EVERYTHING I LEARNED ON MY THAILAND TRIP
Three days ago, I traded the jungle of Thailand for that of Amsterdam again, and I must say: I still feel a bit crazy. I have seen, done, tasted, and laughed so intensely that I almost want to call each of you one by one to yell through the phone how fantastic it was. I want to do weird things. Dance. Sing songs. Especially Loei has captured a spot in my travel heart. And so it was time for a list of everything I learned in this place:
Escaping the city from time to time is a GREAT IDEA
For all busy working bees with stress complaints and half burnouts: go to the Chian Khang district in Loei, get a one-hour Thai massage, and fall asleep half drooling. When you wake up, order a coconut with a straw in it, and then take a walk around sunset to the impressive Mekong River with a view so Disney-Mulan-the-movie-stunning that you will never forget it. Trust me.
The locals are even crazier about cycling than Amsterdammers
Cycling in Loei is hilarious. Everyone does it, and T-shirts with bicycles on them are even sold on the street. Just a handy tip to keep in mind: you cycle on the left side of the road. Otherwise, you’ll get kamikaze scenes like me.
The R becomes the L
It's not that the Thais can't pronounce the rolling r; they just find it complicated and are also a bit lazy. My travel buddies Leroy and Roel immediately became Leloy and Loel. You get it: that was funny.
You don't necessarily get fat from rice
Okay, that's mainly my reasoning. After day three in Loei, I thought: holy f*ck, this is going to make me gain weight with all those carbohydrates (seriously, sometimes we even had rice for breakfast), but nothing could be further from the truth. The Thai cuisine is incredibly healthy with all those vegetables and rice, and I actually lost 1.5 kilos. And we didn't even walk that much. HOORAY. Shall we have another plate tonight? You can make these dishes with the leftovers the next day. even make these dishes too.
‘Rubbing your earlobes with refreshment towels
is the summer tip of the day’
Those crossing tuk-tuk carts are actually called something else
Namely Sam Loa, which means three wheels. But a few tourists once came up with the name tuk-tuk because of the buzzing engine that made a ‘toektoektoektoek’-like sound, and since then the Thais have been fine with it.
Always have tissues on hand
Or a wad of toilet paper in your bag. How charming. Because the Thais, especially in non-touristy areas like Loei, hardly use toilet paper in public restrooms. Oh, and the chance that you have to squat over a hole in the ground is, uh, quite present. I have become a pro at squats, so that's nice.
Harvesting rice is quite a task
Did you know that rice grains are sown one by one by hand? I did it, and my goodness, it was quite labor-intensive. If you ever have ambitions to start a career in rice, give me a call. Look, the rice blogger at your service (Roel, I'm shamelessly stealing your joke).
Be prepared for a terror haircut
Because yes, it's sweaty weather outside and your hair explodes. Read here just a bit
about how to solve that, by the way. Furthermore, I especially recommend you to paint your toenails in a cool color (thanks, travel buddy Yasmine), because you walk a lot barefoot when visiting temples. That's what the divas think about, huh...
You only walk left of the Buddha statues
So clockwise. Make sure not to walk around to the right, as that brings bad luck, and you obviously don't want to offend anyone. Also, be sure to walk well past the monks in the temples, as it is not intended for you to tempt or touch them.
Wet wipes are your salvation
In the hot afternoon hours (about 32 degrees, but feeling like 40), our lovely tour guide Suree arrived with a cooler full of moist wipes. “You cool off immediately when you hold them against your ears,” she said. And as strange as it sounds, that stuff really works. So forget about cooling your wrists; rubbing your earlobes with refreshment towels is the summer tip of the day.
Ah, and actually, I learned about a hundred other things during this trip. That you can make friends with five total strangers in a week (read here just why you SHOULD travel with strangers, by the way). That sleeping is so totally overrated. That during that Thai massage, you should ask them to go a bit easy on you, because before you know it, you’re being pulled apart. And maybe the most important thing: because of these incredibly beautiful experiences, I appreciate my job fifteen times more.
Toodelooei (get it?) from this one happy kid. My hunger has been satisfied for a while.
