01. and 02.12. Days of the Journey

On Saturday our bus was scheduled to leave from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai at 12 noon, so we had the morning free to see a different color after a white and black temple: blue. Rong Seur Ten was completely in this color and therefore very special. Naturally, all in blue, two oversized fantasy figures already flanked the gates of the temple. The temple itself was in blue and gold and with its murals and peculiar statues pleasantly different from the previous temples.

Around the temple, glass balls were scattered on a kind of railing, through the refraction of which you could turn the entire temple upside down, although I don't know if this is the real purpose of the balls.

We used the last hour in the hostel for further planning of our journey to the islands of southern Thailand, and then soon headed towards the bus station and Chiang Mai.

Once there, we treated ourselves to another massage, which everyone plans to do when they come to Thailand: a Thai massage. We were a little worried because we had heard a lot of painful stories from other travelers. It was sometimes very borderline, as the good massage lady knelt on my back and pressed her knees or elbows next to my spine, pulled me lying on my stomach backwards by my arms, or twisted my back so that every vertebra cracked. Afterwards, however, you felt surprisingly loose and relaxed, so the pain was worth it.

After the massage, we visited a huge Saturday night market for a few hours. It's always nice to stroll through such night markets because there are so many things to see and such good and cheap food on offer.

Since we had such a colorful range of temples in the last few days, we could not just pass by another one that would enhance this range - this time it was a silver one. With its silver metal plates, it differed so much from the many other temples so far and, despite the cold metal, appeared graceful and elegant. The twilight added to the atmosphere, as the still shimmering plates gave the silver temple a special mood.

The next morning we went back to Chiang Mai Airport, where we had already arrived from Vietnam. After a two-hour relaxed flight, we landed in Hat Yai and took a songthaew to our 25th hostel on this trip, with Hat Yai being our 20th city - quite an impressive number.

However, Hat Yai was not really fitting for this double anniversary. Mainly used as the first stop after Malaysia and Indonesia, the new city has only a few interesting places and can mainly be used for shopping. Since we didn't want to stay in our very cheap hostel for too long, we braved the blazing afternoon sun and visited the city's largest shopping mall. There, I retreated to a bookstore while Andra wandered through the many shops. Fortunately, it was pleasantly cool there and I treated myself to a small piece of cheese and whole wheat bread from a supermarket, because since the beginning of the trip two months ago, I haven't had any cheese and I do miss this food a little.

In the evening, the city seemed to make a little effort and gave us a beautiful sunset as we strolled across the small city night market. There are surprisingly many Muslims here, which shows the proximity to Muslim-dominated Indonesia. For this reason, we also had an Indonesian dinner called "Ayam", a spicy rice dish with a fish-chicken mix, which actually tasted really good.

Tomorrow we will continue to the first island of our "island hopping trip", Ko Lipe. Unfortunately, the prices there are quite high, as is generally the case on the islands, but since we have been living frugally so far, we will manage there as well - after all, you didn't come here for nothing.

I wish everyone a nice first Advent, here the Christmas decorations are slowly spreading, although the warmth prevents a real pre-Christmas feeling from arising. Only sometimes does it come up, when you read a Christmas story from my parents' Advent calendar book on the Kindle with music in your ears, Christmas comes a little closer then.