Travel through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia

Travel Thailand Laos Cambodia

Long time no blog entry. I really have to apologize for that, but in the past 2 month I was so much more eager to take photos of my Asia adventures than writing all that experiences down.

Ok, I will try to make it "quick". :-) (of course you know that I won't be able to keep my promise)
After I finished my internship Sebastian came to visit me for 3 weeks. We went to see the Golden Triangle (a mysterious region, well known for opium production, situated at the borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos. There we hired a 250cc motorcross bike. For me the first time to drive on a big bike with clutch, but it worked out pretty good and was so much fun, since before I had only been driving on the little 125cc city cruisers.

The next day we crossed the Mekong river and entered to Laos, which costs us 20US$ for the 30 day-visa. On a speedboat together with "Native English speakers" from several countries we rode 200km on the Mekong to the town of Luang Prabang, which is a great example for French colonial architecture, but has also plenty of young Laos men, that try to sell drugs to Western tourists.

On the bus to the Laos capital of Vientiane we couldn't sleep all night long because the driver was listening to loud Laos style karaoke music without a break, probably to stay awake. Earphones are probably unknown. It was just a nightmare!! After a few hours of sleep, we hired two big motorcross bikes again, this time even bigger and heavier, and started off to a tour, which was meant to last for one day, but in the end became 4 days! The first night we spent in Vang Vieng, which is a surreal scene. After driving several hundred km through beautiful, but also very poverish and least developed Laos countryside, suddenly a Western backpacker oasis with nice guesthouses, internet cafes and pubs, that offer drinking alcohol out of buckets, pops up out of nowhere. It took us some time until we felt right there.

The next day we drove up to the mountains, which provided us with unforgettable mountain sights. Also the temperatures fell down to under 20 degrees, so we bought a long trouser (remember we had only clothes for one day) and long after dark we arrived in Phonsavan. The next day we visited the "plain of jars", which is an interesting archeological site, and consists of fields of stone jars, that, according to a theory have been used as a graveyard many hundred years ago. The area was still full of unexploded bombs from the time of the Vietnam war, actually thrown to defeat the Vietcong troups, that had fled to Northern Laos.

From this town back to the capital we then decided to take a "dirt road", which didn't have any pavement yet. This road was quite ok in the beginning, although driving speed was limited due to little stones on the track. But later the road became steep and washed out, and finally we had to cross some little rivers and mudholes with the bikes. We were not prepared for that and the longer and deeper the mudholes were, the more desperate we became. So desperate that when I tried to drive through, my bike slipped and a moment later I was lying in a mudhole, my leftside looking like dipped into melted chocolate, unfortunately it was no chocolate. Not much later, Sebastian slipped too and fell off the edge of the track and right into the jungle with his bike upon him. Fortunately he was not injured at all, which would have been a catastrophy, since we were in the middle of the jungle, and there were no hospitals, only pieceful villages with villagers that live a simple life without all the Western standards we are used to since so many years already.
Dirty as we came out of the jungle, we filled our tank at a bigger village at the edge of the jungle, and organized us something to eat, although the villagers looked at us like aliens. And they were right. After the mud fight in the jungle we looked as if we had been on a wellness mud bathing, but forget to wash it off afterwards. Pretty exhausted from the jungle dirt road struggle (believe me, this road was the most miserable I went on ever) we made our way back into civilization.

Next day we crossed the border to Thailand again and left Laos behind. A country, which calmness (people drive slow and with patience, holding umbrellas in one hand and steering the motorbike with the other hand :-) ) and overwhelming friendliness had fascinated us from the beginning. The travel through the Eastern part of Thailand was not so spectacular, so I skip this. After a few days in Bangkok (I already wrote about Bangkok a few month ago), we took the plane to Koh Pagnang, a beautiful, relaxed and still developing island in the south of Thailand. The majority of tourists is still backpackers there, although higher quality accomodations are being built already. We participated in the legendary full moon party, where 10000 young people (Western and Thais) danced the whole night to Electronic beats, fire-artists, alcohol and drugs were everywhere. The whole scene was truly spectacular.
We also went diving during our stay there, which was on a beautiful spot called Sail-Rock. For Sebastian and me, who had not been diving since we got our licence two years ago, it was a marvellous experience.

