Today we arrived in Chiang Mai, the cultural Capital of northern Thailand, 700 km north of Bangkok. We traveled by Lao Airlines from Luang Prabang in Laos.
Our 12 days in Indochina are now a past and we are back in Siam, although I guess that these geografic names from the past have no exact borders. One particular detail, ubiquitous everywhere regardles of country, is the monks in their orange robes.
Chiang Mai was founded in the 13th century and it has more than 300 temples, almost as many as Bangkok, which is a much larger city. We’ll explore Chiang Mai for a day or two before we start heading south. Originally our plan was to travel via Bangkok, but the present political unrest in the Thai Capital may force us to skip it this time, so we may fly back to Scorpio in Langkawi (via Kuala Lumpur) a few days earlier than planned. No big loss though, we’ve been in Bangkok before.