For our last night in Bangkok we chose to have a good dinner at a highly recommended Thai restaurant and afterwards we went to the Banyan Tree Hotel at Lumphini and all the way up to the Vertigo Moon Bar – a bar on the rooftop of the Hotel with a great view of Bangkok at night.

 

Dinner at Hemlock                                    Drinks at Vertigo

Moon Bar at Vertigo

61 floors above the streets of Bangkok, this open-air rooftop lounge gives true meaning to the word ‘vertigo’ as it grants views that simply take your breath away. The Moon Bar is one of the highest bars in the Asia Pacific.

Emirates

It’s now the 22th of April and there are only 4 days to go until our arrival in Hamburg.

EK059 from Dubai

scheduled arrival: 1:45pm

Terminal 1 – Hamburg Airport

These are pictures taken at Hat Ton Sai Beach, the place where we stayed, at sunset. Lonely Planet describes the sunsets around Railey as ‘Orgasmic‘. I don’t want to go that far but it sure was a great atmosphere!

 

The last week we’ve been in Railey, a little peninsula in Krabi Province. A great place to stay with nice beaches and some of the best Rock Climbing in the World.

Railey East as we approached it in a long tail boat

 

Me doing some Rock Climbing

Rock Climbing is something the whole world travels to Railey for. The huge lime stone formations are big natural outdoor playground for climbing fans and while we’ve been there they had a international lead climbing competition and a Asia cup.

 

On another day we rented a sea kayak and went to a little Island on the horizon – it took us 4 hours to go there and to return to Railey but the beach was the best!

The Thai New Year ‘Songkran‘ is celebrated every year in April. The most obvious celebration of Songkran is the throwing of water. People roam the streets with containers of water or water guns and soak each other and passersby. This happens all over Thailand, the first cold shower we had this morning on the way to the ferry in Ko Chang and the area around Khao San Road, where we’re staying at the moment, is one big battlefield too.

The throwing of water originated as a way to pay respect to people, by gently pouring a small amount of water on other people’s hands or over a shoulder as a sign of respect. Among young people the holiday evolved to soaking strangers with water to relieve the heat, since April is the hottest month in Thailand (temperatures can rise to over  40°C on some days). It’s a great way to celebrate a new year!

We did quite a lot of diving the last days. Dustin finished his Open Water Diver and we started our Advanced Open Water Diver two days ago. With the advanced training you can go down to a depth of 30m and it also includes under water navigation and diving at night.

Dustin and Me in our diving gear ready to descent.

Tomorrow we’ll leave Ko Chang and head back to Bangkok and then fly down to Suran Trat one day later. From there we’ll go to Khao Lak National Park next.

 

Dustin and Me at one of the View Points around the Island

By the way: On the way to the view point we raced the ambitious driver of a heavy cement mixing car who tried to overtake us on our motorbike but after a fierce race we made it first, great success!

Dustin having his fifth OreoMilkshake in a row  

The milk shakes in the bar at the beach are just the best! We already tried a couple of them and the one with Chocolate and Oreos is one of our favorites.

Me getting fuel for the motorbike

On the Island everybody rides small motorbikes because it is too hot to use a pushbike. The only thing is that there is no fuel station on the whole island. The first day when we arrived here we sat outside at a restaurant and a young girl pulled up in front of us and it looked like the owner sold her a bottle of rum but when she got it she opened the tank of her motorbike and began to poor the rum into the fuel tank of her bike. It was only after a couple of seconds when we realized that she did not bought rum but gasoline bottled up in old rum bottles. This is how you get your fuel on the Island, by the bottle…

Yesteday we traveled all day. From Bangkok to Trat in a little Bus, from the pier near Trat on a ferry over to Ko Chang and on Ko Chang with a little pickup truck taxi to the other side of the Island - a 8 hour journey.

Today we spent the whole day just relaxing on the Beach or with a cold drink on the wooden decks of one of the bars near the beach.

Lonely Beach, Ko Chang.

The accommodation on the Island is usually a hut in every variation. The Range goes from very simple sheds with hammocks to luxury ones with ac. and all you can imagine. We stay in one of those basic ones – but we have a nice bar attached to our place where we sat this evening and had some drinks, food and enjoyed the sunset …

… and also missed Flo! He stayed in Bangkok and took a plain back to Germany today because money went short and he wanted to surprise somebody special – we hope you had a good flight back home, mate!

Last Night we went to see a real Muay Thai Fight. Almost everything goes in this martial sport. All surfaces of the body are considered fair targets and any part of the body, except the head, may be used to strike an opponent. Knees and elbow strikes are decisive in most matches.

We sat ringside, right in the center of the action and saw a couple of great fights, two of them finished with a knockout, one of the fighters had to be carried out of the ring unconsciously.

 

In two days we move on to Ko Chang, a little paradise Island in the gulf of Thailand.

The last two days we spent in a little raft on the Bhote Kosi river, one of the fastest flowing rivers in Nepal.

Rapid followed rapid, providing us with some serious fun!

Twoday we fly off to Bangkok, Thailand.