Holiday in Thailand!
We have just been to Klong Muang Beach in Krabi, Thailand, to visit our good friend Marcus Häberli and his lovely wife Supranee, who run a little restaurant called Balini. Marcus entertains the guests while Su cooks the most fantastic meals...needless to say that we didn't loose any weight over the holidays!
Klong Muang is still unspoilt territory; no highrise buildings full of tourists but little resorts and guesthouses, little local restaurants and for the rest beaches, peace and quiet and the occasional Mullah calling for prayer (and I must admit, it sounded quite nice actually). We stayed in Krabi Sands, another one of those treasures...little bungalows, fantastic pool and breakfast on the beach! We rented a scooter and spent many hours on it trying to find the Tiger cave, which is apparantly on top of a hill. Hiking up will take you across 1200 stairs...we didn't find it and I am suspecting T did that on purpose! We found waterfalls instead, and rubbertrees, strange hillsides and lovely little eateries. The Thai are wonderful gentle people whith great food and terrible english...and in Thailand there is, as we both wrote (independently of one another) on our postcards...no honking, no begging, no dirt. What a difference with India! We spent the first four days sleeping, sleeping and sleeping, as if all the energy we ever had was completely drained. I guess to a certain extent it was; India is terribly intens and very intruding, wether you want it or not.
The last days we spent in Bangkok, riding the skytrain to the river, taking a longtail boat from there and for the rest we did a LOT of walking. It took us past the amulet market, the flower market, the river, the Wat Pho (the temple with the golden recling Buddha) and the Palace, which we couldn't enter as mourners were praying for the deceased sister of the King. The King is God for the Thai and his picture is everywhere (I mean everywhere...even in our hotelroom!); one is not allowed to lick a stamp for the protrait of the King is on it and one doesn't lick a king...I think I missed a golden opportunity to find out what a king tastes like!
Anyway, it was lovely and far too short! And we have taken the decision to not take vacations longer than 3-4 days in India anymore as in india one never finds any rest. There are things I want to see but I'll do it in short trips; holidays we will plan from now on in the neighbourhood countries...