Day 157: Last days at the beach and a farewell

From Laos, we flew to Ko Chang in Thailand. Ko Chang is a mountainous island with a coastal road winding through it. We often wondered where the locals eat and swim, as we mainly saw groups of tourists walking along the road with bare bellies and not knowing what "Thank you" means in Thai.
But in between, there were also a lot of beautiful things: the friendly scooter rental lady, roti with banana by the roadside, a fire show by the sea, monkeys climbing on power lines across the road and stealing empty passion fruits from our terrace, moist air after a rainy night as we ran on our scooter, Chang beer by the sea, and our feet in between sand and sand flies.

And then came the diving! Because the sea was so turbulent, we got a little seasick on our dive boat before getting into the water. The sea was stirred up when we jumped into the water from the boat in full gear with an oxygen tank. Underwater, we could only see up to three meters. But on those three meters, we encountered pink fish with purple stripes and huge eyes, parrotfish, and schools of turquoise fish through which we swam. We glided over coral reefs at a depth of 13 meters, which looked like fields of giant roses. All those pictures from down there are only stored in our heads.

After that, we had one last Thai massage, one last jump into the sea, and in the evening, the heartfelt chants of old Thais with white, flowing hair who sang passionately beautiful in their hippie bar. The name of their band was "Sticky rice and friends" and that fit because just like sticky rice, the old friends seemed to stick together. One wore Chucks and walked on crutches to the microphone while another shouted to him, "You know, I love you."

And then it was time for us again: off to Bangkok. We let ourselves drift through Bangkok for two more days, a city that reminds me of Berlin, but an Asian version.

And now we are sitting at the airport, waiting for our departure. We have been traveling for more than five months, through Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, and occasionally back to Thailand. And now the pain of farewell is mixed with the anticipation of seeing our loved ones at home again. We are very much looking forward to seeing all of you.