Back in Bangkok, Sebastian had to leave to Germany, and Tip came down to see me. Together we wanted to the the world famous temples of Angkor in Cambodia. We bought a bus ticket and made our way to the border. Just when we were crossing the border, the conditions suddenly became much worse, than we both had ever expected. Little children with even more little siblings on the arm and dirty clothes, were begging us for money. In the office we then saw a sign that said "Please don't exploit our children. A child is any person under the age of 18." Cambodia still suffers from a huge prostitution problem, and also little children are among the victims of ruthless men. It is so sad.
Just behind the border the road again had no pavement, and was half flooded. Plus, huge roadholes that can easily make your car breakdown, covered the entire road until Siem Riap, the town close to the temples. According to some rumors a Thai airline is supposed to pay a large amount of money to the Cambodian government, to make sure the road is not fixed too quickly.
After our arrival I could not just accept these miserable conditions all over the country, so I bought a lonely planet guidebook for Cambodia and read about its miserable past. In the 1970s, the communist regime of the Khmer Rouge had devastated the country, when they tried to establish a peasant state and even abandoned money, and important infrastructure like hospitals. An incredible number of people died during the period of their reign, and even after their regime had been cracked down by the Vietnamese, random raids and killings among the people still took place for many years. These harsh developments threw Cambodia back far behind and still the country has to develop in all areas.
Despite these discouraging experiences the actual temples of Angkor were the most splendid and spectacular architectural complex I have ever seen. The sheer vastness of the ruins takes one's breath away. The whole area of Angkor occupies over 400 square kilometers. Some of the ruins have been maintained over the time of a thousand years, but others have been left to the jungle, so at the temple of "Ta Phrom" (the movie Tomb Raider was filmed here) huge trees sit on the walls and there enormous roots "flow" down to the ground.

After a few days in Angkor we felt "templed out" and made our way back to Thailand, were we visited Kanchanaburi, the town of the bridge over the river Kwai. We learned a lot about the death railway, that the Japanese built during the second world war. They used many thousands of war prisoners (mainly British) to build an insane railway route through the deep jungle. The prisoners were given only starvation rations, and had to work allday under the burning sun, exposed to exhaustion and diseases like Malaria or dengue fever. Many died under that inhuman conditions.
Despite its miserable history the surrounding of the town has plenty to offer, like the Erawan national park, with its gorgeous 7-level waterfall, containing crystal clear water, as well as curious and hungry fish, that tried to feed on my skin.
To explore the beautiful countryside over there, I hired a cruiserbike, which was the best idea by far, since its a bit like "easy rider" cruising up and down the countryside.

After coming back to Chiang-Mai for one week I finally had to leave Thailand, had to say goodbye to my friends and Tip, which was the toughest after more than 4 month, having been together almost every day.

At the moment I am in Germany again, in my hometown Kassel and I am looking for a job, which I will hopefully find soon.
Thanks for reading my blog, and sorry again for the long time without any notice.

Greetings
Marius

P.S.: I would be happy if you let me know what you think about the quality of my photos!!

Today I got wet!

Today I went into the city and participated in what some people call "the biggest waterfight in the world", the Thai Songkran Festival. Before I actually arrived in the city centre there wasn't any dry spot left on my body, since people were throwing water from the sides of the street everywhere. Usually the water is normal tap temperature, which is kind of refreshing at temperatures of 40 degrees outside. But sometimes they throw ice water, which is of course even more refreshing, but cools the body down too much if it appears to often and makes you freeze even at these crazy outside temperatures. Armed with buckets a watergun and a watergrenade we went on a truck of Tew's and made our way into the city center, where the slogan was: "Make wet or you get wet".

Songkran Water Festival

Happy Songkran

When I went out with the motorbike this morning and just came out of the first corner, a brigade of little children were lurking on the side of the road and poured 2 or 3 waterbuckets over me.
Woooo, you might think, I should have stopped the bike and beat the hell out of these little rats. :-)
But this was no act of bad behaviour or ambush, but the first day of the Thai new year celebrations, the so called "Songkran-Festival". Actually the time of the 3 day celebrations have been traditionally used by Thai people to carry out a general clean-up of their house. But in recent years the big cities and tourists centres have become a scenery for massive "Water-wars". People use water guns and buckets to make everybody wet that is close to them. Many people drive on pick-up trucks with big tons of ice cooled water in the bag to be able to refill the "weapons". Tomorrow I will join the fights on the back of the pick-up truck of my friend tew. Together with my friends I will prepare a few dozens of cool showers for my Thai people down there on the streets!!!

I am back from long travel

Hey fans,

today I finally can tell you about my travel experiences from the past. I apologize for my long absence from here, but very often I prefer catching some sunlight, dealing with friendly Thai people around me, and eating the delicious Thai food, instead of spending hours in front of the PC with sorting and postprocessing photos etc. So, sorry for the inconvenience!

As I already announced in the last post, I went to travel to Bangkok, the old historical site Ayuttaya, the floating market of Damnoen Saduak and finally Koh Chang, the "Elephant Island".
After a 10 hours ride with the very comfortable VIP bus we arrived in Bangkok in the early morning. When I stepped of the bus, I was struck by the enormous heat all around me. It made me feel so uncomfortable that my thoughts more and more focused on where I could find the next air-conditioned (AC) area. Fortunately this area materialized in form of a taxi, that took us to Tew's house. After the ahh so refreshing taxi ride we encountered crazy temperatures again in Tew's house, but since there was one AC room, everybody knew where they would find me for the next hours.

So my first impression of Bangkok was: Crazy heat, crazy traffic (almost everywhere we went we got stuck in a huge traffic jam), and crazy people, who somehow manage to stand the craziness of this mega-city for longer than a few hours. Well, actually I was becoming part of them, since my first stay lasted for 3 days. But on the first day we already fled to Ayuttaya, which is an ancient historical site from the old Thai kings, and is a well 1 hour drive over endless highways on giant concrete pillars north of Bangkok. I could take many nice shots in the heat of the day until we went back in the evening in a AC car, which was driven by the niece of Tew and her friend, two nice looking girls who somehow didn't really communicate with us and hardly participated in the activities.

The next day we got up early and visited the floating market of Damnoen Saduak. People sell food and goods from boats there and use old waterways to get from one place to another. The whole market is in constant movement, and if a seller does not find enough people to buy his stuff anymore, he just moves on with his boat to another spot, where the business might bloom again. We even went on a 1 hour canal boat trip, which we enjoyed a lot, since we saw a lot of the simple Thai life along the old canals, and plus the boat was going fast, which made the temperatures a lot more bearable.

The next day we left Bangkok with the bus (this time a normal bus without comfort) and a toilet that didn't have a regular flush but an overfull water bucket that threatened to make me wet each time we drove over a bumb. From the main land south-east of Bangkok we took the ferry to Koh Chang, which is called the Elephant island due to it's shape. We checked in to the Magic resort, a cheap accomodation with only a small bedroom, only a whole in the ground as a toilet, no basin and a shower with cold water only. But since this wouldn't be the place to stay for most of the day, we made ourselves comfortable with the circumstances.
I rented a motorbike there, which was a bit of a hazzle, since the bikes were in such a bad condition. The funny thing is that the island doesn't have real petrol stations, but many places just sell the fuel from whiskey bottles. If nobody would have told me that I would have probably tried to drink from the bottles, because the fuel has a warm reddish brownish colour, like whiskey. Anyway, the bike is the most convenient thing to have on this island, so we were driving a lot. Since the island has very steep mountains, some roads are so steep, that I could hardly go up there with the motorbike. See the video inside the picture gallery for that. :-)
During the next 4 days we relaxed at nice beaches, listened to chilled-out music at the beach bars and on the last day, I even went scuba diving with Michael. I must admit, that I could not remember so much from my scuba diving course at the Great Barrier reef two years ago, but since almost everything is no problem in Thailand, I had a lot of fun, although the water didn't have so many attractions like the great barrier reef.
As a summary, I would say that Koh Chang is a nice island, but developes much too fast. On the more crowded westside, new hotels and accomodations are created very quickly to attract even more tourists, while environmental questions play only an underpart. But who likes it more quiet, can explore the beautiful east side, where a winding road passes through steep green valleys, sugar cane plantages and dreamy villages. At the far end, even a rough off-road adventure awaits the tourist, that makes it that far.
Plus, apart from the more luxurious tourist locations, one can see Thai families living under most simple conditions, that reminds the blessed western tourists of the so called "Third world". People have simple bamboo houses with a roof made of leaves, live and cook directly on the main road, sometimes don't know where to put the garbage. And little children play in that environment. Although I had been staying in Chiang-Mai for many weeks now, I first had to get used to that kind of conditions.

Back from Koh Chang, me and Tip stayed 4 more days in Bangkok, where we visited the Grand palace, where the Thai Kings have lived in the past, took a ride on the river and visited the marvellous temple "Wat Arun", which has steep stairways for brave european hikers, that are not afraid of height. In the evening we went up on the Baiyoke sky tower, which is the highest building of Thailand. We enjoyed an endless view across the Thai capital and I shot a few nice pictures of the sunset and the always pulsating highways, appearing like the veins of Bangkok from far above the ground.

When we finally got back to Chiang-Mai after a crazy 14 hours train drive, on which I didn't get much sleep due to heavily shaking waggons, I was pleased by the cool temperatures and little traffic in Chiang-Mai. After 2 weeks in the hot south and especially 4 days in the Bangkok craziness I was glad to be back "home".

Finished 1st part of project / Upcoming Travel Notice

It costed me a lot of time and sweaty hard work: cutting and assembling the two loudspeakers, which are actually the 1st part of my project here in Thailand. Today I finished work with the speakers and tested them. They actually sound very nice, but what is even nicer is that I can see the product of 3 weeks of hard work now. And they make sound, that's so great!!! :-)
You can see the plan for the speaker here. Soon I will show you one picture with the finished product.

At work

Furthermore I just wanted to inform you that on Friday I will leave Chiang-Mai for a 1 1/2 weeks travel. No, my internship is not over yet, but since people at the university are quite relaxed about the amount of work an international student has to do and want me more to get to know Thai culture, way of life and language, I was allowed to take 1 1/2 weeks of from work.
I will go to Bangkok (we all know it's the capital of Thailand), a crazy metropolis with even more crazy traffic and air pollution, but also very vivid and fancy. After that I will visit Ayuttaya, a very old temple site from a few centuries ago, when it is the old capital and king's town of Siam (Thailand was formerly known as "Siam"). Then we will go to visit a site that is famous for it's floating markets, which means people sell food and all kinds of other stuff on boats on the water. You might feel reminded to the James Bond movie "The man with the golden gun", where wild pursuits were taking place on the waterways. After that we head to "Ko Chan", which is also called the "Elephant island", thanks to it's shape. There we will stay for relaxing at the beautiful Thai beaches, soaking up the sun, swim at some waterfalls, do scubadiving and just enjoy our freetime. I will have company from Ayush, Tew (who will be our very experienced travel guide), Tip, Michael and Tan.
I am really looking forward to that since I cannot wait to see a bit of the rest of Thailand. Having stayed now about 1 month in Chiang-Mai has been very interesting, but I feel like getting away now for a certain period of time.
So I hope you liked my pictures and still keep reading eagerly what I have to say. :-)

A mass of new images uploaded

Today I uploaded a huge number of new pictures from the last 3 weeks. There was a lot of stuff going on, so check it out.

at work, party, temples, people, elephant camp, power plant visit

Thailand is wicked!

Yaah, Thailand is wicked, that's true!
Yesterday I celebrated my 28. birthday. We went to a "German brewery restaurant" and ordered a "German Sausage Jumbo dish". We had Frankfurter, Bockwurst and Weisswurst. I liked it, but my friends from Thailand and India rather sticked to the Thai food, that was also served. Too bad! The attempt to export a piece of our culinary German food culture failed... :-)
Later the live band in the brewery played "Happy Birthday", and as I quickly realized, this song was for me. Then my friends presented me with a big birthday cake with lots of candles on it and while I blew them out somebody put the spotlight on me, so that all people in the restaurant could see who is the happy birthday guy.

What I wanted to tell you last time about Thai girls and Western boys in the discothek:
Thai girls are much more decent and respectable than girls in many Western societies. For example excessive and sexy dancing or kissing in public (even mostly in the club) is undesired here. So usually it goes like this: A more or less drunk Western guy (often to be seen with a sleeveless shirt, shorts, flip-flops and Tattoos) approaches a very well dressed Thai girl by just touching her, whereupon the Thai girl will push him away. Most likely because that's absolutely not the way a Thai girl likes to be addressed, even not under the influence of alcohol. While Western girls, who also sometimes wear beachclothes, are much more familiar with this way of the guys introducing themselves to the women, Thai girls seem to hate that like hell. Usually they are so kind and always show such a cute smile, but one time in the club I saw a Thai lady shouting at a Western guy in a very nasty way; so loud that half the club was aware of their struggle. He had obviously done something very bad, and she knocked the stuffing out of him (zur schnecke machen :-) ) and was strikingly resolute by doing this. Anyway, after almost 4 weeks of getting to know Thailand, I can say: The majority of Thai girls are really at least as cute as sugarcane. :-) They look like angels. Photos will follow soon.

And one more thing I wanted to tell you about is the Chiang-Mai music scene which I was trying to become a part of: I now know much more about Thai musicians. Having been to a huge number of restaurants with live music so far, I would judge the ability of most Thai people to make music as the following:
In technical terms they are awesome musicians. Almost all of them have had a very proper education on their instrument, which can be easily seen from the way they hold and play it. When entering a bar I am usually blown away by the sound, the timing and the technical abilities of the musicians. But: Almost any band I have heard so far, started to bore me after 10-15 minutes. The problem is mostly that they only play cover songs and often they have worked them out sooo accurately that you couldn't tell the difference from the original (they even sometimes use the same instruments the original band used). But (again) I am afraid that I must say: The majority of Thai musicians are not able to put feeling into the music they play. Often it sounds a bit like a computer that plays MIDI files. Most of them have no sense for setting accents to the music. Although they are very professional at the technical level, the way they are playing and interpreting couldn't sound more boring to my Western ears.
Another important point is, that most of the cover bands I have heard, seem to practise a new song for so long, they are finally able to play it exactly like on the CD. There is no room for interpretation or experiments. Most of the live music here I would describe as sounding irrelevant (the German word "belanglos") to me. It just happens in the background and doesn't excite. To finish with this, I want to make a comparison: Some people say that most of what is known to us as "Black music" cannot properly done by white musicians, because it's usually only the black people that can put in a certain kind of feeling (for example: "soul") into the music to make it sound black. I partly support this thesis and would go further and say, that most of Western style music cannot be properly played by Thai people, because they are also missing a kind of feeling that is found so commonly in many of our Western music styles.

Well, after having written a novel again I will come to an end now. In the next days I will put on some more photos (including several trips to different sights and scenic landscapes) to illustrate the fun I have here a little bit more. :-)

So I wish you a pleasant day and say thank you for reading, until next time

San Kamphaeng hot spring and Chiang Dao cave etc.

Lots of things happened during the last week:
On Tuesday I finally rented a motorbike. It is a little faster than usual (speeds up to over 100 Km/h if you want that. ;-) ) Although I don't have a driver's license for that kind the rental was not problem, they just wanted to see that I own an international driver's license, which I do. I am thinking about doing my driver's license for motorbikes in Thailand now. It will be extremely cheap, only about 3 euros and you only have to answer a few questions, that cannot be difficult according to the driving abilities of most Thai people. Plus, I heard it's available in English language, too. It's only valid for one year and won't be valid in Germany (of course not), but I can live with that. But in case of an accident I am more save with license here.

For lunch and dinner I always go out with Ayush and Tew, two very nice people, that have become my friends during the last week. I already introduces Ayush, he is IAESTE student from India, and Tew is a Thai university teacher for architecture, which knows a lot of nice places to go to or to eat out. With them I went to some bars in the evening to have a couple of beers and listen to some live bands. The first band we saw was on the "Riverside" and played Red hot chili peppers and similar cover music. They were all in their twenties, but extremely professional on their instruments. Plus, the sound in that bar was awesome, as the equipment was, too.
During the next days we went out more often and I discovered that almost any restaurant or bar has a live band playing in the evening. It's always the same: Equipment and sound is of very high quality, the musicians know more than well what to do with their instruments. Some coverbands even play their own versions of the songs, which is a pleasure to listen to.
First I thought I might be able to play together with some live band, but since most of these people play so much better than I do, I am not so sure about this anymore.
Anyway, after having heard 6 or 7 bands playing, I noticed that although most of the bands seem to play almost perfectly together, I percept a lack of the certain something. The music was indeed missing some experimental elements, it seems to be designed to pleasure the guests like a sort of background thing. Even a jazz jam session I watched seemed to act only within certain boundaries that had been defined before. I wouldn't say that Thai people don't play by their hearts but for me something is missing. I let you know about if I find out what it is the next days.

On Friday we went out for party purposes until 4 o' clock in the morning. I will show you the pictures the next days, because they are on Tew's camera. Plus I will provide you with some information about fundamental differences of Thai and "Western" mentality, that manifested very clearly between drunk Western boys and Thai girls in the discothek. Be curious for that!!

The weekend has been no less busy than the week was. Me, Ayush and Tew visited the San Kamphaeng hot spring and afterwards the Chiang Dao cave. At the spring, which is a very touristic site (Asian tourists) we bought a basket with bird's eggs, which we could boil in the water of the hot spring. It was close to a geyser that shot out of the earth at a temperature of 105 degrees celsius. Close to the geyser there was a basin for boiling the eggs. They tasted very good, since they didn't have a very different taste from chicken's eggs. After hanging around there for 2 hours we made our way to the cave and had to climb up a very steep stairway with a dragon's body winding all the way up to the top, serving as a handrail. The way into the cave was then the other way round. It was extremly steep and tight, too, since you had to crouch to get down the stairway. The cave itself was of an outstanding and bizarre beauty. It was a long way from the top to the basement, we had to climb down. At the basement finally there were some Buddha statues where most of the people showed their respect by kneeing on the ground and praying. After a while I got short of breath and we climbed all the way up again and went back to Chiang-Mai. In the evening we relaxed at a restaurant and had a marvellous dinner with decent live music and a band, that came to play to our table. It was an unforgettable experience.

getting used to the thai way of life

Hi my Dear blog readers!

as I have been staying in Thailand now for almost a week, the aforementioned culture shock is starting to decrease. Now I already speak a few Thai words like "hello", "thank you", "rice", "noodles" and more important than anything else - "mai phet", which means "not spicy". :-)
Since people always smile at me and I always smile back, everybody is happy and nothing can go wrong, even if you don't speak Thai. If you try that in France, you would probably not get away like this. :-)

My sunday was not very eventful, since I spent the day on the internet to check a lot of still unclear things and gather information about Thai customs and things to visit in Chiang-Mai. In the evening I got to know two of my flatmates from the accomodation. The first one is Michael, a funny guy from the US with very long fingernails, which I first thought he would use for playing guitar, but he has it on both hands. The other one is an Indian guy called Ayush, who is also an IAESTE student like me. Since they were coming in when I was about to go out of the house, we didn't do anything together yesterday.

One episode from today I want to tell you: After work one of my colleagues took me to a place where lots of bands rehearse. He introduced me to his band, which consists of 5 students at the age of 19 to 20. They played songs like"Zombie" and other Thai stuff I didn't know. When I entered the room, I was given a very warm welcome and immediately given one of the guys guitars. I tried my very best, but I couldn't hear myself playing, since everybody had turned up its own volume to an unbearable level. Plus, the sound was unfortunately only a mishmash, where it was impossible to clearly hear what each person is playing. During the rehearsal, I adjusted the sound of my guitar for better articulation, although it was not easy the way they had putted their effect pedals.
All together I would say it was an interesting experience and I will definately return, next time I'm gonna show these guys how to produce a good sound that each instrument can be heard clearly among the others. :-)
As an already old guy (with my 27 years I can now say I am a senior :-) ) I should be able to share my band experience a bit with those young people.

Alright folks, that's it for today. Probably, the next days I will rent a motor-scooter to be more independent and can go around whereever and whenever I like. This will also result in more photographs, what you probably like to hear, don't you? :-)

Chiang-Mai Flower Festival

hey dudes!

today I woke up early and went out to see the famous Chiang-Mai flower festival. It takes place each year in early february and last for three days. Today I took pictures of the magnificent parade, where hundrets of people present themselves, in traditional Thai dresses, as well as with music instruments or artistic shows. The quality of the presentations was surprisingly good, not to say very good. For example a brass orchestra of maybe 50 children of around 10 years played songs like "Can't take my eyes of you" or "Pretty Fly for a white guy" in a special arrangement with so much feeling for rhythm and interpretation, that I was heavily impressed.

I further must admit, that I am more than satisfied with the quality of the pictures my brandnew Canon 400D takes. I guess this could be the beginning of a wonderful relationship. :-)

But now I don't want to bother you anymore, just have a look yourself!

2008-02-02 Flower Festival

Greetings from Chiang-Mai

I did it!

After a very stressful farewell in Germany I finally took my plane to Thailand. The flight was divided into two journeys, the first from Frankfurt am Main to Singapore, and the second from Singapore to Chiang-Mai in Northern Thailand, my place to stay for 3 month. The whole travel took about 16 1/2 hours! During the flight I was sitting to a very talkative German lady, who had already travelled South East Asia very often and answered me a lot of still remaining questions.

At 10:35am local Thai time (6 hours ahead of Germany) I arrived in Chiang-Mai International Airport. The climate reminded me a bit of a vacation in Mallorca. It was about 25 degrees and only little more humid than normally. Since I had expected a tropical sauna, I was very pleased about this weather. :-) I was picked up by two nice Thai ladies from IAESTE, the student organization, that made the trip possible for me.
While we were driving through the streets of Chiang-Mai, I already gained some insights to the Thai way of life. Streets were crowded with an incredible number of motor-scooters and still a remarkable number of japanese cars. People prepare food at the side of the street, which is directly exposed to exhausts from vehicles passing by. Life mostly seems to happen outside the houses, since most of the shops are open towards the road. What is the most remarkable difference to Germany is the level of tidiness. Besides the chaotic way of driving (motor-scooters partially pull to the wrong side of the road when they want to turn off, because then they don't have to wait for the vehicles which are going straight) pretty much everything is left as it is and not tuned for beautyness. For example fascades are not being repainted after years, which makes everything look a bit like in east Germany before the fall of the wall. In contrast to that, the people (especially the young ones) pay a lot of attention to their appearance. Young Thai people usually wear long trousers and shirts, the girls mini skirts and blouses. You can bet that the majority of Thai girls really look sexy. :-)
If you happen to see a person with short pants, T-Shirt and jogging shoes, it is very likely to be a European or American.
At work I also have to wear a long trouser (no jeans) and a fine shirt, plus black shoes. But despite that, Thai people immediately identify me as being a European. Why is that?? ;-)
Anyway, although getting European food has been almost impossible for me so far, the new Thai diet has not caused me some major trouble like stomach or gastric pain.

Yesterday I was invited to a Thai dinner with the colleagues of the teaching staff of the department of electronics engineering. I was sitting among maybe 20 Thai people of whose conversation I didn't understand a word. In the beginning I was overstrained, but later I decided to just watch how the people act. This is particularly so different from our western behaviour that it can fascinate one for a long time. Later I was ordered my first Thai beer, which is called Singha beer. It tasted really good and indeed has a very refreshing character. Some of the other people also had alcoholic drinks, so you can imagine the athmosphere became much more relaxed. After a few drinks the people asked me a lot of personal questions and I got to know some of them a bit better. Thereby it was sometimes difficult for both sides to understand what the other side is talking about.

When the evening was about to end there was still some anecdote I don't want to keep back. One of the collegues wanted to drive me home. He had also drunk numerous drinks with whiskey in it. Although he had drunk he sat in the car and pulled it backwards. Thereby he rammed the rear of another car. Only seconds later 3 soldiers in camouflage pants and shirts came out to see what's happening. You can bet these people didn't look like they were in the mood for joking. I already thought they might punch the collegue for what he had done.
But then I realized from their gestures that the damage didn't matter to them. When we sat back in the car, the collegue told me that the soldiers haven't been the owners of the car, which made the whole situation appear more plausible.

At the end of this first blog entry from Thailand I want to let you know what my task will be for my stay here. As you know from my first entry I work here as an assistant teacher. My first task will be to design a loudspeaker cabinet and an amplifier for a lecture room. As I am not an expert on this field I can call upon the experience of the collegues who are electronic engineers.
The second task is to optimize the acoustics in the room, since the echo is massive due to reflecting surfaces in the room. For this task I can apply my theoretical knowledge from the university. One collegue has already asked me if I could hold a brief lecture about the very basics of room acoustics, so that part would mean to fulfil my task as being an assistant teacher.

After all, I still have to get used to a lot of things, that all have to do with cultural differences. Plus, learning to speak Thai at the moment seems to be almost impossible for me, although I've already learned a few words. Be curious for my next entry, which will reveal what the first weekend will bring. As you already know some Thai people like to drink a lot of alcohol. :-)

Trip to Thailand - Last greetings from Germany

Hey people,

it's me, Marius, again. I'm back online with a new blog. I have learned from my Australia times and use a new blog system now. For everybody among you that does not know yet:
I will go to Thailand on Tuesday, the 29th of January, to do my hopefully last internship of my life. I will be an assistant teacher on the RMUTL Technology University of Chiang-Mai, the second largest city of Thailand. It will last for 3 month, and afterwards I plan to spend 6 weeks travelling through the country, maybe visiting Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam or China, too. We will see.
The flight will take about 13 hours and the time difference is 6 hours. So wish me good luck to handle the jet-lag.
Since there it is over 30 degrees hot and very humid, I will probably need 1-2 weeks to become familiar with these conditions. At the moment, in Germany it is between zero and 10 degrees celsius.

So stay tunes and be anxious for my first post from far east Asia!!!
Cheers