20/04: Home again, this is the end

Well, after a long night in the plain, we arrived in Londen around 7 o'clock. Only had a flight to Brussels at 1 pm. So killing time was the answer. Actually we just waited, ate something, wandered around and waited some more. Then it was finally time to really go back home. A flight of only 45 minutes. It feels like you're just up in the air, or they're already making their descend again. Back in Brussels we got our bikes safe and sound with us: yes! Then, through the gate to meet our families. We all ate together at my parents house and it was a very fun and delicious evening! Now the real life starts again. But we had a fantastic time in Asia and we will have wonderfull memories for the rest of our life!!!!

19/04: Enjoying our last hours at Bkk international airport

What better way to end our time in bkk than with a tuktuk to the airlink city rail station from our guesthouse? 2 big boxes strapped to the back of the tuktuk and off we go...don't think the driver got a lot of goods moving foreingers in his ride cause he was looking at us a bit suspicious...especially cause we were smart enough to negotiate a price before showing him our stuff! hahaha, tuktuk style to you to! Anyway, tipped him a bit at the end & Line gave him her sandals that she didn't need anymore. Then with some help from stationside waiting moto taxi drivers we got our boxes up into the station and on the train. Was around 6pm so it was totally packed with working people going home...not easy, but it all worked out.

Honestly if you land on bkk with your bike packed, just get the airlink rail to any station nearest to your destination and then just get all your gear ready at the station in the centre of bkk and off you go!

Good thing we packed the bikes along the scale to 23kg cause they officially scaled in at the check-in counter on 22,5kg & 23kg. Bulls-eye! So they checked in easily enough, oooeff, at least this time we should make it to our destination with our bikes. At least London, lets hope also brussels ;-) Didn't get any comments on our handluggage either. Other than that our hats (bike helmets) are a somewhat strange fashion accesoire. So the rest of the time before boarding at midnight we get to spend our last bahts & hours strolling the shops and maybe try to "buttgroove" a waiting bench.

18/04: Our last arrival in bangkok!

Flying back to Bangkok from Chiang Mai, what a luxery! :-) We then decided to compensate a bit by taking the express train back into town instead of a taxi. Cheaper & faster, go fot this option if you can. We will now also try and take the train to get to the airport for departure...gonna get fun with those big bike boxes ;-) Made an enroute stop at the bike shop (Bikezone @ Amarin plaza) where we collected our bikes packed in boxes. Then we had to get them back to the guesthouse...We immediatly realised that they wouldn't fit in one taxi together with the two of us, so two taxis. The first box was loaded into a taxi, very tight! Line hopped in & took off to the guesthouse. The bikebox from Ardan was a couple  of centimetes bigger so he had a hard time finding a taxi where it would fit in. The very friendly security guys from the shoppingmall tried to help him by stopping taxis, but they stopped the same model of car everytime, which was to small. Thanks, very kind, but not really helping guys :) So after a while, Ardan just stopped a taxi and put the box in the trunk (instead of in the backseat) and the taxidriver put some ropes around it because the box was sticking out of the trunk for the most part. Arriving at the guesthouse we put the boxes on a scale...: to heavy, SHIT! But no worries, we were still able to take some heavy things out of the boxes and put into our handluggage. Lets hope the scale in the guesthouse is correct, because now they're 23 kg, which is okay. For the rest of the day had a noodlesoups (one of the last :-( ) and wandered around chinatown.

17/04: Last day chiangmai

We have ben here for long enough now...;-) Last day Chiangmai! A bit more pooltime before lunch & some sunday market strolling. Tomorrow early morning we board the plane to Bangkok where we can spend 1 more day before heading back home late on the 19th. It's starting to get really really close now...I don't think it's hitting us yet, but surey some time soon we are gonna get a serious kick...

16/04: same same but different

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Same same: swimmingpool, reading, relaxing.
Different: able to go on the streets without getting wet.

15/04: Swimmingpool!!

