But I would walk 500 miles

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
to fall down at your door

Oh yes, hello my dear ones!

In the past, I haven't traveled much in terms of distance, but I have covered many kilometers by walking and riding a scooter. I would really like to know how many, but I can't say for sure. Maybe it really was about 500 miles. Actually, not much has happened lately when I think about it broadly, but there have been so many different experiences and impressions, so the text may be a little longer. So make yourselves comfortable. :)

Together with the Swiss girl, I took the bus from Pai to Chiang Mai, as I wanted to apply for my visa extension there. Therefore, I planned to stay there for about three days, as I spent one day gathering information and getting everything I needed (for example, I had to take passport photos, which look absolutely terrible). So the next day, I could go directly to the immigration office. However, it wasn't so easy to go directly because I wanted to take the bus, but it just didn't stop to pick me up. I saw my bus pass by twice and waved like a fool, but I was completely ignored. When my bus came for the third time, it passed by again, but luckily the traffic light turned red; so I shamelessly ran to the bus and knocked on the window. Despite my two months of experience, I still don't understand the bus system. Eventually, the bus stopped and everyone got off, so I just followed along and suddenly found myself in the middle of the highway. My map told me that the Immigration Office was not far away, but the highway made me unsure. So I timidly approached an officer and asked how to get there. He looked at me completely bewildered and just pointed to the highway. After asking three times, I understood that I really just had to walk across the three-lane expressway. It was an experience! Oh boy, what a strange feeling when cars rush past you. In Germany, there would have been an immediate warning on the radio, saying 'Attention, attention, there is a person walking in the middle of the highway. Please drive slowly!' In Thailand, this is the normal way from A to B. Finally, I arrived and after about two hours, I got my passport back with the visa extension for a whole month. So theoretically, I can stay in Thailand until March 3rd! It was such a feeling of success, now I can take as much time as I want and enjoy Thailand to the fullest. Ironically, shortly after that, I got so lost on the way back to the hostel that I ended up on the other side of the city and had to walk 5 km instead of 1.5 km to the hostel. Oh yes, that has happened to me quite often lately. It's always funny, but I have all the time in the world. Thanks to the visa extension, the time pressure was completely gone and I decided to go to Lampang for the next 3 days. Lampang is actually a kind of transit city, which is supposedly totally underestimated. So I thought I could just take a look there. Actually, Lampang is a transit station, but still relatively non-touristy. I quickly realized that there was only one hostel in the whole city. Accordingly, I had no choice, but it was a very nice hostel. However, Lampang itself was not particularly spectacular, so I rented a scooter and went to the national park. There was a relatively beautiful temple in the mountains, which was super impressive because the monks carried all the building materials themselves to build this temple. I have a lot of respect for that because the way up was really exhausting (from very steep stages, to stairs and/or tree roots that had to be climbed over)! Later, I visited the hot springs, where even eggs can be boiled because some of the springs are 80 degrees Celsius hot. It looked funny because locals were standing there with egg baskets on the side, trying to sell raw eggs to cook. To this day, I'm not sure if the very pungent smell of eggs came from the sulfur rising from the hot springs or the boiling eggs. Maybe both! ;) But the really exciting part was still to come. Because as I set off on the journey back, I realized that I had forgotten to refuel. Yes... that's not a good feeling, my heart rate increased steadily, as did my speed because I just wanted to find a gas station. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of the national park, so there was simply no gas station there, only road and nature. The nature was really beautiful and fulfilling, but unfortunately it didn't fill up my tank. Eventually, in despair, I turned into a small village hoping that they would have something. There was even a self-service gas station, but unfortunately it was broken. So I just stood there for 10 minutes, completely desperate and not knowing what to do. Eventually, a village resident came and I tried to speak English with him. Unfortunately, he didn't understand anything and spoke to me completely in Thai, which I didn't understand. So I tried to use sign language to show him how to refuel (I felt like I was in a game of charades, trying to pantomime a word). He then showed me to follow him and led me to an abandoned workshop, where he dug out a plastic bottle of gasoline from the far corner. Phew, that was such a relief for me and a weight off my shoulders! So I ended up being back in Lampang in the dark, but that was perfectly fine for me because I didn't break down in the middle of the road. That was pretty much it for Lampang, as the city itself, as mentioned before, was not particularly exciting. So the next day, I went back to Chiang Mai because I wanted to meet Nicolle there. It's really crazy because this is the third time we've met on the whole trip. But she didn't arrive until Sunday morning and I was already in Chiang Mai on Saturday evening. And that was another night of being clumsy. I slowly feel like I'm becoming more clumsy while traveling. I don't want to go into too much detail. So: I actually arrived in Chiang Mai and wanted to take a kind of bus taxi to the hostel, which is typical for Chiang Mai and only costs 30 Baht. Unfortunately, I got stuck with my backpack in there, and everyone got more and more nervous because I just couldn't manage to put down my backpack. So I ended up sitting in the car with my 15 kg backpack on my lap and also had trouble getting out, which was really embarrassing. But the full measure of clumsiness had not yet been reached, because now that I was finally outside, my bag fell behind the seat, so I once again held everyone up. Then I finally got my things and wanted to go, but the driver called after me, 'Hey, you still have to pay!'. Oh my god, in all the chaos, I totally forgot about that. Then I wanted to pay and I only had a 20 Baht bill or a 1000 Baht bill. I was so embarrassed because I had to pay so little and then tried to pay with 1000 Baht. The other passenger was already so annoyed that he handed the woman the remaining 10 Baht for me. Afterwards, I had to squeeze through the crowd with my backpack because I arrived at the night market time. So I kept bumping into people because it was too crowded for my backpack. Oh man, I haven't been so clumsy in a long time and the worst part was that it just didn't end, but now I can laugh about it again. At least I have something to talk about. The next day, I met Nicolle at a scooter rental shop. Unfortunately, I underestimated the distance again, so I had to walk 5 km with my 15 kg backpack because I didn't want to spend money on a tuk-tuk. But now I can honestly say 'but I would walk 500 miles' because I really did it, even if I arrived sweating and completely exhausted at Nicolle's place. You see, we wanted to rent a scooter and drive to Pai together. Our luggage was even brought to Pai for free, so we could just relax and ride. It was really fun because we could lean into the curves so well. However, we didn't consider that it gets cold in the shade. So the last 1.5 hours were simply terrible because it was unbearably cold. We both arrived as two blocks of ice. Even after a very long hot shower, I still had blue lips. Nevertheless, we enjoyed it. In Pai itself, we didn't do much. I showed Nicolle around a bit and we visited the important points together, but mostly we just enjoyed the peace and quiet because Nicolle also had to study for a university test. So while she was studying, I mostly wrote in my diary or chatted with people here and there. Pai itself is (as mentioned in the last entry) just a place to relax. You don't have to do much and it's still beautiful. We both especially enjoyed the kitchen in our hostel because for the first time in 3 months (!!!), we were able to cook properly. I really miss that. As delicious as the food is, it's really nice to cook for yourself. :) Oh gosh, the text just keeps going and going... I hope you have plenty of time.

