Chiang Mai - Temples as far as the eye can see

After so many days on the beach, we decided that we need some culture and headed straight from Koh Samet via Bangkok up to Chiang Mai. Once more, we tried our friend the night train and were not disappointed. The train was on time and everything went well, no elephants in sight.

Right on our first day here, we ran into Thomas and Tony, whom we met on Seraya, Indonesia back in October. The world really is small!

Thomas, Matthias and Tony at Doi Suthep

You can do loads and loads of things in and around Chiang Mai, but since I had caught a cold on the way here from Koh Samet and had to spend quite a lot of time in bed trying to get well, we opted for the temples, markets and handicrafts. And Chiang Mai with surroundings sure have lots and lots of all three of them!
In this city, you have temples everywhere you look. It is just incredible, one more beautifully built than the other. As a tourist, you can literally spend hours and hours just exploring the temples.

Other main tourist attractions are the Saturday and Sunday Walking Streets, where you have an entire street blocked off from traffic and a wonderful market to stroll through. These markets open in the afternoon and go on until midnight, but after six or seven, they get so crowded that it is difficult to really enjoy shopping here. But the things on offer are very very nice and the food stalls are just brilliant. If you ever visit Chiang Mai on a weekend, these markets are definitely worth a visit!

Koh Samet - back to the beach

After having celebrated Cissi's birthday and having enjoyed a weekend in Bangkok together with Joe and Tom, two friends of mine from Salzburg, we decided to join Tom for a couple of days trip to Koh Samet. This beautiful island is reachable from Bangkok within a few hours by local bus and boat. 

Tom, who used to live in Thailand for some years and is fluent in speaking Thai, took the lead in interacting with the locals during our trip to the island, as well as throughout our stay.
So great, as soon as the locals hear his Thai, they were much more welcoming and friendly compared than they were to other tourists (which does not mean that they were unfriendly, but hey, you know, routines in daily life make you bored, especially if you live on an island).

We accomodated ourselves in a three appartment bungalow, ours and Tom's separated by an appartment rented by a Farang (Westener, in our case British) and his approximately 30 years younger girlfirend and their baby! You see that quite often and, I know, it's a shame, get used to it...
Anyway, when we came to our bungalow the first evening after dinner and a few drinks, both were drunk, slamming doors and shouting at each other. After some time the mother left, leaving the baby behind (!!!) which understandably made it scream all night. And all the father was capable to do to handle the situation was to shout: "stop screaming, go to sleep!"
Some people should really think first before they start a family!!!

However, after having written about things that were not so nice,  I have to write about the good parts as well. And there were a lot!
First of all, the island is very scenic, with the brightest, finest and cleanest sand beach we have encountered so far since Seraya in Indonesia! 
Second, good food served on the beach (especially Som Tam, green papaya salad with chilli) makes your day, especially when combined with a cold afternoon beer! ;-)
And third, most important, it was amazing to spend the days at Koh Samet with Tom, whom I haven't seen for at least three years. We took the chance to talk about us, friends and life in general. Really great!
We enjoyed it so much!

Tom, thanks for a really great time on the island!!!

Birthday weekend in Bangkok

We left the paradise on Koh Tao to spend my birthday in the Asian City of Angels, Bangkok.
After the very laid back weeks of island life, the pulsating city was quite a shock. After all, Bangkok is really intense. You have people, houses, cars and motorbikes everywhere.

We stayed in Sathorn in central Bangkok, away from the hords of backpackers in Banglamphu. The hotel we stayed in was still under construction and unfortunately the rooftop pool had proven not to be waterproof, so no lazy afternoons in the sun for us.

My birthday was spent sightseeing the main attractions like the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wat Arun and a boat trip on Chao Praya river.

View from the river

Wat Arun

Wats inside of the Grand Palace

The Grand Palace

Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

Wat Pho temple grounds

View from Wat Arun

Some stairs to climb!

We had planned to have birthday drinks in the Moon Bar in Vertigo. But their dress code is quite strict (long trousers and closed shoes for men) and Matthias did not feel that trekking trousers were the proper kind, we had to postpone our visit. That is one of the downsides of living out of a backpack... You really miss your wardrobe at home sometimes (but only sometimes...)

