All right, I have mixed feelings about travel advice, mostly because it's not easy to predict what someone else will find enjoyable or not about a given place, but I would like to recommend Chiang Mai as the premier destination of this country - from what I have seen so far. Bangkok was awful: crowded, unfriendly, smelly, dirty, and people constantly trying to sell you stuff. At least the part we were in. Ayuttaya was better, much nicer - perhaps anywhere outside of Bangkok will be relieved of at least some of those symptoms. The south is beach land (we have not been and are not going to go), nice if you like beaches (we don't really).
Chiang Mai is what I was looking for from this country; this is why I came. It still has all the quirkiness of Thailand, the things that make it so different than the US (it's third worldesqueness), but in a way that's not so accosting. Though still a crowded, busy city, you can breathe here. Not to say the air is clean (I have no idea if it is), but you can move, you can walk around, there are things to do and you can actually find them and do them.
We found a used book store/book exchange yesterday and exchanged the books that we had brought and finished. Kane is continuing with Terry Pratchett and I have moved from "The Beach" (sorry Henry, traded it in) to some Asimov. The book store was excellent, had many good choices.
There is a huge festival this weekend called Loy Krathong. It appears to be a mixture of Christmas and 4th of July in style, with a parade, constant songs playing in the streets and at the hotel, and a general huge celebration. It's mainly tomorrow, but extends all weekend. Looking forward to it, I think it's a big deal (I'm kind of a big deal...). Happy Thanksgiving again everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment