Bamboo Nest

Living in an apartment with no garden in the inner-city has made longing for a house in the countryside. I have been following the tiny house movement with interest. In Thailand I stayed in a little bamboo hut west of Chiang Rai. The place is called Bamboo Nest and is located above a small village. The owner Nok picks you up in Chiang Rai and after a smooth ride along the river Kok the last few kilometers are so steep her 4x4 drive could barely handle the road.

The huts have one room, the only furniture being a double bed with mosquito net, a separate shower and toilet in the back and a spacious veranda with a hammock, also completely made of bamboo. There is no kitchen, so these huts are mainly constructed for sleeping. 

A tiny house is a residential structure under 46 m2 so I guess these huts could be considered tiny houses. Personally I think a living space smaller than 46 m2 is too small for permanent residence unless you downsize your stuff radically.

Chiang Mai night food

The main attraction of Chiang Mai is certainly the many street stalls and night food markets. I choose to ignore the usual three meals a day routine for a new five meals a day regime. Just to name a few: clear beef broth soup, deep-fried garlic fish and koi neua (ก้อยคั่วเนื้อ), which is a raw meat salad of Isan origin.

Chiang Mai is a very colourful city at night.

And yes, I did spent one night on the toilet of my hotelroom. Probably a plate washed with dirty water. But even then my inner Cartman-voice was going: "Awesome!"

Bangkok / Krung Thep (กรุงเทพ)

A new city can feel quite overwhelming on the first day. It’s hard to get your bearings. The best approach is to skip the taxis and explore on foot. In Bangkok, however, the crossings aren’t very pedestrian-friendly. My hotel was not far from the Chao Phraya River, and I soon found myself taking the Chao Phraya Express Boat, mingling with commuters on their way to work. The color of the flag indicates the line. Seeing the city from the water gave me a real sense of its scale.

Chinatown

Bangkok’s Chinatown is one of the largest in the world. Since I live near Amsterdam’s Chinatown — if you can call Zeedijk a “Chinatown” — I just had to visit. The Bowring Treaty, signed on 18 April 1855 between the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Siam, liberalized foreign trade in Siam. As a result, businesses flourished in Chinatown, which had been founded in 1782. By the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, the district had developed a red-light area with opium dens, theatres, nightclubs, and gambling houses.

By 2017, Bangkok’s Chinatown was certainly less raucous, but I still spent half a day wandering its narrow alleyways, eating soup with fresh pig intestines, and visiting Chinese temples such as Wat Mangkon Kamalawat — the largest Chinese Buddhist temple in Bangkok. It was a delightful place to explore.

Wat Mangkon Kamalawat

Now everyone can fly

Moving on from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, I found that domestic air travel in Thailand is astonishingly cheap. 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 holds the second-largest stake in Nok Air.

Aéroport Nice Côte d'Azur - Saint-Martin-Vésubie

A travel story from early springtime in 2010. This was a time you had to mask the bad quality of the iPhone camera by applying heavy filters to the image. It renders the images both a little tacky and evocative.

In 2010 I had been running for a couple of years. On this trip I decided to ditch the heavy mountain shoes for some light trail running shoes. I had planned to go hiking, instead I found myself running most of the time. I guess in the springtime of 2010 I discovered trail running. In the summer of 2010 I ran my first 50k trail run in The Netherlands.

In that year I must have also read Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall for the first time. This book catapulted running from the sports category to something which was actually cool.

Flight: Amsterdam Schiphol - Aéroport Nice Côte d'Azur.
Bus: Nice - Saint-Martin-Vésubie.

Boarding on the tarmac at Schiphol Airport. Flight time is about 2 hours. In 2021 it took me 2 days to reach Nice by car. By train the journey can be done in 11 hours.

Camping A La Ferme Au Verge Saint Joseph. The camping is basically a fruit orchard.

So early in the season I had the fruit orchard almost to myself.

View from my tent: moon at night.

View of Saint-Martin-Vésubie before storm Alex in 2020.

Ditching the boots to start running.

Lunch break in the mountains consist of mainly canned food, cheese and dried sausages.

When the snow melts, crocus flowers appear.

Wild trout from Lac du Boréon.

What did I bring to read? The Mind of Wall Street: A Legendary Financier on the Perils of Greed and the Mysteries of the Market by Leon Levy apparently.

Busstation Saint-Martin-Vésubie. In 2010 I didn’t own a car. My wheeled travel bag had to fit my tent and was so big KLM considered it oversized cargo. I had to check in my bag at a special counter. Quite a hassle.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep in Nice. I had an evening flight so I just spent the day in the city. The whole trip lasted four days.

View from Colline du Château in Nice.