Week 21 - Koh Chang 2.0 + Bangkok

I actually really liked my new residence for the next 5 nights, the Pajama Hostel. For its price, however, I wouldn't have expected the brutally bad sewer next door. To get to the beach in two minutes, you have to cross a 50m long footbridge that goes over the sewer. After I ventured over there one day breathing through my mouth, a frighteningly large lizard's head peered out at me from the gray broth, and to this day I'm not sure how big this snake/lizard really was.

Apart from that, I found my new house beach the best of all the beaches on Koh Chang. I rented a scooter for two days and drove comfortably through the places left and right to eat, go to the beach and browse. But I didn't drive any further because the roads here are clearly too steep and hilly for me. Otherwise, a lot of travel planning was done again.

When I wanted to book the ferry for the next day, everything was actually fully booked for the first time...that really shocked me until I realized that it was related to the Thai holiday and everyone was leaving the island again. That's why I was stuck on Koh Chang for another day and wasted away the day there, even though I actually had a lot of to-dos for Bangkok. In the evening I had a really good meal with Mandy (from Dresden). We ordered a lot of Asian-style dishes and then shared them (papaya salad, grilled sea bass, Pad Thai, wontons, grilled seafood in curry paste). Then we had a roti with a Thai mom. Perfect farewell to the island.

The trip to Bangkok went great and was unspectacular, except that in the last few meters we were stuck in a traffic jam for an hour, Bangkok-style. I was really looking forward to Bangkok and this time I actually felt really comfortable in the city. It was already my fourth time there and this time the hostel, transport, currency and food were no longer a problem and were already very well known. I felt really comfortable even in the heat. I went thrift shopping because it's still below zero in Seoul, but in the end I didn't find anything and just bought a pair of jeans at Uniqlo (a bit high, because you can't buy long pants in the whole of Asia...). My hostel in Chinatown, on a street where only plastic slippers of all shapes and colors were sold, had a cool terrace over the Chao River, which I really liked. After the Chinatown Night Market, I was able to devour great dumplings, soups and coconut ice cream in the evening and say goodbye to Southeast Asia for the first time.

Starting next week, the big South Korea/Japan Spam is coming up, with special guest Esthi!