Last day in Chiang Mai we visited some local craft works. We went to little artisan factories for umbrellas, silk, jewels… This trip was not so interesting because most of these crafts were just very small places with people doing nothing special but then afterwards big touristic shops where we were supposed to buy lots of things. After that we went to the biggest and most important ‘Wat’ –this is a special type of temple- of Chiang Mai, where you could see the skyline of the city because the temple is built on a mountain, the overlooking view was nice!
Saturday we took of the Sukhothai, where we went to UNESCO world heritage. Sukhothai was the first capital city of Thailand about 700 years ago and these temples we visited are the only remains of that period. It was impressive, especially the Buddha statue that was 15 meters high! We visited this small, ancient city with bikes, luckily: it was sooo hot that day!! So we didn’t have to walk in the sun for too long nevertheless we were all sunburned…
Sunday afternoon we arrived in Kanchanaburi where we had a luxurious hotel (yes!!). Some of us rested by the hotel pool, whereas others went to the cities (in)famous bridge: Death-railway over the river Kwai. This bridge became a symbol of the city despite its negative history: in WOII about 100.000 people died during the building of this bridge because of the terrible conditions the prisoners had to work in. Unfortunately for all those people, the bridge itself isn’t really impressive…
Monday we went again to another trump of the city: Erawan-waterfalls, with its 7 floors. But before we got the 7th floor, we had to climb for over an hour in an exhausting heat!! But then we could refresh ourselves in the cold water. In the late afternoon we all took are backpacks and left the hotel: again another city, another place, another adventure. We took a taxi the station, the night train, a bus, a boat, again a taxi… a 16 hours during trip: the fate of a backpacker, roaming from one place to another.
And then? Paradise…
We arrived at Koh Phangan and were baffled: turquoise sea with small fishing boats, lily-white beaches with palm trees, cerulean skies heated by the sun and 14 young friends on their beach chairs, armed with nothing but sunglasses, a book and a big smile. A four days during dream, still one to go.
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