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Hello

I have been in Thailand for 2 weeks now and the 'vacation' is over...😎

Saying goodbye was hard...but it was great to hug all my loved ones again, have a drink (or two, three) together, and reminisce about the good old times...Thank you again to everyone for all the wonderful encounters, gifts, laughter, and even the tears...

At the Kloten airport, when I showed my passport at check-in, the woman at the counter said to me: Wait a moment...Then the boss came and told me that I had to report to counter X...a thousand thoughts went through my head, too much luggage, no visa, and so on...grrrr...but it turned out to be amazing: at counter X, there was a little bag with 2 Prosecco and a card from my friend! WOW! What a surprise, cheers! I boarded the plane slightly tipsy, and I even had an emergency seat to stretch my legs...awesome! The flight went by quickly and smoothly, 10 hours, watching movies, eating, sleeping...

Bangkok, here I am...the tropical, humid air, the heat, the hustle and bustle, and the chatter of the Thais...oh how I missed it!

I spent 4 nights in the 'luxury' hotel Riva Sury in Bangkok (a divorce gift to myself, after recommending this hotel to many others but never actually staying there myself), an absolute oasis of well-being on the Chao Phraya River, 5 minutes from the famous Khao San Road.

The days in Bangkok flew by, there is so much to do...massage, markets, Tuk Tuk rides, temples, food stalls where you can try something delicious everywhere, shopping centers, cosmetics, and I even went to a dental clinic. I had dental hygiene done for 50 CHF, and my teeth are sparkling white again!

For 2 days, I got to spend time with my friend Chao, whom I have known for 14 years. He has a car, so we drove out of Bangkok one day, visited his 85-year-old uncle who is as fit as a fiddle! He makes his own whisky but has never tasted a drop...we got to taste lychee, berries, and many other flavors...it was fun 😊 We also visited a coconut 'factory' where everything is still processed by hand, very impressive.

Other than that, I bought everything I need on the island in Bangkok, where it is cheaper. So I had to increase my luggage for the domestic flight to 40 kg 🤣

With exactly 40 kg and 8 kg of hand luggage, I flew from Bangkok to Krabi (1.5-hour flight), where Sita (my Thai friend of 14 years) and her English husband Nick were waiting for me! Such a wonderful welcome! The car ride is 2 hours to the island of Koh Lanta, including one ferry ride.

I spent 4 nights in a bungalow next to Sita's house, a simple wooden/bamboo hut with lots of charm and no luxury, wonderful!

In order to get around the island, I rented a motorbike (will soon buy a used one) and practiced my first drives with Sita's daughter, Smile😀 Until now, I could always just sit in the back and enjoy the ride, but now I'm alone and have to do it myself. It's not difficult with an automatic transmission, but the left-hand traffic, the crazy drivers, and the sometimes bumpy sand/stone roads are a challenge. It gets better every day, and I only drive with a helmet and slowly...as the Thai say: cha cha...

I have already met my absolute favorite masseuse, Nong, and enjoyed the best massage, simply wonderful, a Thai massage for 10 CHF/hour!

I make an effort to try a different menu every time, because there is not only curry and rice in Thailand😀 It is always delicious and often spicy, I am slowly getting used to it again, and every chili burns twice😅

During the 4 days with Sita, I took care of most of the things I still had to do: install a Thai SIM card for my phone (and understand all the different promotional offers😏), learn to ride a motorbike, shop for my new 'home', clarify and organize visa trips to Kuala Lumpur, check Muay Thai (Thai boxing) training times, choose a room, reserve a bungalow for my Swiss friends who are coming to visit me, etc...Of course, I also took breaks and went to my favorite spot on Long Beach Chalet...Currently, it is still low season (rainy season), so many places are still closed, no boats or ships are operating, and it feels like I'm alone on the beach/in the restaurant... there are a few tourists, though, and they are lucky with the weather! In Bangkok, it mostly rained at night, since a week on Koh Lanta, it's been raining for 1 hour, which provided a short, delightful cool down!

Now I live in my home at Lanta Sport Resort...after the first night, I changed my room because it was connected to the neighboring room and therefore very thin-walled. Now I have found my oasis! After more than 7 months, I have my own 'place', and what a place it is! I had a lot of fun getting settled, no longer living out of suitcases/backpacks/bags. I still had 3 bags of clothes at Sita's from last year, and it was a surprise to see what came out of them😀 So my 'vacation' has come to an end, and everyday life is setting in😎

Muay Thai...the Thai martial art...is exciting, tough, and fun...the training takes place right below my room, and I can choose when I want to train (8 am/9:30 am/4 pm), each session lasting 1.5 hours. I need 100 hours in 3 months for my visa. I have already trained 4 times (3 private sessions to learn the technique), and this afternoon will be training number 5, then I will need 1-2 days off and a 2-hour massage😄 My body is tired (I haven't done any sports for 6 months and probably partied too much), and the first bruises are visible, but every beginning is difficult! At the moment, the 21-year-old K1 world champion from Holland is training here, it's a whole different level🙃 I watched her yesterday, and she gave me useful tips!

Currently, my daily routine looks something like this: 10 hours of sleep!!! A short swim in the 25m pool to wake up, enjoying breakfast on my lovely breezy terrace, swimming/relaxing by the pool/in the sea, having lunch, relaxing, training, relaxing, having dinner, sleeping😀😀😀 I still need to learn when and what to eat to have enough energy for training and I'm trying to quit smoking/drinking beer, which is not so easy...the days usually go by too quickly, and I always want to do more and explore, but there's simply not enough time, but I still have a looooot of time here😁

Trash Hero Koh Lanta: since Sunday, I have been a supervisor for Trash Hero here. This means that on Sundays from 4 pm to 6 pm, I have to be at the beach at the park and provide the volunteer helpers with garbage bags, and off we go to 'clean up' the beach. A hotel next door provides water and a table, and usually, tourists come for the clean-up. But with Dany, things always have to be different😃 No one showed up, so I started alone and then, in scorching heat, I thought: what's the point?! So I handed the bags to the locals and said, 'Come on, help me'😆 In the end, we had 14 full bags, about 100 kg of garbage! It's crazy what you can find there😢😢😢But every small contribution counts for OUR environment!

Thai style: Life here is different than in our country, sometimes 'annoying' but actually funny, sometimes just great:

The WiFi is not working...I ask the woman at the bar daily when Joy (the receptionist) will be back from the mainland to fix it, her answer: in 3 hours...this repeated about 100 times during 3 days😂

I am relaxing on the beach, it's happy hour, but I don't have any more cigarettes...I ask the waiter if they sell them, he says no, they ran out, but I can buy them at the shop up the street. I say, ohhh no, I don't want to...so I ask him if he can go for me, yes of course, no problem my friend😀 easy life!

The ATMs only give 1000 baht notes (30 CHF), but everywhere they don't have change when you want to buy/eat something for 100 baht...so I quickly hop on the motorbike and they drive somewhere to get change😀 the same goes for restaurants when they run out of something, often you can see the staff driving off on a motorbike and coming back with bananas or whatever😁

So my dears, that's a first report on how I'm currently living and enjoying my new life, I feel 'at home', good, satisfied, and happy!

Hello and lots of sun, power, and love,

Dany