As said yesterday, we didn't feel like joining the waterfight yet another day. After breakfast in the guesthouse, we crossed safely to the swimmingpool next door. Not much to say about that other than we swam, read, worked on that tan. For late lunch we went for our usual noodlesoup. We knew there was one right in front of the hotel, so we just walked through the hotel and quickly crossed the street to be safe behind the noodlesoupstand. Once we finished our noodlesoup, we ran back to the otherside and entered the hotel again, all so we wouldn't get wet :-)) To celebrate our victory, we took another dive into the swimmingpool (to get wet ;-) ).
For dinner, we again didn't feel like joining the waterfight, so what to do.... Hm, Ardan must have felt a bit homesick 'cause he really wanted some Pizza...why not Pizzahut pizza then? We are really getting lazier the longer we are off our bike, so we ordered in! Quick online browse to pizzahut.co.th & 40min later our food was delivered at the guesthouse lobby. We could even use their discount  second pizza for half the price and a free applecrumble pie (rather big): yummie!

14/04: Waterfight again!


Changed guesthouse this morning, without getting wet! :-) When we went for lunch we weren't so lucky anymore. Some people saw we were still dry and decided that this couldn't be. Luckely the sun was back, so we quickly went back to our guesthouse and got our buckets. The best place for joining the waterfight if you have a bucket is next to the canal, so we went there, got wet (soaked to be more exact :-) ), and made sure other people got wet also :-) Two days is enough though, so tomorrow we'll go to the pool (also water, but a bit cleaner than the water from the canal). Now we're going to watch a movie and pray that they stop killing cats (karaoke singing, but oh so loud and oh so out of tune! ;) ) around midnight.

13/04: and the water throwing keeps on going

Today the sun decided to take a restday, so it was colder and it was raining all day. So we didn't feel like playing with water. A lot of people did, so we decided to stay in as much as possible. But, you had to get out to get some food. That was risky business :) We got wet! And it was ccccold! Especially when they threw the ice water in this weather! So what we did was: read, play a game, watch a movie, talk about the plans for our house. Tomorrow we'll change back to the previous guesthouse. Let's hope the sun had rested enough so we can use the swimmingpool again :)

12/04: The, really wet, blessing "ceremony" has begun!

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Forget what we said yesterday about getting a bit wet...today the action really begun! Hundreds of people gathering around the old moat with waterguns, buckets, hoses,...anything which is remotely functional as a water propelling device. :-) So the instant we got to where the action was taking place we bought ourselves a couple of buckets with a string attached to it for throwing and fetching it full of water from the ponds/moat/barrels of water scattered around town. After that...we got wet, very wet and had loads of fun! Throw water at everyone to bless them & recieve a blessing in return...pretty basic...for some reason some fill their buckets with icecubes/blocks so the water is freezing cold when it hits you, luckily they don't throw around the ice itself...had a couple of shocks from time to time today ;-) The action is mostly concentrated along The Pae Gate where all passing traffic (cars, moto, taxi, tuktuk,...) gets absolutelly bashed with water from the sides. A lot of blessing a lot of good luck for the new year? Taxi's really get a bashing cause people are 'trapped' inside, but you can throw water inside from everywhere. All this fun is good for us, this way we get to celebrate NY a 3rd time this year after ours & Tet! When we got back to our GH we treated ourselves to some more water in the "spaceshower"...just watch the album.

11/04: It's starting to get a bit wet

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Some more swimming and working on getting rid of that bikertan (together with a lot of sunscreen!). After that we walked around town to a little park where we fed the fish. Crossing the road some guy sitting in a taxi used his watergun on me. All of a sudden it started to rain. So we got wet for the second time today. Luckely it only rained for an hour. We drank a smoothie and after that is was time for the nightmarket again. We treated ourselves with a 30 minutes footmassage for 1.5€ :-p!! For dinner we did some "hapje-tapje" again. I couldn't resist the sushi, so we got us a plate. Ardan thought the wasabi wasn't strong enough, so he smeared a good amount on his sushi. That resulted in me laughing and Ardan crying. Hahaha, after the worst part was over he could laugh to ofcoarse and said that it was good wasabi :-). Some more "hapje-tapje" food until we had enough and we then bought ourselves a beer in the 7eleven. When heading back I got water on me from a girl who was testing her watergun before buying it. Only 50m further we got a lot of water on us from another guy standing next to a waterbarell spraying on everyone and everything that moved. Maybe we should get ourselves some defense weapon... also a watergun or a bucket? :-)

