Mental Hangover

Different language, different food, different culture and religion, not traveling alone anymore, 18 hours time difference, mega city, different modes of transportation, and where have all the surfer boys gone? Everything is just DIFFERENT. Everything. That's not really surprising, and I'm actually doing fine and not feeling overwhelmed. But I think my subconscious mind is pretty busy, and I find myself in a mental hangover state. But I can learn from it and give myself a little more time to adapt and practice patience.

In Bangkok, everything is filled with smells, from flowers to fried food, exhaust fumes, brackish water, to unidentifiable scents. Everywhere there are advertisements for beautiful, smoother, whiter skin, phones with better selfie functions, and instant egg snacks for on the go. Crossing the streets feels like a kamikaze mission, but we use public transportation diligently, visit markets, snack on insects, sit in cafes with stuffed animals, and quickly learn that it's wise to ask about the spiciness level of the food. I'm not completely thrilled with the city, but it's worth a visit.
Buddhism is already a very sympathetic worldview. But when you see two young men earnestly praying in a temple complex and then calmly taking a selfie with the golden Buddha statue, it's truly thumbs up. Furthermore, when a new building is constructed here, a small accommodation for the guardian spirit is immediately built as well. Ideally near the property boundary, so that evil spirits have to pass the guardian spirit bouncers upon their arrival. It seems that the guardian spirits prefer colorful fantasy varieties with a straw, and so you find numerous miniature houses filled with flowers, food, and drink offerings to make the spirits feel at home. It's quite nice.
With the night train, we're heading to Chiang Mai in the north to chill out. Yes, there are numerous tours you can take in the surrounding area, but it's hard for us to break out of our relaxation mode, and we spend a lot of time having breakfast, strolling around, eating mango sticky rice, and in my case, sorting and processing impressions. I'm trying to get used to the fact that there's hardly any conversation with the locals and that I feel even more like a tourist than anywhere else. I'm not sure yet if I should welcome the cute hipster cafes on every corner because I can drink delicious cappuccino (the best in two months) and get Western food, or if I should just find it ridiculous. However, I did fulfill one wish and spent half a day with elephants, feeding and bathing them. The animals are wonderful, they feel like warm tree trunks with bristles. The overall experience was questionable, although the animals were treated well, they probably didn't really want to take a mud bath. The break and a little bit of doing nothing certainly did me good, but now I'm looking forward to our island hopping tour in the south, the sea, and more activity.