It ended with a soft landing and easy start in Chiang Mai

My first trip to Asia should start early with a flight from Hamburg to Cologne. Switching there into a bigger plane towards Bangkok with Eurowings. Finishing with a last flight to Chiang Mai with the local airline Air Asia.

All my stuff for the next month

I prepared myself and my luggage to be compact so I will not need to go to the counter thanks to Online-Check-Ins. But for unclear reasons the website and the app of my airline was not able to check me in. So I needed to b at the airport even earlier. Fine, I would sleep on the plane anyway.

Because of the winter temperatures in Hamburg I needed a warm jacket there, but I didn’t wanted to carry that big thing with me in Asia. Staying the last night with a friend I left my jacket and other winter clothing at his place (thanks for that) and used a Car2Go to get to the airport. Quite cold when the closest Smart is hiding in a small street. Thanks to the seat heating I was happy again soon.

Getting rid of the car again was a early morning challenge. To be prepared I checked the website where I need to park the car before flying. Following this info I wasn’t able to find the parking space. No wonder, because the information was wrong. Calling the helpline for support, they didn’t know better then what the website says, beside that my GPS position was bad for parking the car. After driving around the airports parking area for some time I finally found the right spot. Very sad that the website was and is still wrong.

Ready to leave the winter in Hamburg

Getting to the security check the scanning of my backpack doesn’t satisfied the friendly officers. It was to much tech stuff in the top of the backpack. The emptying of the compartment the was rewarded in a nice and detailed showing and explaining of the x-ray images of my bag and my stuff. Very interesting what you can see on this. Always wanted to do that.

The first flight was nothing special. So nothing to tell here.

In Cologne I then boarded the biggest plane I’ve ever been on. I was surprised how small my space for the next 10 hours is. But how bad could it be, I thought to myself.
The flight started well. I slept a bit, read down my reading list of saved articles and soon there was the first meal.

Internet is expencive on this plane

As I then realized that the meal didn’t meant the biggest part of the flight would be over I needed to find more things to entertain myself.
Exploring the board entertainment I found out, that there is a WiFi Option. Reading into the details this very quickly was not a thing anymore looking at the prices.
So I got my laptop out. Worked a bit and played while we got closer and closer to our destination.

Landed on the new Bangkok airport the immigration process was quick and easy having my visa already issued in Germany.
Time to get the most important things sorted out: Cash and a SIM Card.

I had multiple hours until my next flight to Chiang Mai so I had the time to stroll around the airport connecting to other nomads and backpackers. I tried to meet a friend who was traveling into the other direction but it didn’t worked out. Board from nothing to do I took the free transfer bus to the older airport, where the local budget airlines are based.

The heavy traffic was interesting to watch for me. There are taxis looking like sports cars colorful and with spoilers, pimped minibuses, a lot of car models I’ve never seen before and pickups with about 12 people on there platform. All this and more on the highway.
Sadly I totally forgot to take pictures. Is also true for most part of the trip in general.

Just sitting in the bus I wasn’t able to see to much of the city. To me Bangkok look big and gray with the biggest billboards I ever seen. Even whole buildings (25 stories high) were covered in advertisement.
A nice thing I could spot was between all this big buildings were green oases with nice trees and family houses.

My waiting time at the next airport I spend on the flight deck where a lot of the staff were spending there break. They where lying every where to sleep or having a pick nick. A very new situation to me. I joint in and got a space at a power outlet preparing my devices for the last leg of my travel.

Arriving in Chiang Mai I got a private transfer to my apartment. At least close.
A friend offered me to use his already paid room for a week, because he was leaving a day before I got here. A great offer I couldn’t resist. Thanks also to him. He also organized the transfer for me. The driver picking me up had an address to get me to but he dropped me off at the wrong condo. Quickly found out I just have to walk to the condo next door I finally arrived at my new home.

Hungry and curious to see the city I soon left to meet friends. Having people that know places and can show you around makes it so easy to get started.
After my first real thai Dinner we took a walk around the neighborhood I will live in the next weeks. Finishing the day by meeting one more friend from CoWorkingCamp and common finish friends having beer and popcorn.

Celebrating the arrival the beer and popcorn

This is how I made my way from home to a new world here in Asia.
My first days and first impressions I’ll write down in an other post. You can get notified about it and other further posts by subscribing here.