10/04: Sonkran has officially begun

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The Songkran festivities in chiang mai have officially begun. Music, people, street markets, looks & feels very much like a leuvens hapje-tapje or de beleuvenissen. The typical waterfights however have not yet started. This should pick up from tomorrow or the day after. So to take things easy we first enjoyed some more luxury poolside relaxation, covering ourselves with a lot of sunscreen after yesterdays little burn ;-) 6 months in asia, but we still haven't learned our lesson...shissh. Somewhere in the afternoon we headed out into the streets for a noodlesoup lunch followed with terras fruit smoothies while watching the evening street markets come to live. Market got busy pretty soon and there was a bustling crowd...18h sharp the national anthem was blasting out of many speakers and all came to total standstill! Bit like a "mobfreeze" or whatever in europe...except here it happens every day on busy places. See it on Youtube Line & I where actually really caught up in our conversation, remaining totally oblivious to the whole thing until it was nearing the end. Quickly stopped talking and got up too, oeps. Treated ourselves with a healthy sushi dinner, setting us back a whopping 2,5euro for both of us! :-O Damn, it's gonna hurt to be back in Belgium....

09/04: Sizzling beside the pool

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Went to the bakery this morning to get ourselves some croissants and other goodies. After breafast we checked out from our old guesthouse and checked in in the new one. In this guesthouse we could use the swimmingpool from the hotel next door, for a small fee of coarse. But it was worth it. Very very chique swimmingpool. You got a clean towel from the hotel, champoo/soap/conditioner, beautiful outdoor shower, relax-chairs and we had the swimmingpool to ourselves! You should think that you learn by experience, well... we got burned again. It doesn't seem to matter how many times you get sunburn, you allways think that you've put enough sunscreen on. Well, not in this blistering sun! :-) If we go back tomorrow, the sun can only see our backs and we will make sure we'll put enough sunscreen on, or hide from the sun sometimes. In the evening we didn't eat noodlesoup ;-), but rice and toppings which we choose from 15 different bowls/dishes on the street. After that we walked around the saturday-night-market. A lot of people, but it was nice :-)

08/04: Jungle Flight

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Youtube Line zipping away!

So today we got out of bed at around 6am again to go on the early morning Jungle Flight. Jungle flight? Yup, ziplining & abseiling in the forest around Chiang mai...Around...well a good 1h ride out of town, with the end over some really bumpy, up&down curving track into the forest. Finally Line arrived there feeling pretty sick. Just the road or also a bit of fear?

I can conclude jungle flying in a nutshell as great fun! Lucky we took the early morning timeslot, so only the 2 of us & another young couple from norway. They took the longer package, so on the lines itself we were all alone with 2 guides. Boston & Mike. Mike the quite sidekick for hangover-, ex army ranger-, comedian Boston. Real name in thai was something I can't remember but means "With the blessing of buddha" or alike, although if you mis pronounce 1 part of the word in thai it means stupid...too many foreingers kept calling him 'stupid' everyday so he came up with something a bit easier :-)) Now we didn't have to wait long at any platform, had more then enough time to try some different moves while flying or looking out into the forest. Normal group size is 10-12p...wow, that's lots of waiting time...folder claims a 6h activity, if your 2 it takes about a good 1h. 1h zipping, 5h waiting? Take the early slot!

   

Line quickly felt relieved that she didn't get as scared as she feared, probably the really secure feeling she got from all the hooks & safetylines helped a bit...also the lines aren't superfast/megadrops through the forest, more "balanced thrills" ;-) After a good lunch we headed back to town passing some hot springs, unfortunately they boil at around 100°C so forget about some skinnydipping.

Tomorrow change of scenery. We head to another guesthouse with a luxury garden/pool nextdoor, let's hope the good weather stays on so Line can tan the bike shorts of her body before heading back home ;-)

07/04: A train, A bus, no a plane!

