Sawadii „Krabi“ und Khop khun kha ☺️🙏🏼🏝️

At the end of our week we meet up with Anais, a pretty young girl traveling alone.

She comes from Alsace and speaks German very well.

We meet “Then” (pronounced Teeen), an extremely friendly young man from the other bank. 😉

There is steamed fish, 🐟papayasalad 🍍🍉 and of course pinacolada🍹 again

We learn a lot about Paris and Anais, who is studying law, and how we are in Thailand for the first time. Tomorrow is our departure day. Until then, we'll spend some lovely hours together and tell her what we've experienced over the past few days, especially yesterday evening.

So we drove back to Klong Muang to eat and soak up the colorful life of the small town.

Looking back, however, the choice of the beach restaurant turned out to be not so good. We had to wait a long time for our food, the Pinacolada contained more alcohol than we would have liked and last but not least, Sabine lost her inlay. Better yet, she swallowed it. So there was hope that she would find it again the next time she went to the toilet. It was pure gold after all. I can't say how many carats. But the hole was pretty big. So all they had to do was “ring” tomorrow morning and then their day would be saved.

Now we were both sitting next to each other, somewhat battered, looking into the night at the water in front of us. I had been struggling with a sun allergy on my lower lip for a few days. She basically exploded and all without Botox. We had a lot of fun and I hoped that the allergy wouldn't spare my upper lip either. At least the symmetry of my lips would be restored.🤣

Yes, sometimes it's so damn easy to find the world stupid.

Then we get upset about little things:

The public transport is on strike again, the sky is completely cloudy, the coffee in the office is particularly undrinkable today (which, for once, is usually the case) and the driver in front of me is carrying his car around the bend. 🙄

We Germans find it wonderful to get upset about a lot of things and really ruin our day because of it. We live in a society of criticism, a culture of complaining. Nobody can fool us.

You find out that there is another way when you leave your comfort zone. But mostly abroad. There you are, the masters of casual praise. “I like your shirt,” I hear near by and when I want to say something back, she has already disappeared.

Why do people do this?

Because it puts a smile on the faces of everyone involved and spreads a good mood. 😀

In Germany, on the other hand, compliments almost always smack of manipulative dishonesty. Praise here seems to be just a means to an end - and basically only comes from top to bottom.

It is not success that is rewarded, but failure that is punished. It starts at school and runs through our lives like a red, knotty thread. It is most noticeable at work.

One then speaks of the principle of “Milka cows” - 🐄after all, happy cows give more milk. And please only praise the performance and not the person. The whole thing goes under the name “feedback”.

Perhaps that is also the explanation why we Germans have such a tense relationship with praise. You meet so many people every day who you and yourself can of course make their day with a simple compliment. I recently said to a supermarket cashier: “You are so incredibly fast, wow.” and she actually smiled at me and a pleasant, warm feeling flowed through my body.

Thank you for reading my blog this far. 😃