The futile quest for silence:
One thing (besides the heat) that always bugs me in Southeast Asia is the simple fact that it is never silent anywhere. Walls are thin and if there are no people talking loudly to be noisy in inhabited areas, then there certainly is traffic, car horns or an old air-conditioning-unit rattling away. You never get a moment of quiet and to me, who grew up as an only-child in Europe in houses with concrete and/or brick walls, this is a small but steady kind of stress. So I decided to set out to find some quiet, riding the motorbike out of the city, which is no small feat as the highways draw inhabitants to themselves around here, making it feel like you never leave the suburbs of any given city, always driving past houses, shops and snack-bars until you're in the next large center of population. Leaving Chiang Mai and going for about 15 kilometers one gets to Mae Rim, where, going left onto a more rural road, the way leads on to the Mae Sa valley. Besides several waterfalls and a holy cave, the valley holds a few villages clinging to the sides, apparently growing fruit or vegetables in greenhouses along terraces dug into the hillsides. Beyond the valley, settlement stops. The road snakes along a mountainrange overlooking a breath-taking series of jungle valleys and hills. Then there is the view platform. As I pull up next to it I realize that I won't find quiet here. The jungle is too close, up the hill across the street and right below the platform. It is not as noisy as in the city but the electrical-disturbance-sounds the crickets make are present. There is no quiet to be found around here, I realize, but the view is well worth anything...
...aaand incopatibility between Opera and blogger.com prevents me from showing it to you... I shall rectify that later when I'm at another computer...
Montag, 3. September 2012
Samstag, 1. September 2012
Snippets from Abroad 015
Exploring a waterfall:
At the entrance to this area I was appalled at the 100 baht that I as a foreigner had to shill out in order to see something as simple as a waterfall, but I have underestimated the size of the thing. Not like it's this majestic monstrosity, roaring very high or wide but it's a rather nicely made path through the jungle along ten numbered steps that the water allegedly takes from some higher point to some lower point I have already left behind me. I am the only person I have seen so far and the sign said that this was step six, counting upwards with me climbing up the mountainside while the water has been descending to my right. Now the path ends. I have brought no water and haven't drank in ages, something that is always dangerous in tropical environments. I may or may not be hungry too, but that is hard to tell with the Doxycyclin in my bloodstream. The onward path is blocked by a bamboo barrier and a sign in Thai telling me it's out of order and, being a good German, I respect the signs authority without anyone being here to enforce it. I stand in the water of one of the pools, the current dragging on me up to my knees, where I have rolled up my pants. Five meters away from me on one side, the water goes down about three meters, five meters to my left it comes cascading down some rocks. The path on the other side goes on up, I can see that, but without going deeper into the water, which I have spent the past ten minutes testing by walking around in it, I cannot get across. I could go back two steps of the waterfall to a bridge but I would have to wait for my feet to dry in order to get into my shoes again because I have seen what kind of little horrors (and ants) crawl around on that jungle-floor. A decision is made and I wade through, having all things water-damageable in my carrypurse, I nearly slip twice but I make it to the other side. I feel great but I need to take off my pants and remove my underpants because those won't dry on my body and I hate getting a cold in hot weather. I sit down on the rocks in the sun to dry my pants and my shirt. Then, fearing a sun-stroke, I tie my soaked underpants around my head like a bandana. In fact, people I later meet along the trail don't even notice that they are talking to a guy who is wearing his underwear on his head. Whether the joke's on them or on the guy who has seen too much Bear Grills I don't dare to decide. But After an hour of hiking through the hot and wet jungle air, I reach the last of the waterfall steps and feel like a king.
At the entrance to this area I was appalled at the 100 baht that I as a foreigner had to shill out in order to see something as simple as a waterfall, but I have underestimated the size of the thing. Not like it's this majestic monstrosity, roaring very high or wide but it's a rather nicely made path through the jungle along ten numbered steps that the water allegedly takes from some higher point to some lower point I have already left behind me. I am the only person I have seen so far and the sign said that this was step six, counting upwards with me climbing up the mountainside while the water has been descending to my right. Now the path ends. I have brought no water and haven't drank in ages, something that is always dangerous in tropical environments. I may or may not be hungry too, but that is hard to tell with the Doxycyclin in my bloodstream. The onward path is blocked by a bamboo barrier and a sign in Thai telling me it's out of order and, being a good German, I respect the signs authority without anyone being here to enforce it. I stand in the water of one of the pools, the current dragging on me up to my knees, where I have rolled up my pants. Five meters away from me on one side, the water goes down about three meters, five meters to my left it comes cascading down some rocks. The path on the other side goes on up, I can see that, but without going deeper into the water, which I have spent the past ten minutes testing by walking around in it, I cannot get across. I could go back two steps of the waterfall to a bridge but I would have to wait for my feet to dry in order to get into my shoes again because I have seen what kind of little horrors (and ants) crawl around on that jungle-floor. A decision is made and I wade through, having all things water-damageable in my carrypurse, I nearly slip twice but I make it to the other side. I feel great but I need to take off my pants and remove my underpants because those won't dry on my body and I hate getting a cold in hot weather. I sit down on the rocks in the sun to dry my pants and my shirt. Then, fearing a sun-stroke, I tie my soaked underpants around my head like a bandana. In fact, people I later meet along the trail don't even notice that they are talking to a guy who is wearing his underwear on his head. Whether the joke's on them or on the guy who has seen too much Bear Grills I don't dare to decide. But After an hour of hiking through the hot and wet jungle air, I reach the last of the waterfall steps and feel like a king.
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