories are really simple and down to earth in Asia, but that one was REALLY primitive. Some of their work was really impressive just as the prices - a table can go up to tens of thousands if it's carved nicely. I saw nice chairs, but i guess the weight limit of my luggage would stop me from taking them back (and of course my limited savings) rather easily. Anyway, it made me think how simple life can and should be and how modern Europe wants to be and what are the costs of that modernization. 

And boy, did i have fun after lunch or what! I finally got to pet a kitty... In this case my kitty was a 7 month young leopard with the softest paws in the world and really adorable character! It was extremely cat-like which i liked, because i always thought that even though it is a cat, it's more similar to a dog rather than a cat. Gladly this wasn't true. I played with it, teased it, made it bite its own tale, cuddle it and couldn't stop touching it! It was an extremely soft leopard but then again - maybe all of them are, i just don't get to pet one too often. It was just 7 months young, but its paws were almost bigger than my whole cat, but it didn't scratch at all and i let it bite me just to see how strong can such animal be, well i can say - it has the power, but it didn't even scratch me. And one more thing - it just LOVED getting its ears petted. But one thing did upset me, it played with me so actively that it fell from the table it was lying on and then i saw the chain around its neck and how fucking short it was... "Poor animal" i thought. I don't know if that cheered it at all, but i petted it some more before leaving. I hope it's getting big as fast as possible since then it has to be sent to the zoo, where it has some more space. 

Another nature encounter was riding an elephant. Those are amazing animals! I rode siamese elephant which is the smallest of all, but it was still big enough. Since i got to ride it alone, the guide let me ride it by myself for most of the time. At first it was a little bit scary, because i cannot tell i'm used to riding an elephant which moves really specifically. The trick is not to sit on it and imagining some kind of throne, it's simply listening to its body language and moving along with its movements. Elephants can be quite fast by the way when they see something edible and they wanna nib on them, or when you ride an elephant like i did. I think it was quite a young one, cause it was a bit rebellious, started splashing in the water, grabbed some bamboo and carried it all around, played with another elephant and tried to reach something over the fence, also went for another route instead of going back through the same one, so i got some more hills and well more fun! I couldn't really stop petting it all the time, although it's not a fluffy animal. But there's also one sad fact over there (probably even more, but you cannot notice all of it) - i saw a chain around its leg, so i'm sure they're chained down during the night or so and they cannot move around freely, which is sad for such an animal. But that's normal for thai people who want to make money at any costs. I was expecting something more natural, i had this romantic idea of riding an elephant to jungle, but at the end it's just another business. I wonder if that idyllic concept of mine even exists. I do hope so though! 

After that we went to the Kwai river and it was already dark... Another boat took us in pitch black to a jungle hotel on water. That was interesting experience... Going somewhere, being somewhere, seeing something you don't really understand. That hotel didn't have electricity, so we spent the evening with kerosene lamps and jungle sounds. I occupied a hammock and fell asleep there before moving to the bed after i woke up in the middle of the night because it was getting a bit chilly. 

Awesome day, awesome evening and awesome relaxation at that hotel!  

Day 4. 

Starting my morning in the hammock again, watching the dawn.

On the road with some bits of feeling alive. 

Missing someone and buying teas. 

Drifting away.

Thinking, re-thinking, reading a book and imagining things.

After waking up early in the morning i could see the hotel for the first time (it was way too dark the evening before), which was indeed a lovely place to stay overnight. I wouldn't mind staying here for another night, but we were taken back to civilization as if we needed it (well on the other hand, i'm happy i have internet again). If anyone thinks about going there, don't doubt - food is good, atmosphere is lovely, you can perfectly relax and just forget about things you would do if you have electricity, computers, internet and all of that. 

After breakfast we went to a local village to look around. It was pretty natural, but even they had motorbikes and cars. Lots of people were still inside, getting ready for the day or helping the kids put their clothes on for school (they get picked up by a car and brought to school) and we couldn't see much of how they live, but we got couple of dogs as guides which was lovely. I do wonder how they live, what they eat, how they amuse themselves - maybe one should introduce couch surfing or wwoof'ing to them? I would love to be part of their lives.

Probably the best experience in the village was turning your head randomly and seeing an elephant coming towards you. This time it was a bigger one despite the same breed and it went really firmly. I think that's the impressive thing about elephants, they look like they know and understand everything, they have an effect of ease and strength and they just go their ways.

