At the Airport Again

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Graffiti in Bangkok

After the heat of the past days it was nice to have an overcast day in Bangkok to keep the temperature down.

It also allowed me to walk a bit more and go for a walk along the canal to take some photos.

I've been going past these places in the river boat many times but never real walked along it to take photos so this was a good opportunity to do this.

Chinatown in Bangkok

To get a change from the usual, I went to Chinatown in Bangkok to take some photos and get dinner.

Chinatown certainly makes for a nice change, especially at night, thanks to the lit up signs.

It's very busy and the prices for food are higher than they should be, given Chinese food is usually quite inexpensive.
It's still worth a visit and makes for a nice change.

Bangkok Entrances

Being back in Bangkok was not the most exciting thing and after waiting at the first traffic light for 4 minutes in the sun and heat, I quickly started thinking of getting out of the city as soon as possible.

Still, Bangkok is not bad for some photography so I focused on this.

While I do appreciate the opportunity for some street photography while in a big city, I've done quite a bit of street photography and decided to focus on colours and doorways for this post.

Waiting

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I don't really like flying, not because I have anything against being in a plane but because flying these days is mostly just waiting around.

You wait in line to get your ticket, another line to go through security, waiting at the gate, more lines to et into the plane, waiting for the plane to move and take off, waiting for the drinks to be served, waiting for the plant to land, waiting to taxi to the gate, waiting to get off, lining at immigration and so on.

All that waiting meant that leaving my hotel in Chiang Mai at 8 am, I only arrived in Da Nang at 8 pm so a whole 12h of mostly waiting around.

Doi Angkhang to Chiang Mai

Doi Angkhang is a great place to visit and even stay the night, it's tiny and there is nothing to do because everything closes at 8. Still, that makes it very nice and different from other places you might find yourself in while in Thailand.

The views in and around Doi Angkhang are also amazing and invite to take the time and explore the are a bit.

Drivng from Doi Angkhang to Chiang Mai you have two options, one is to go down towards Fang over a really great road but then have to continue on the highway or continue on the mountain road.

The mountain road is both great to drive and great to take in the views.

Since we had plenty of time, we took our time and enjoyed the scenery.

A quick stop by a river was ideal to refresh before tackling the traffic while getting into Chiang Mai.

This also marked the end of the Thailand trip and it will be back to Vietnam tomorrow.

Chiang Rai to Doi Angkhang

Another day of following the walking directions, this time we started to drive along the river Kok and wanted to make it all the way to Pai.

The first part of the road was nice and scenic but after passing by an Elephant riding attraction, the road starts to get worse and worse.

It remains very scenic but the paved road turns into dirt roads and the potholes become bigger. Tom got stuck twice and had to be rescued and we had to cross two smaller streams.

It was a challenging road, reminding me of some roads I've been on in Vietnam and Thailand before so I had a lot of fun but missed my Wave on some sections where the Click doesn't work as well.

Still, the Click did a great job and we made it through without anyone falling off or other incidents. It took just quite a bit longer as expected so we had to revise out destination from Pai to Doi Angkhang.

After making it back on a paved road it was quick to get to Thaton. I've been here 3 yeas ago and it's a great place for a quick stopover to visit Wat Thaton Chedi and enjoy some spectacular views from there.

After leaving Fang, we found out another problem with the walking directions, they lead us too close to the border and although a road exists we were not allowed to take it.

It's a road for Thai people only since it crosses briefly into Myanmar so we had to take a bigger detour to get to Doi Angkhang.

Nan to Chiang Rai

Today's drive was a more straight forward affair but also very scenic, especially right after leaving Nan.

The mountain roads were great to drive on with the ups and downs and sharp corners. This is probably why I forgot to take many photos.

Chiang Rai itself ended up being very quiet and almost felt deserted this time round. Still, I didn't mind and prefer it over packs of tourists at every corner.

Phitsanulok to Nan

After following driving directions on which roads to take up to now, we decided to just start and follow waking directions today.

This was in the hope of getting a more scenic route and stop getting re-routed to the highway most of the times. And it worked great, giving us the best drive and scenery during this trip.

We drove through rice fields, small roads, a national park, had to cross a lake by ferry and got to see an amazing sunset from the top of the mountains.

The photos speak for themselves but this route is definitely great and at the end of the day we were thinking of going back and doing it again tomorrow.

But not only the landscape and views were great, also the people we met along the way were nice and friendly and it reminded us more of Laos or Vietnam than Thailand.

So in short, if you have time and don't mind driving on some small dirt roads across rice fields, definitely use the walking directions on maps as it will be a more scenic route and definitely more fun.