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! :)