After this i went wild... On our way back we saw two elephants in the river near a small bridge and a crowd of tourists trying to pet them. However, they were pretty far away and all of the tourists left soon. But i came back and was lucky enough to be able to feed them with pineapples and went into the river with all my clothes just to pet them and be close to them. It was amazing and i got my bit of living in the nature. I could actually imagine having daily chores like feeding my elephants and going to the river with them to have a nice warm bath in the sun. 

But the nature for us didn't last too much. Soon after my experience with elephants we left the hotel... Some of us swam by themselves, some of us (including me) picked the boat and took pictures. I somehow imagined it even more wild, but it was quite nice and definitely better than a park in Bangkok or other big city. I wonder how it would be to live there, catching fishes and doing anything you wanna do that minute, whether it's just lying on the beach and scratching your bum, whether it's observing plants in the jungle, whether it's getting creative and writing something, i wonder how would be life when you have the chance to get rid of all responsibilities. That's been the main topic in my head when i was there today... 

In general we didn't do much today. We barely saw anything else besides the thermal spas for which we unfortunately had just 45 minutes. The rest of the day we spent in the bus going to Pattaya. I actually got sick and tired of russian and turned to a book which i didn't like too much, but today i magically came to like it and even got interested! I also got sick and tired of PAYING extras (for a picture, for this and that, for a cup of water, for being able to enter one extra room somewhere and so on) or giving tips for nothing. Our guide wanted us to give them tips for just... well, doing their jobs, but we didn't give any because of two reasons. First of all, it's not lying-at-a-hotel trip, quite the opposite: we've already payed for all of this, so we didn't really see why we should tip them. The second reason is taking 50 dollars for a visa to Cambodia when it was just 20 dollars. We asked him once more if it's really 50 dollars, and he assured us that it is. Probably he wasn't clever enough to know that the price is on the visa which you get stamped into your passport and he got busted! He went all red and tried to explain himself, but we just said that in this case you have already had enough tips from us. So guys, Emanja isn't the best company to travel around Thailand - we had the feeling that they want to do as little as possible for as much as possible money. 

The hotel here in Pattaya is awesome and really classy, and i saw the most gorgeous receptionist which nearly made me horny when simply checking in, but i do miss jungle sounds and that peace which i could have just lying in the hammock, not being able to see much around me and slowly dozing off... I wish i have had someone to cuddle with or talk to until i fell asleep. And i'm not talking about just simple chat, i'm talking about something real, something raw and interesting, something meaningful. I need a crazy fellow to travel with cause i think i'm not gonna travel with my mom soon again, not because it's not interesting, but because i cannot completely relax and have fun or maybe do things that young people (or simply not mother-daughter) would do. 

Tomorrow we're leaving to Cambodia and gonna be back in Pattaya in 3 days! From what i saw when passing by it's a really vibrant city and i'm looking forward to explorations.

And so you know, thai dogs eat bananas! :) 

Thailand. Day 2.

A pretty cheesy day. We were doing something almost the whole day, but we didn't do much which was disappointing to realize in the evening. However the evening itself was impressive. 

Why so cheesy today? Because most of the time we were doing the typical touristic crap which included sitting in the bus, visiting some locations, going to the bus, waiting for someone who's late (you always have them), driving to another spot, going through with a guide who either spoke just russian or crappy english, which was most of the time close to no english and so on... Unfortunately our schedule was filled with too much "sitting in the bus" and "driving to another location". I kinda felt robbed of time and opportunities to see things (and especially photograph things) when we would just drive by something really interesting like a morning market or china town or just real Bangkok life: i wanted to just get out so many times, but of course i couldn't. Half of the day passed and we've been just to three locations; if i think back to my second trip to Japan it's simply ridiculous, cause i've seen so many places in just one day on foot! I actually took lots of pictures, but it's all postcard-like and just memories, i think i don't have a single good (real) picture yet, which is... annoying. If i look through the pictures, i see i have so many similar things and i'm really thinking i could do a better sightseeing on my own. But at least i get fresh mangoes and pineapples and whatever i want right on the street for less than 1€ and that's great! My mom couldn't miss the opportunity to comment on their working hygiene (taking money with the same hands as doing the cutting), but i couldn't care less. I think i would eat just fruits for a month, if i would stay somewhere in the woods where they grow and wouldn't move until i've eaten all of it! 

So the sightseeing took us ages, but in the end we didn't do that much. Lazy lazy lazy... The most absurd thing was taking us to a jewelry factory: we got to see a short movie about gems and could observe people working and then, well of course, purchase some of their goods, which i, well of course, didn't do. 

Russian language was going on my nerves today. Even though i understood a bit, it still annoyed me. Besides, sometimes i would just shut off and ignore it, since it doesn't come to me naturally and easily, so i'm sure i missed lots of information. I'm the type who's all the time asking about things, wanting to know, writing stuff down, so this is definitely something different. But then again, if you look to the good side of it: i practice, and indeed i learned some new words, for example today i learned something really important: an elephant. I assume this is an useful word when visiting Thailand, so i always wanna listen if the guide is telling something about them. 

After we were done with jewelries i've decided to save the day somehow, or at least try to do that. I didn't really work out, but it was better than going back to hotel. On our way to Royal Palace i saw big china town and just had to go there. We just went to eat something really quick (i had the most delicious soup with fish balls for again less than 1€ - how good is that?) and then took a quick walk. We didn't have much time, because we had to go to a certain show in the evening. We walked through some markets that had all possible smells and all possible things, most of which we couldn't recognize. There's something that always strikes me when being in Asia: so many things are so simple, plain and for us european even old-fashioned! They don't really care what kind of dishes or trays they use or what kind of clothes they wear... Lots of the trays and bowls we saw in the market today i've seen at home, but they were replaced when i was still a kid, because even then they were really old. Well, Asia has its own rhythm. 

China town fits in really well here - it's dirty, crowded, loud and full of chaos. I remember china town in Yokohama, which is filled with chinese restaurants, food vendors on the streets, chinese shops etc, but it's still quite neat and clean. Generally, Bangkok itself have an effect of dirtiness and chaos which i dislike a little bit. People look somehow unfriendly on the streets but then give you the perfect smile somewhere behind the counter or in a restaurant. 

While walking in the china town we found some flooded streets and some serious preparations. We saw just couple of streets which i barely could describe as flooded, it was rather pretty wet, but it wasn't more than maybe 10cm high, so the flood has really gone away. We took a water taxi today and drove around a little bit in one of the biggest canals. There we could see lots of houses which were still in the water, but it was just at the canal, so it's no surprise they're still flooded. 

Our evening was impressive, we went to Siam Niramit for a historical theatre show which was HUGE. They had flames and flying people and even water (!!!) on the stage. And i do know it was real water, because i was lucky enough to get to be on the stage. That's funny actually. It does happen to me often... I got picked out of the crowd by a comedian and had to go on the stage to play with some kinda flutes. Anyway, neither the impressive 1,5h show with water, chickens, goats and elephants, nor the chance to be on the stage was the thing that made my day. It was something simpler and warmer and more personal... I got to feed an elephant with cucumbers and pet it and be so close to it i almost thought i'm in heaven. For them it's so normal to ride an elephant or just have it by their side, but for me it was something magical: the somehow stiff wet trunk, those huge ears and its rough skin - it was just adorable. I'd love to have an elephant, but i think my flat is a little bit too small for that.

Tomorrow i have more elephants to touch and pet, because we're going to an elephant park or farm or whatever they call it, and also we're going to some small hotel in the nature so no internet for me (and no blog for you tomorrow evening). I hope i can enjoy the trip as much as possible despite the russian language and planned schedule. Also, i have one personal issue that really bugs me. I have to think about it all the time and it concerns me a lot, worries and even scares me a bit. So i'm struggling with myself and trying to enjoy. Wait for more posts! 

Oh and by the way, introducing Tuktuk (the more open vehicle) and thai taxi in funny pink: 

Thailand. Day 1.

I have arrived. 

And it's great!

I have however made lots of mistakes and wrong decisions - that's something i understood immediately after being picked up by a guide at the airport. I don't like to and don't want to travel like that, but that's the price i have to pay for... well, for not paying for the vacation. My mom decided to take me with her and basically paid the whole thing, but she insisted on taking guides, programs, tours etc which i'm not really fond of.  I like doing it on my own: planning where and when to go, and - especially - why go here or there, i like having my own pace, maybe also my own rules and be able to start the day when i want and not when you get a wake up call from your guide. So this i realized during the first 5 minutes. Kept it to myself, but still, it started ruining the mood. However, i will survive! 

