adventure on wheels: Tourist Police: Your first friend

We only read the slogan of the tourist police AFTER we’ve already had the pleasure of experiencing their hospitality. They really were our first friends!

In Ayutthaya, 80 kilometers from Bangkok, we wanted to spend our first night. We arrived after dark, very tired and hungry, although we’ve eaten dust all day long, and had no clue whether it would be possible to find free camping spots in the cities of Thailand. It was a nice surprise to find out it was VERY easy. When we asked the man at the tourist police if he knows a safe camp spot, of course I was hoping he would point to the back where I saw a nice lawn. But that we also had a toilet, a shower, a kitchen, a table and Wi-Fi at the “campsite” THAT I didn’t expect. And there’s more: in a lot of the places we even got food! Great friends indeed!

From this day on, whenever we arrived in a city with a tourist police station we paid our first friends a visit.

We now know the tourist police of Ayutthaya, Nakhon Sawan (where I even got myself a new facebook friend), Phitsanulok, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and the regular Police of Sukhothai.

Here’s a little rating: (not to be taken too seriously of course)

Ayutthaya:

+ very friendly, good facilities, mangos from the tree in the yard, free use of the kitchen and fridge, it’s possible to stay a second night

- very aggressive mosquito’s, we were shooed away from the table when the officers wanted to take a break

Nakhon Sawan:

+ very friendly, facilities to cook water for noodle-soup, free guavas and wi-fi and possibility to charge electronic devices

- no lawn, hard ground, very annoying barking dogs, the door gets closed at night so no toilet

Phitsanulok:

+ very relaxed atmosphere, whiskey on ice and a roof to put your tent under in case of rain

- retarded dogs, no shower in the women’s toilet so I had to use the men’s shower where I bumped into a peeing policeman when I was walking out

Sukhothai:

+ nice after they understood what we wanted, a woman gave us mangos, sticky rice and water (but I’m not sure if the police should get credit for that)

- wanted to send us to a guesthouse, language barrier, can’t compete with the tourist police standards

Chiang Mai:

+ very funny and helpful, good location, very nice garden and huge lawn right by the river, wi-fi can be used inside where it’s nice and cool, they cook a delicious soup with fresh herbs from the garden

- depending on the officer the mood ranges from super friendly to very frosty, no shower facilitiy (BUT on the positive side: Every Thai toilet can be used as a shower if you just duck down and use the hose that is meant to clean one part of your body but just as useful to clean the rest!)

Chiang Rai:

+ offered us a place inside the house, got leftover food from lunch, provided mosquito nets and even acted as tourist information

- kicked us out the second night

They were all great and it’s hard to pick a favorite. Chiang Mai could have won the race by miles but then they played good cop bad cop with us…This is how the story goes:

I cycled to Chiang Mai while Theo was hitchhiking. Despite of his head start in Chiang Mai I was the one who tracked down the tourist police first. I didn’t even plan to ask for a camp spot, first I wanted to talk to Theo to see if he has already found a place to sleep. The officer that walked out of the station to welcome me seemed so easygoing that just jokingly I pointed at the nice garden behind the building and said “THIS would be a lovely camping sp…”. I didn’t even have to finish my sentence and the lawn was offered to me. The next morning another super friendly officer brought us a bowl of soup, with fresh leaves from their garden. And another officer told us that we can stay as long as we want.

In the afternoon the mood changed. All the good cops seemed to have gone and out came the ones with the grim faces that seemed to think “What the fuck are you people doing here? Why don’t you go to a hotel?” Suddenly we weren’t welcome anymore and were asked to leave tomorrow. Fair enough.

Nevertheless the tourist police will stay our first friend. After all there are many more good cops than there are bad cops.