World Scenic Flights by HeliGraphix

We had a cool flight with Thai Air – during the take-off in Nepal, some beverage cans came rolling along the aisle, plus the front video screen came down on all of us sitting in the first row. We prayed that the rest of the airplane was in better condition and that we'd make it to Bangkok safely. :-)

The countryside in this area reminds you of Florida/USA in some ways. The climate was hot and humid, and there is lots of swampland. Many of the houses are built on stilts, and there is lots of water and many canals. Unlike Florida, the water level varies from year to year.

The people themselves are friendly, the language is funny and very different from what we'd heard before. It's hard to articulate for speakers of Western languages, there is not much melody in it, and it all sounds like "waa-gaa-goo-chiiaa-gaa-gaack"; one cannot help but it reminds of hens picking corn out of the dirt in the backyard. So it is no wonder that for Thai speakers it is equally hard to articulate the sounds needed for proper English. Just like in China, only very few people speak English at all, and to a) realize that they now communicate in English and b) understand what exactly they are saying, some fantasy is needed.

Incidentally, Saskia was addressed by an elderly woman; quite obviously she really wanted to tell her something. It took several minutes, and it was all pointing and gesturing until the lady had successfully communicated her concern: She was an English teacher in Thailand! :-)

We rented one of the famous Tuc-Tucs (see picture), basically a trike with open trunk and modified for transportation of people; in Europe they'd sue you for driving around with this and lock you away forever. :-) We'd marked the most famous temples in a map and shown it to the driver. The aim was to screen all the locations for WSF appeal and the possibility of R/C flying. The driver was a nice lady, and after a while she somehow accepted that we were probably the strangest tourists she'd ever seen. "Yah, yah, please go to the next temple!" – "Waah-gaa-gaa-wachkaaah!" – "Yes, whatever it is, please go there, thank you!" Then jump out of the car, walk around for five to ten minutes only, hop on again, and off it goes to the next one.
Because of this swampland character, there are lots of mosquitoes in some places – not nice, you never know if and which diseases they communicate. The last site we visited was quite an impressive structure – a white pyramid-like building, but surrounded by lots of trees. We thought it would be nice to climb up the stairs to the top so we had a good view over the city. – BAD idea, since there were some wild dogs, and they made very clear it was their territory, and that it had already been closed for today.

The site we liked best was the so-called "Wat Chai Watthanaram". Some other people also thought it was nice, and that's why it has been declared world cultural heritage by the UNESCO. So no flying here!?
We found the chief security officer, and by chance there also was a German-language guide that day. We explained the WSF project, and after some discussion they all agreed this was the greatest project they'd ever heard of, and that the flights would be ok the next day. Very nice, things usually don't fall into place that easily.

Unfortunately, appearances are deceptive …