Scattered thoughts between Thailand and the Emirates

This trip wasn’t supposed to go like this. I was due to leave for Thailand right in the days of the crisis with Iran, and my flights were cancelled more than once. For a moment I thought I wouldn’t go at all. In the end I came back with two countries instead of one.

Luck inside bad luck

Luckily I was flying Emirates, which for me is still the best airline around. When they cancelled my outbound flight I knew my rights as a passenger and managed to get rebooked on a flight that avoided Dubai: a direct ITA flight from Rome to Thailand. On the way back the same thing happened. This time, though, I asked to go through Dubai with a three or four-day stopover, so I could see the Emirates too.

Some of the credit is mine, but a lot goes to Emirates’ patience. And the result was a richer trip than the one I’d planned.

If there’s a lesson, it’s this: know your rights, and know how to look for luck even inside bad luck.

Thailand: built for tourists, and yet real

Thailand is a very touristy country, maybe too much. You meet Indians, Russians, Asians and Europeans. I travelled through Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket. Bangkok is often named one of the most visited cities in the world, and it shows: everything is designed for people arriving from elsewhere.

And yet I never met an impatient look. Thai people welcome tourists with rare patience and still manage to keep their own identity. In other parts of the world, places built for tourism have given me a feeling of something fake, staged for the occasion. Not there.

That sense of freedom

Everyone says Thailand gives you a sense of freedom. I can’t explain why, and maybe I was influenced by the idea too. But today, if I think of a place that makes me think of freedom, that’s the one.

Maybe it’s the life I lived there: carefree, a massage every day, wonderful food, fun and new emotions all the time. The fact is, it’s one of the very few countries where I’d go back even to places I’ve already been. Usually I think the world is too big to visit the same place twice. Not with Thailand: my mind keeps going back there. I’d even like to live there.

And then there’s the food, for me one of the best in the world. It’s the only cuisine I’ve thought I could eat every day, like Italian.

Dubai: it has everything, except a soul

For me the Emirates were mostly Dubai, with a trip to Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi didn’t blow me away, apart from the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and the Qasr Al Watan presidential palace: two truly beautiful places.

Dubai, on the other hand, is the symbol of the country and it’s undeniably fun. It has everything. Lying on the beach with a shisha and a drink was wonderful. The Burj Khalifa is impressive above all at night, with a drink in your hand and the whole city lit up in front of you.

And yet it gave me the impression of a city of the world rather than a place with its own history. A city without a soul. It’s not that I didn’t like it, but I wouldn’t live there. And when you don’t feel a bond with a place, you end up thinking less of it, however beautiful it is.

Simplicity against appearances

Maybe that’s the real contrast between the two countries. In Thailand simplicity rules everything. And that’s probably why I loved it so much: today we live on masks, performances and Instagram. There, for a few days, all of that disappeared.

Dubai is the exact opposite. Glamour and luxury are constantly in front of your eyes, and even those who don’t belong to that world tend to pretend they do. I think this also shaped my judgement without my noticing. Also because I experienced Thailand as a whole country, across Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket, while in the Emirates I mostly saw Dubai.

The perfect place to live

Everything I’ve written comes from just a few days, and so from some idealisation too. I know that well. But one question has stuck with me.

What is the perfect place to live? The one where everything works and is cutting-edge, but has no soul? Or the one that may lack many things, but gives you a sense of freedom that for some strange reason makes you happy?

I don't have an answer yet. But I know where my mind goes when I close my eyes. And it isn't beneath the Burj Khalifa.