The following day, we met up with Joe, a friend of Matthias who was staying in Bangkok over the weekend as well, and went shopping for "rooftop bar approved" clothing. Luckily our shopping tour did not take long and the afternoon was spent chilling in the Khao San Road and in the Lumpini Park.

Before dinner, the three of us had cocktails up in the Bangkok sky at the Moon Bar, located on the 61st floor of the luxury hotel Banyan Tree. The view is truly breathtaking, the sea of lights that is Bangkok at night spreads out at your feet and the city just seem to go on forever!
Even if the prices are ridiculous, at least 350 Baht for a cocktail (which is a lot in Thailand), this place is so worth a visit.

The next day was the start of the Chinese New Year celebrations, but we were set to leave for Koh Samet so we didn't really see much of the celebrations. But a group of men performing the Lion Dance stopped at the entrance of our hotel, so I did get a couple of pictures of it.

The Lion Dance

Island hopping in Thailand

We've been busy enjoying beach life on Thai islands the last couple of weeks, and we've been spending a fair amount of time beneath the surface of the ocean. Since yesterday we're even PADI Advanced Open Water Divers! But let's see what else we have been up to since Laos. From Vientiane, we headed straight to the south of Thailand with a pit stop in Bangkok and we have been on different islands ever since.

We spent Christmas on the beach in Ao Nang, close to Krabi. On Christmas Eve, we went for dinner with a German couple we met in the restaurant of our hotel. One completely new feature we got this Christmas: the lady boys. It was so much fun just to sit in a bar and watch the people walking past, having their picture taken with the lady boys.

Since Ao Nang was quite touristy and the beach was very packed, we left for Koh Lanta on the 25th. Our first experience with Thai ferries and their safety standards was a bit disturbing, but all went well and we arrived on the island safe and sound.

Safety first!

Koh Lanta was such a nice island that we ended up spending more than a week here. Koh Lanta has some really nice dive spots and since we found a nice Swedish dive shop, we went for six dives and had a great time. But the best thing about the dive shop (in my opinion) was that they had Swedish candy (lösgodis).

New Year's treat: Swedish candy

Next stop was Koh Samui, which we really should have skipped had we known how developed and mass-touristy the island is. It is very difficult to find a nice beach which is not part of a fancy hotel complex or very full of tourists, so we spent half a day exploring the island before giving up and deciding to spend the rest of the day at the pool.

The following day, we took the ferry to Koh Phangan, the island most famous for the full moon parties on Haad Rin Beach. We had a really nice bungalow on the beach on the northeastern corner of the island, at this place called Mae Haad Cove. If you ever go to Koh Phangan and don't mind staying in a basic bungalow, we can really recommend staying here. The food is great, the bungalows are cheap, the beach is really nice, the snorkelling is very good too and the woman running this place is so nice!

On Phangan, we spent a fair amount of time exploring the island and I finally tried driving a moped, something I have let Matthias do until now. It is much more relaxing to sit on the back though, because you can just enjoy the ride.

We spent some time on the beach. And of course we went diving...

"Our" beach - Haad Mae Haad and the island Koh Maa

Matthias engaged in a very long (and exhausting) sword fight with this young fellow.

Paradise Waterfall

Another waterfall

Out diving at Sail Rock

The real diving adventure however, started when we came to Koh Tao and decided to do the PADI Advanced Open Water course. After two days of diving, five different dives (one of them being the deep dive down to 30 m!), we are now Advanced Open Water Divers. Yesterday night (Friday the 13th!) we did our very first night dive, which was a bit scary since you can't really see what is going on next to you. Sometimes you turn around and see a great barracuda lingering just next to your right ear, waiting for you to shine your torch on to an innocent rabbit fish, so that he can catch it for dinner. They are pretty smart...

Diving has become a huge industry here on Koh Tao and there are dive schools everywhere. We had heard stories about the big dive schools where they had groups of up to 20 people diving with 2 instructors, so we chose a small dive school, Master Divers. This proved to be a great decision since we were the only two in our course and we felt very very well taken care of by all staff, not just our instructor. So a big thanks to Kirsi for being a great instructor!

The plan for the next couple of days? As soon as the weather gets a bit better (today has been all rainy and quite windy), we will go diving again!