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So today we walked to the trainstation to book our trainticket back to Bangkok on the 17th of April. Well... bad luck! Fully booked for the whole day, as were the 15th, 16th & 18th. Damn! So we could take a bus back or a plane. The bus would take 11 hours to get back to Bangkok. Since a bus is not as comfortable as the night train (you never know with those "VIP" buses, sometimes they're really good, sometimes they're crap), we decided to go for the plane. That would cost us 2400baht/person, but we decided that it was worth the comfort. Some more walking around, diving into the swimmingpool to cool down and reading our book brought us back to dinner :-)
We've booked the jungle flight for tomorrow. They'll come and pick us up very early (6.30am) to "fly" through the treetops from the jungle on a zipline... Let's hope I don't pee my pants all too often! ;-)

06/04: just wandering around town

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After a good night sleep we went for breakfast (yes fruitsalad, yoghurt and muesli again, hmmm) and returned back to our guesthouse where we had to change rooms since ours was booked by someone else. After that we went 'guesthouse shopping', because we can only stay in this guesthouse 3 more nights, then all rooms are booked. We booked 3 nights in a guesthouse where we can use the deluxe swimmingpool of the hotel next door. During Songkran (Thai New Year accompanied by a lot of water throwing) we'll stay at yet another guesthouse with their own little swimmingpool. Since we're not at the beach, we'll just dive into the swimmingpool instead of the ocean. There's a lot of sun here, so I might still get rid off that bikertan by laying next to the swimmingpool :-) After booking our guesthouses, we walked around town to visit some more temples. Nice, but it's like visiting a lot of churches... if you've already seen a lot of them, they all look quit the same :-) We are thinking of going on a jungle flight/gibbon experience: very fun activity sooring through treetops if you're not scared of hights. Well, I am (a bit/a lot?, I don't know...), so we don't know yet. But comments on this trip are all very positive so....A dive in the ice cold swimming pool and a read in our books on the rooftop terrace later, it was already time to go for dinner again.

05/05: Cookin' Chiangmai

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Today we booked a day cooking activity at the thai organic farm with the "giftcash" we got. Thank You! The day started bright and early at 8am (since we don't have to get up at 6am to start biking, 8am is early again). First stop was at a fresh market where our guide/cook for the day (Tommy) gave us some explanation on the used thai oils, currys, sauces & very important different types of rice! Won't go into details here, but most of it is straight forward & easy. "Easy" was a word often used by him, and after making some of the popular thai dishes we have to conclude the same. Why should something have to be hard to be good? Welcome to the thai-way ;-)

After that it was a short ride to the 'farm' where the actual cooking was going to take place. Not a real farm, more a large herbs, fruit, veggie & spice garden. Still it was a good setup for cooking & seeing/smelling/tasting the ingredients fresh from the field.

First dishes: Curry. Yellow massaman (normal curry with some extra's: Cinnamon, clove, tamarin pulp) for Ardan & Greencurry for Line. After pounding all the ingredients to a pulp in a mortar, which should be done as powerful as possible to 'break'-out all the flavours. According to tommy, a good wife should make noise from the kitchen...Line was the first of the group to get his 'good wife' label! Second: Soups. Tom Yam & Coconut milk chicken. I decided to make a well chilli'ed Tom Yam to keep it thai for real & got a thumbs up at the end from Tommy...bit too much power for Line though, she rather had the more rich coconut soup. Third: Chicken Cashew & chicken basil stir fried...throw it all in a wok, stir fry...done. Easy, right? Forth: banana in hot coconutmilk, Mango sticky rice. Use lots of coconut milk, palmsugar, always add some salt to make the sweet fuller! Mmmmm. Fifth & last: Pat Thai & spring rolls. At least now we know how to make pat thai, but we still think it's too greasy to be really tasty. It was a very fun and tasty day!

So with a very full stomach we got back late afternoon to have a nap before venturing into town for some strollng & sight seeing. Lots more of that the next days. What other activities?...we'll see...

04/04: Enter Chiangmai baby

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The train to Chiang Mai was perfect again. It was cold again though and we both got off the train with a sore throat. But we really prefer the sleeptrain above any bus!

First glance of Chiang Mai looks good. Although it's Thailands 2nd city, it only has about 500.000 inhabitants & the city itself isn't so busy & hectic as Bangkok by far. We could just be spending our last weeks from our trip here & in the surroundings...weather is fabulous for the time being. Sun is shining hard all day long, but don't know where they got the fact that it should be a bit cooler here? We are totally melting! In the shades it do-able, but out in the open sun you can almost hear yourself sizzling like a crisp slice of bacon. Our GH for the night actually has a small pool, but since it doesn't get any direct sun its a bit of a shock to dive right in ;-). Still a very nice extra in this weather!

