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| Lopburi |
No!
Let's say it, for now, Thailand is the country where I feel the most insecure. Not because of the cities themselves, but because of numerous disturbing reasons.
First, arriving in Bangkok was destabilizing. After Cambodia, its naive side, poverty and life simplicity, greenery everywhere and rustic landscapes, here is a metropol with a metro, a sky train and a lot of motorway junctions. I admit I wasn't expecting a difference as big as that.
If my health is slowly giving up since I crossed the border (nothing too bad for now), it appears heath and humidity make wounds hard to heal. One needs to be careful with infections. Loving Polysporin!
In the other mentionnable adventures : wandering dogs. They are everywhere. Don't look healthy. They are missing some fur. Have wounds all over. Are scratching themselves all the time. You see? On top of that, there is a risk they might be infected with rabies.
And I, me, didn't get my three shots againt rabies. Ran out of time before I left. Which means in doubt, I have 24 hours to get to the closest hosptial and get two shots and a blood transfusion. Not reassuring at all in a south-east asian country.
So I was walking after the twilight in Ayutthaya streets. Without knowing exactly how to get back to my hostel, I knew in which direction I should walk. Suddenly (surprise effect!), a dog still not too healthy looking barks at me showing its teeths. And it runs towards me.
No time to look masculine. No time to be proud or show courage. I jump and cross the street, risking my life since I didn't look to see if cars were coming, and I'm ready to run. The beast, probably tamed in some way, didn't cross passed the middle of the street. I had my Lonely Planet in one hand, the one with all the south-east asian countries in it, with which I intended to hit him once or twice. Couldn't lose anything trying.
From there, I nervously made if safe and alive, changing street side 50 meters in advance each time I would see a dog.
Lop Buri
The next day : Lop Buri. THE ONLY attraction in that city is a temple abandonned to hundreds of monkeys. I was told to bring nothing in my hands because they would absolutely try to steal that stuff from me. Same for the food. And if you say furry animal you mean... possibility of getting rabies. Do... not... get... bitten... by... a... monkey...
I was a little nervous to be circled by monkeys in the temple. I was standing close to one of the guards who had a slingshot to scare adventurous monkeys.
But there are hundreds of monkeys. They were only two guards. While I was looking at the city, taking a picture, my back towards the temple, I felt something pulling on my t-shirt behind me.
I had an enormous monkey, let's say an adult one, on my back. I was trying to make him go back down, but nothing would work. And he was showing his teeths.
The guards finally came to help me. I got out of there fast.
Next adventure
The same night, I was boarding a train to Chiang Mai, in the north of the country. Surprisingly, trains are comfortable. I must say I paid a lot of money for my ticket.
Around 5 AM, they woke us up. We needed to get out. The track was broken in front, they said. A bus came to pick us up. (An American I met yesterday and again today says they told him there was snow on the rails... Hard to believe.)
Passengers, disoriented, had a hard time understanding what was going on. There was a small chaos when everybody tried to get on the first available bus.
I ended up in the third bus. Trying to fall asleep again when it starts shaking a lot. Believe it or not, we had a flat tire. At least, that's what I understood. From where I was, I couldn't see anything. We had to wait a little bit more before we could leave again.
With all of that, we got in Chiang Mai three hours later : 8 hours on the train and 6 hours on a bus. Sigh!
I hope the adventures will calm down for the three days I intend to spend in the forest, where I should ride an elephant and do some trekking and some rafting.
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