HAAS

A new city can be quite overwhelming on the first day. It is hard to find your bearings. The best thing is to avoid taxi's and explore on foot. However, in Bangkok the crossings are not very pedestrian friendly. My hotel was not far from the river Chao Phraya and I soon ended up taking the Chao Phraya Express Boat and mingled with the commuters going to work. The color of the flag indicates the line. Looking at the city from the water gave me a sense of scale.

Chinatown

Bangkok's Chinatown is one of the largest Chinatowns in the world. Since I live near Amsterdam's Chinatown - if you can call Zeedijk 'Chinatown' - I just had to visit. The Bowring Treaty signed on 18 April 1855 between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Siam liberalised foreign trade in Siam. As a result businesses flourished in Chinatown, which was founded in 1782.

By the turn of the 19th–20th centuries Chinatown had a red-light district hosting opium dens, theatres, nightclubs and gambling houses. In 2017 Bangkok's Chinatown is certainly less interesting, but I still spent half a day in this district roaming the narrow alleyways, eating a soup with very fresh pig intestines and visiting Chinese temples, like Wat Mangkon Kamalawat, the largest Chinese Buddhist temple in Bangkok. It was a delightful place to hang out.

Now everyone can fly

Moving on from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Domestic air travel is astonishingly cheap in Thailand. I paid the equivalent of € 86,02 for my flight from Bangkok Don Mueang International Airport to Chiang Mai International Airport with Nok Air. Thai Airways owns the second-largest stake in Nok Air.