louiseinlimbo

Whilst I've very much enjoyed my time in Chiang Mai, I felt that I should also visit a couple of other places in the area.  Firstly the hippy village of Pai, although when I asked a fellow traveller what to expect of the place, he asked whether I was going "for the nature or for the drugs"!  & for sure, smoking weed is a big part of the culture there (I took one drag of someone's joint in my eight days there, it's not really my thing as I prefer to be fully present in all these places).  It really is a hippy place, and whilst there are some nice countryside sights (such as Pai canyon to the right here), it is almost worth visiting just to gawp at the hippy culture in the same way as you might for ancient cultures.  So many of the people there - both those originally from the West and a fair number of the locals - look quite distinctive, with their waist-length dreadlocks, their piercings and their extensive tattoos, including many on their faces. But one reaso...

Whilst I have spent time sitting around reading, watching videos, and catching up with emails, I have also walked around Chiang Mai - to many of the Buddhist temples as well as a few quieter corners that I've managed to find. The temples are so over-the-top.  So much gold paint everywhere, crazy guardian creatures outside of the meeting halls - many dragons, but also strange mixtures of dragon, elephant, peacock, deer and other creatures - and some very realistic-looking waxwork monks in some temples, like this guy to the right.  Some days I can get 'templed out', but then when I go wandering the next day I find myself exploring more of them. Thailand is another of those countries that has turned the philosophy of the Buddha into a religion (which I find irritating), and has fully incorporated the Hindu deity Ganesh, I suppose because elephants are such a big 'thing' in the Thai culture.  I'm not sure where the gold fits into their beliefs, but perhaps this sign...

After so many tours during the latter part of 2025, demanding both lots of mental energy and lots of money, I needed some 'down time' - to recharge my batteries and to pause the financial outflows.  Looking for somewhere reasonably cheap and without too many 'sights' to visit, I decided on the north of Thailand.  I had long felt that Chiang Mai and the nearby area was somewhere I ought to see, although it was never going to reach the top of my wish-list, but being close to Bangladesh, quite cheap, and this being a good time of year to come, it seemed to fill the gap nicely. However, about equidistant between Bangkok and Chiang Mai is the UNESCO-listed ancient historical site of Sukhothai, with a collection of well over a hundred ruins of 13th and 14th century palaces and temples of the Kingdom of Siam's first capital.  & a visit there nicely broke up the journey, giving me two quite manageable seven-hour bus rides. Whilst the majority of the ruins are within a w...

The friendliness of the local people continued even now that I was with a tour group ... this picture shows me with a lady from a Bangladeshi village (visiting the capital and here specifically at the Pink Palace), who had never seen a white person before ... she communicated with me through her son, expressed her happiness at meeting me - and did not want to let me go! Our tour visited the highlights of the capital, then moved on to the Sundarbans, where we spent a few days on a boat.  Whilst this area is well-known for its tigers, it seems that they are rarely seen - our guide has seen one just once, back in 2003!  But having seen tigers in India, I was not worried ... I just enjoyed the occasional deer, the wild boars, and the amazing kingfishers.  I do not have a picture of a brown-winged kingfisher, as I was too awed at their stunning appearance to think to pick up my camera, but I'm so glad I saw them. We also took boat trips along rivers (the country is very water-...

My introduction to Bangladesh was challenging, but rewarding.  I'd booked the first few nights in a cheap part of town near a big bus interchange, to help me find my way around the city, and I knew that it was possible to take a bus directly there from the airport.  So I stepped out of the aiport into the hot, sticky, polluted air of Dhaka, to the bus stop, and fended off the rickshaw drivers by telling them I was going "far ... to Jatrabari".  The bus stop was chaotic, with so many different buses pulling in, none of them with anything written in Western lettering, so I couldn't read the bus company names nor the destinations.  But it didn't matter, as one of the rickshaw drivers caught my attention and pointed to a bus pulling in - "Jatrabari bus!" he said, and indeed it was.  People made space for me at the front of the bus, two people who spoke some English tried to make conversation, and I was told when we were arriving at my stop.  Another place fu...

I took a short internal flight to Kolkata, thinking (i) that I should see this important city, and (ii) that it would give me relatively easy access across the border to Bangladesh, where I intended to go next.  As well as some ten days to catch up with admin (sorting out photos, sending overdue emails, checking Bangladesh entry requirements, etc) and sleep, with the added bonus of having found a reasonably comfortable hostel for £3.50 a day including breakfast! The first thing on my agenda was to complete the online Bangladesh visa form and take a printed copy of that and various supporting documents to their visa application centre.  However … the lady there who went through my documents informed me that it takes 18-21 days to get the visa, and I had only nine days left before my India visa expired, so this route was not open to me (not to mention her feedback that they could not process the application without my providing them with an Indian phone number!).  So, sadly...