Rounded off the day with an evening stroll along the water, eye-shopping on the night market & having another noodlesoup at the local foodcourt with some banana-roti street dessert. We're really going to miss those noudlesoups! For tomorrow we have a cooking class day activity planned on a organic farm little out of town...anxious to see what that's gonna be like!

03/04: & off we are to the north!

It's starting to get a bit ridiculous, we know...first down from the north to the south, then back up all the way to the north...but now that we are not bound to short distance travel by bike we feel the need to compensate? No, we really don't, but spending our last weeks in a flood zone isn't really what we signed up for either.

So we get on a Chiangmai bound train this evening. Another 13h sleeper train ride to look forward to, actually travelling by train in thailand so far has been great, so we are really kinda looking forward to it! Also according to the weather forecast chiangmai should be bathing in sunshine, while being a little cooler then bkk...joepie!

Rest of today we spent playing tetris & cards in Lumpini market together with Toon.

02/04: Some new part of bangkok

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After a good nights sleep in Toon's appartement, from which you have a killer view across the Chao Praya river btw, we walked around a part of bangkok we didn't see before...yes, even after many days in bkk still a lot of ground is not yet known ;-)

Luckily for our photo album Toon spotted a very welcoming sign on some massage salon window...I think something went wrong in translation...they ran out of t's, but still had plenty of f's?? Me lof you long time, 2hours! suddenly gets a whole other dimension. Only that picture makes a 5km walk on the "other" side of the river well worth it!

After that we took some more R&R, reading up in our books and searching the internet for the weather conditions around thailand in order to decide where to spend our last 2weeks...Finally we decided on Chiangmai up north...back north that is, we are really going all over the place now, but rain is just annoying, everything we can to try to avoid it.

01/4: Today is time to leave...back to bkk ;-)

Today & yesterday some boats got out since the wind got a bit less. So after a week here it is time to look for some better scenery. We are a bit lucky, cause now we can also take a boat to Chumpon which is more north than Suratthani & hopefully that way we can prevent getting into the worst flooded areas. In any case, we go straight for Bangkok again. Stay there maybe 2 days again & try to look for the better place to go...no rain is good enough, we don't even ask for sunshine at this time ;-)

Actually now waiting on Koh Phangan pier in the sun...5min ago it was raining though...mother nature is confused.
Line also got hold of some anti-seasick pills, so hopefully this boattrip to the mainland will involve a bit less puking then when we came here :-)

30-31/03: Just waiting it out...

Owke, the plan for some last few weeks of sunshine on an island will not work. That's pretty obvious.

It has been raining almost non stop for about a week now. Boats stopped connecting the island a couple of days ago because there is too much wind, electricity is out, phone/internet too. Stuck on an island. Actually we are in a good spot. High up on the hillside, so no water troubles. The good side of the island too, the other got the storm full blast on the shore and there things aren't so good. A lot of people tried to get of the island the last days, we didn't bother. Starts most didn't get anywhere and where just around a couple 100's waiting around the pier for a boat...then if you get off, you make it to surathani which is now flooded...we rather sit relaxed in a bungalow here than in a flooded large city.

Anyway, we just wait. So far so good.

29/03: another rainy day on koh Phangan

"Op een overstroomd eieieieiland..." (variatie op kinderen voor kinderen-liedje ;-) ).
Yes well, power went out again last evening and we were without power today also. Together with the Belgian couple, a German guy and an Austrian girl we sat on the porch the whole day. We read something, did some sudoku, talked a little, got bored a little. It does make you feel like a group, being stuck together on a rainy island. The German guy even went to the 7eleven and brought us a little gift: ferero rochers! :-) The people who went to the port yesterday and today are still there. Apparently 500 people waiting to catch the boat. We know for at least one girl who has missed her flight back home, think she's not the only one. The guesthouse host thinks that maybe tomorrow there will be boats again. We'll try our luck tomorrow. It's been okay for the last five days in the pooring rain, but it starts to get boring. So we hope that the sun will come out tomorrow, or the day after. If not, at least it's a change of scenery going to Koh Samui :-).