The moment our guide started talking to us in russian i had to bite into my lip - that's something i explicitly didn't want to have. I speak russian rather badly and do not like the language, so i never want to have it on my vacation. Because of this we were considering flying from Germany, but my mom wanted to save some time and asked me to come to Lithuania to fly from there, also, the travel office assured us guide speaks english and not russian. That was the second moment where i thought how foolish it was to book the whole thing instead of buying a round-trip ticket and just taking it from there. Whatever - i will survive. Besides, after he talked the whole time when we were driving to the hotel and i understood at least half of it, i thought it's not as bad since i can kind of practice my russian. 

My phone got stolen in Lithuania, so i'm not able to call anyone in case of emergency or when/if i get lost, but that's ok, there's worse than that. At least i thought until the moment we figured out that my mom's phoneS are not functioning, so we're doomed. Also, my mom's luggage was messed up inside, so someone was there and the lock is broken, so she can open it just through the side and pull everything out. But that does happen and still it gets on your mood. 

The hotel for these two days is terrible. And i don't have free wi-fi so i have to pay for it which is way too expensive to do that regularly.

Our dumb-ass guide didn't really have a plan for this evening for us... And that's where it started to go better. I was back in my own shoes! I could decide where and how to go, so we took the tube to the city centre and just WALKED and watched. It took us pretty long till we got to city centre since we started walking at a park pretty far away from the "real" lively city, but we did arrive... The whole city is full of cars, cats, markets and noises. And it's awesome! It's simply interesting to just walk around, enjoy the wind every now and then which comes from hell knows where and observing Bangkok's flow. I liked just watching people doing their own thing. It reminded me of Tokyo a little bit, however it's way dirtier and has more chaos. But there's so many people on the streets, so many lights, cars, buzzing, shouting, talking - and i could go for ever. 

If you just go down the streets, don't forget to keep your nose active - it's quite cool to sniff around, cause they have all kinds of things on the streets: fruits, vegetables, warm meals, things on a grill. Although unfortunately they have dramatical amounts of meat which makes it difficult for me. I am still teasing my mom about grilled rats and frogs and she's completely freaking out when she hears that. But she was brave enough to buy some mango on the street which was heavenly! And they do wear gloves. Not that i care, but my mom is a little bit freak when it comes to food on the street. I was rather surprised when she came to me and offered me that mango. At the beginning, it was quite tricky to find a place to eat, b ut we did find a nice cozy place at the end. Thai food or any food cooked in Thailand is fucking HOT - i can tell that. But if you have blended watermelon drink, you'll be alright. That's a must for me now the second they have it on the menu - blended watermelon drink!!! 

I got immensely happy after entering a random super market and then - a little bit upset. I found lots of japanese products which made me feel really warm and fuzzy inside, as if i were "at home" in Japan. I had to have some of it and didn't even look at the price, which (afterwards i did check the receipt) was almost the same as in Japan. The whole feeling was also a little bit similar expect for the dirtiness which i mentioned above. It's poorer than Tokyo but i unconsciously had to compare those two cities, especially knowing that i'm just 5000 km from Tokyo!!! Some things are just similar and because of that i could feel quite well in Bangkok from the first minute. Of course i know shit about the city, but i didn't feel completely foreign to it. 

I am a little bit disappointed in their english, cause they barely can speak which causes problems at the shops or when asking for information. I am a little bit worried about food i order, so i won't order anything that even looks like it might be with meat, because if i ask them whether it's with or without meat, they will just smile and bow but say nothing. 

In the evening we ended up at the highest building in Bangkok and we went up to 84th floor, which was a really nice experience - the last floor moves around so you can just stand there and watch the city from above. And then you go down to buzzing markets and pink taxis (forgot to take a picture of it...) and go shopping! Lord, are those prices over here cheap or are they cheap??? For the first time i picked something i really like, bought it and didn't have to worry about its price. 

I hope to find some more markets later on and get some native clothing or accessories. Most of the small shops and market vendors were already closed today, because we didn't have much time left after arriving at the hotel and had to do all of this in the evening, but we still had great day despise the terrible start. Today we had just couple of hours in Bangkok and tomorrow our guide is taking over, so we're ready for sightseeing but won't have any free time. I'm tired after those couple of hours, but the feeling you get when you approach your hotel with golden doors and pass all the mercedeses in a tuktuk (an open motorbike-taxi-thingy) just cannot be better. 

I'm ready for more Thailand, bring it on! Because: Live Like You 

Mean It!