After about a week, Nicolle and I wanted to go to Mae Hong Son, so we went to the bus station relatively spontaneously (as you always do), but then we were told that all the buses were fully booked. Even for the next day. So we were both a little overwhelmed and didn't know what to do anymore. First, I spontaneously showed Nicolle the 'Rabbit Café', where you can cuddle with rabbits while drinking your coffee. And it was so relaxing, we didn't expect that. So we spent about an hour petting rabbits and making the decision in this cozy atmosphere to rent two scooters and drive to Mae Hong Son ourselves. Unfortunately, we didn't have much luck in general on that day, so there were only quite bad 'junk scooters' left (even the speedometer was broken on mine), but hey! We were still in a rabbit euphoria and thought 'nothing can stop us!' Yes, here again the phrase 'but I would walk 500 miles' applies. And in the end, it was all fate, because the route was just beautiful and fantastic. We stopped occasionally to enjoy the view, and then continued with music in our ears. So each of us was sitting on the scooter, smiling with music in our ears, and simply enjoying it. Although it was a three-hour journey, it didn't feel that long (maybe because we felt so confident by now that we were driving faster - but I actually had no idea how fast I was going because the speedometer was broken). In the evening, we arrived in Mae Hong Son and were able to happily snuggle into our beds. The next day, we had to push ourselves because we only had this one whole day to explore, in order to save money on the scooters and to be back in time for Chinese New Year. So we drove around on the scooter, first to a bamboo bridge and later to a waterfall. However, Nicolle noticed at the waterfall that her phone was missing, so we immediately rushed back to the bridge with the scooters. Luckily, a Thai woman was very kind and took her phone aside and waited for us. So we drove back to the waterfall for the second time, which was quite a lot of driving ('but I would walk 500 miles'). 90 minutes later, we were finally able to see the waterfall and then we took a break for food after all the excitement. We then spent the rest of the day exploring Mae Hong Son and admiring the sunset from a viewpoint. Yeah, and then the next day we went back to Pai. I was really looking forward to the scooter ride because it was so much fun, and even this time, the 3 hours went by so quickly. In the end, we arrived in Pai just fine and immediately took the bus back to Chiang Mai because Chinese New Year was on February 5th. So we were quite excited about how the Chinese New Year would be and we were really looking forward to it. We were even right next to Chinatown, but in retrospect, there wasn't really that much going on. So yes, there were many food stands and even an evening talent show or rather a beauty contest for little children. But that was pretty much it. There wasn't much going on in the streets themselves and it didn't really feel like such a big festival. Unfortunately, someone in the crowd stole my wallet, which really annoyed me. Fortunately, I had taken out my credit card beforehand, but since we wanted to celebrate, I naturally had more money with me and it's so annoying that this idiot earned 50€ from me and now I'm missing that money, but oh well. I can't let that get me down. Nicolle and I still had a nice evening, even though not much was going on. Well... Those were my past few weeks. That was quite a lot. In general, I've been riding the scooter a lot in recent weeks, usually singing along with the song (I'm gonna be) in my ear or walking so much from point A to point B and constantly getting lost. So my dear ones, just listen to the song if you want or listen to it on your next car ride, because it has accompanied me on every scooter ride lately. It's already halfway through, which feels very strange. On one hand, I'm really looking forward to being home and on the other hand, I can't really imagine being home yet. Crazy... Even though I'm on an adventure, I think about you a lot! Sending you hugs and love, and rest assured that I would walk 500 or 1000 miles for you!

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
to fall down at your door

The Proclaimers - I'm gonna be (500 miles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbNlMtqrYS0