Photo Update

for Chiang Mai Trekking and our first day on Koh Tao - here.
Stories later :)

Offline for Trekking

We're going on a trekking for 5 days starting tomorrow. We'll hike Thailands highest mountain and be with hilltribes. Sounds exciting!
Today we had a boat tour at the Ping river in Chiang Mai. The guy doing the tour was funny. He told us a lot about the history of Chiang Mai and showed us a "man tree" (check the pictures). When he started saying "We keep the river clean and clean! Clean and clean!" repeatedly, I was quite confused - until he said something about "Cleanpeace"...
We arrived here in Chiang Mai yesterday morning after 15 hours of travelling by train (we were smart enough to take the night train with beds an AC) with 3 hours delay. I guess I'll never again complain about the Austrian OeBB.
Our favorite dish (by now) is definitely sticky rice with coconut milk and mango. Mangoes here compared to what you get in Europe is just not comparable. And the salty-sweet sticky rice and coconut milk do the rest. It's freaking delicious!
Alright then, I'm looking forward to writing about the trek!

Pimp my TukTuk

Okay, yesterday we decided to go out in the evening. So we asked the first guy outside the hotel how much the taxi to Banglamphu is. 500 (about 12 Euro), wow, waaaay too much. So we went on and asked the first Tuk Tuk driver. 150. Too much. We talked him down to 100. That was quite fine. But we didn't expect that:
Usually, a Tuk Tuk has no "Unterbodenbeleuchtung", no sub-woofer, no flashing disco lights and no fat speakers. This one had. Take a look!

Bangkok 2013

I couldn't remember that there are that many "Hilux" in Bangkok... but I remember the spicy food - and I love it!
Anja and I (okay, honestly: I) already got into many tourist-traps like "The Wat Pho is closed today until 1pm, but I can get you to with TukTuk! Only 40 Baht!", but Anja saved us :)
Today's highlights: eating Durian (adding schnapps afterwards for health security), 45m lying Buddha, cooked peanuts, using the hotels rooftop pool (coming soon)
Here are the pictures.
PS: Anja and I are not using our Austrian SIM cards. So, in case someone wants to contact us urgently... or just for fun :)
Anja: +66838693235
Wolfi: +66838693086

What's next?

Alright, I guess I can't let 2012 pass without any post…
So, here we go!
Well, there's not much to tell besides an announcement: I'm going to travel around Thailand again in February 2013! Meanwhile, I'll check my "old" Thailand pictures and posts.

Schengen?

Denmark will reintroduce permanent border controls coming Tuesday (read more [german]). Luckily, we'll pass the border already on Sunday ;)

Btw: I enabled anonymous commenting :)

Where the sun never sets…

Three days ago Anja and I packed the car full (very full!) and started driving north. About 1300km later we're in Kiruna now!

The axe museum and shop in Gränsfors Bruks were closed (surprise, surprise - it was Sunday…). However, we managed to get into the museum using our special people-skills. Thanks to the lady working at the restaurant!
Yesterday I couldn't resist to go to a salmon fishing spot which was mentioned in a tourist guide. It turned out that you have to rent the equipment (because of diseases) for 30 SEK and pay for the fish you catch (69 SEK per kg, including guts :)). Well, it's not very difficult to get a salmon on the hook when there is plenty of them caught in a cage, even if your equipment is a fishing rod with the top broken off. At least it was delicious ;)

After a day of driving in the rain we're in Kiruna now, the northernmost city of Sweden, famous for ore mining. We had some delicious elk and reindeer meat together with - I'm tired of saying it - creepy expensive beer.
The highest mountain of Sweden (~2000m) is quite close, but the weather forecast doesn't promise nice hiking weather. Therefore, we'll probably head Lofoten (Norway) maybe with a short stopover in Narvik - just to see how it looks in summertime :)

The Scandinavia Picture Album has magically expanded…