It all started on a rainy, cold day of March, as usual…
Getting to the airport was expectedly the hardest part. The experience can sometimes double your travelling time, depending where you fly of course.
But anyhow, the rest was surprisingly easy. Thai was on time, the airport was more or less empty, I checked-in in no time and found myself devouring bad food without being hungry, a bit stressed by the perspective of my longest exotic trip so far. In the airplane we were asked by the stewardesses to sit wherever we please and lie down on more seats to sleep. I could hardly believe my ears!  The food was excellent, and I passed on the films because I felt exhausted (already?): I slept like a log, dreaming of candy, blue sea and winning the lottery, and woke up not long before landing, in another world…
You may think that the long haul flight is the problem, but as soon I stepped out of the airport I felt like melting on the spot. The heat was simply unbearable (close to 40 degrees Celsius) and the humidity so high Brussels felt as dry as the Parthenon rock on a hot summer day!
Feeling thankful for  having changed my travelling dates from May to Mars, I still realised this is NOT the time to visit these countries, a fact that I was about to repeat myself many times during the trip as I gulped my fifth 1,5l water bottle...
In order to not deviate from old habits, my lift was not there waiting for me and I had to wait and wait and call and call but it finally came: the ubiquitous Japanese-made Thai white limousine with air conditioning at -15. I absolutely hate that. So I put everything I had around me, and my airplane newspaper under my T shirt, to try and avoid pneumonia, and after an hour in the Swiss Alps and endless traffic jams I got to the best hotel by far of the trip: …
I crawled out and after a straightforward check-in I ran to my room, turned on the air conditioning and felt like calling my mum and saying this was a big mistake and I want to go back…
But soon, meaning after three bananas and two espressos, I had to head to the city and exploit my stay. This is why I came here in the first place, n'est-ce pas?

My  hotel was in Sukkhuvit. The  spot is central but I was terribly jet-lagged and with the kind of high-toxin  hangover only airplane food combined with long nightly flights can give you;  finding my way to the metro, then to the underground  metro (to the right direction…) and then the boat etc seemed like going to war, under at least 40 degrees as time passed in this huge, electric city. Sometimes just buying a ticket seems impossible when you sweat like crazy, you need glasses to read signs you cannot understand, or just your map, and you have not coins to bloody use machines that only take coins.

I can't say I was enchanted by Bangkok. It could have been better for me on another season, if I had more time to acclimatize myself to the heat, but I felt there was only a number of things I could do before I had to sit down in a shady place and drink before I moved on: the feeling of limitlessness I crave for when I travel alone was suddenly lost and I realised I had to spare my forces in order to survive for the rest of the trip or überhaupt. And still, I almost got dehydrated and had to make a long pause after visiting …
The crowds were so huge that I really felt like giving up. People going in and out and more coming in, queuing to take a picture,  while having to obey all the religious commands (take off your shoes, your hat, don’t drink, don't buy Buddhas, and even don't fart (yes, you heard right)) was sometimes too much, and certainly not the reason I had come here for.
There is not much more I can say about the monuments that there already is in the pictures. There is fraud around the biggest monuments (mainly people telling you the monument is closed that day or this is not the entrance to the place  you were heading to, and of course  if you believe them you are going to be frauded by their own tour and/or  walk some exhausting distance to their offices) and you need to pay attention, but nothing like other countries in other places of the world. The vast majority of the travellers you are going to see are Chinese, so take it or leave it. Call home for understanding, because you may well be the minority here.

At the end of the day I came back to the hotel feeling a hundred years old and wondering whether I should just hit the bed and sleep like there's no tomorrow or head out again, and visit the night which in this part of Bgk is particularly, hmmm, sexy…
Already on the hotel street the main job seemed to be masseuse. Foot massage, allegedly. And I thought this is it, and no big deal. But if you head further, at the heart od Sukkhuvit, the scene changes dramatically. Prostitution is rampant, and one has to wonder why these beautiful young girls cannot find something better to do. It's always easy of course to ask yourself such smart questions when you're on the outside...
Anyhow, after having been asked around a thousand times for a massage, I decided it was time to grasp something to eat. But frankly the sight of overaged Westerners mostly with extremely young girls was unappetizing and soon I headed to my huge bed, in the beautiful room of my hotel which seemed even more than a safe haven in Paradise…

The pictures