15th of Feb and after our 6hours delay we arrived at our last destination in BKK, the Khaosan Baan Thai. A cute, little family-owned Guesthouse, a 10 minute walk away from Khaosan Road in a nice area without too many tourists and hostels around. We directly went out to do our last shopping activities, went to (great recommendation from our GH owner) a huge Thai Shopping mall to look for those Thai mattresses and cushions (bought two 2-parts triangle ones, two normal cushions and one bast fibre mat for 30 Euro! What a bargain when you realize that ONE of these 2-parts triangle mattresses cost around 45 Euro in back home) and did some shopping on Khao San.... I am really having trouble in thinking that these are my last days on this trip.... It feels so normal to be here...
16th of Feb and we got up early to go on our last booked trip. With Green Mango travels we went on a cool trip outside of BKK. Driven with a private car to a wonderful local food market, we continued via ferry to a train station where we hopped on to the train to the famous Maeklong station. You ride on the train directly into a small town/into a market. They -kind of- open the market for the train to pass through and then right afterwards they close it again with their paravents and umbrellas. Such a cool thing...
After this we took our private ride to go on a longtail boat trip into the Mangroves to feed some really aggressive Monkeys and went on to see the Mussels and Fish Farms. We stopped for a delicious dinner and took our ride back to BKK. At night we went into Soi Rambuttri for the last time and I actually felt like crying when for the last time we ordered our Chang Beer and Thai food.... ;-(
Back in the Hotel we packed our stuff for the last time....
17th and our last travel day....We managed to stuff all of our packs and souvenirs in the taxi, did not have any problems at check-in and left Asia around 12.30 pm Bangkok airport for Istanbul! To be honest, I did not feel like leaving at all... actually crying on the plane and getting nasty comments from Jens... I was not looking forward to going back into every day routines at all. For almost a year this trip was all I could think about, all the planning, the looking forward to it, to rescheduling, booking, the great contacts I have had in advance.... all was supposed to be over?? The 10,5 hours flight to Istanbul went by really quickly thanks to Inflight Entertainment and in Istanbul we only had to wait for a couple of hours to catch the plane to Frankfurt. Once arrived there it only took 5 minutes after arrival to be annoyed.... where in the whole wide World do they charge you 2 Euros for a trolley??? Who on Earth coming from an international flight has Euro coins with him?!? I could have jumped on the next plane back and leave.... But I had to face the truth and get our rented car. At 3am in the morning we finally arrived back home and went to bed straight away to sleep until late in the morning....... our 6 weeks trip was over when I pressed start on the washing machine....
13th of April and like I said at the beginning of this post: It took me ages to summarize the last days of our trip. Being back in Germany was tough for me, less for Kjell as -even though he said he missed Thailand and the sun- he was really happy to be back with his friends and the structure in his life. Work has started as well and all is running in normal mode again. But things have changed .... We have had the chance to look at us, our lifestyle, our way of living.... I am glad to see that Jens and I still look into the same direction. I am happy to see that our kid is stable, motivated and was inspired by this trip. We have by far not seen much poverty, this trip included tourist places and not really "the other side of paradise's medal" but nevertheless we saw what it was like to travel for six weeks on a budget and only with a 60 litre backpack. We ate differently (I really lost a good amount of weight), we discussed things, we taught Kjell a lot about poverty, environmental protection... and we took all of this back to Germany in our minds and hearts. This trip was not only about getting a nice tan and swimming in the blue sea... this trip definitely changed us and our attitudes towards a lot of things in life! The future will show the consistency of it.... but as I already have some crazy new ideas in my head I am sure a new blog will be born in a short while.... ;-)
Kjell this blog was for you ! We love you more than you can imagine and I hope that this trip will stay as unforgettabe for you as it will for us !
But I hope the rest enjoyed reading it as well... ;-)
