Thailand, pouring rain

A bit of Bangkok

A couple of days in the infernal heat and smog of the gigantic Asian metropolis, wandering among wats, stupas, museums and markets, always drenched in sweat but also amazed by the corners of tranquillity, and beauty, that the city still manages to give. Because even if we didn't fall in love with this city, one has to admit that the Royal Palace, or the Reclining Buddha, or Wat Po (just to name a few of the beautiful monuments of this city) are truly extraordinary. Moreover, all things considered, drinking a Chiang beer at Kaoh Sanh, perhaps while getting your feet massaged, is not the worst thing that can happen. After two days, however, Bangkok has tired us. And not only because of the heat.

But before leaving for the north of the country, we spend a whole day visiting Ayutthaya, ancient capital of Siam, which doesn't spare us more Wats, more stupas, more Buddhas, all of different shapes and sizes.

WATER IN THE NORTH

The next day a plane takes us to Chiang Rai, our next stop. Which we would have liked to reach by a different means, and more calmly, passing through Chiang Mai. But in Thailand it is the week of the new year (we are in 2554, just to be precise) and there are no available seats on planes, trains and buses, so we decide to skip that stop and go directly to the far north. Where in reality there are still quite a lot of people and there is, above all, the new year. Which chases us everywhere, and will chase us for the whole week. Above all the water battle chases us. We had read about this bizarre habit, but we had underestimated it. And instead you can't, you especially can't when you receive, every time you go down into the street, entire buckets of water in your face.

You can't if this battle forces you to live a week permanently soaked and permanently worried that the money, the documents, the camera or the mobile phone can somehow be saved. Because we are out and about, with our backpacks on our shoulders, and we can't always leave all our belongings at the hotel. In Chiang Rai we officially make the acquaintance of the water war, but also of a nice little city, where the climate is slightly cooler and the air more breathable. A city that is set in a marvellous nature, among rivers, lush hills and rice paddies, which we enjoy racing around with a couple of rented bikes. We are at the borders with the golden triangle which however, as Lonely Planet effectively explains, nowadays salutes, more than the opium caravans, the caravans of tourists.

The second day, after a very fleeting visit to a village of the mountain tribes, we arrive as far as Mae Sai, a town on the border with Burma, so much on the border that my mobile phone adopted the time zone of Myanmar, making us risk missing the bus. Mae Sai has an enormous Chinese market, many small restaurants on the street, stoners who sell marijuana and talk to you in Italian when they want to push it, and is dominated by a hill from which you see a beautiful panorama of Burma. On the way back we arrive on the Mekong, where the river serves as the border between Thailand, Burma and Laos. It is right from there, crossing the majestic symbol of Indochina aboard a kind of sampan (the classic flat and narrow boats), that the next morning we leave Thailand and enter Laos.

After spending a week in Laos we re-enter Thailand. At Vientiane airport, which over the whole day celebrates the departure of 14 flights, at 5 in the morning there is only one other tourist waiting: he is Italian too, from Bologna, and like us he is waiting to return to Bangkok. The world is sometimes truly tiny. Our holiday is heading towards its end, but before returning to Italy we stop for a couple of days on the island of Koh Samet, three hours by bus from Bangkok, where we can rest and get a bit of sun. The beaches are white and beautiful, the water transparent (even if far too warm), the people few. The island is very beautiful too, green and hilly, but for being a natural park, for which you even have to pay the entrance fee (200 bath, 5 euro), there is too much rubbish around. Plastic bottles and bags dot the greenery of the interior, and in some cases the smell is very strong.

The last image of Thailand (but we could say of the whole of Asia) is this: marvellous scenery, unequalled monuments, but the inability to enhance and respect one's own riches remains evident. Too many times we have seen young Asians throw empty plastic bottles on the ground, in a marvellous and unspoilt land. It is true that not even the so-called first world is free from blame or has solved all its problems