Day 20, 21.08.2014, return to our beloved Bangkok

Once again, I have a lot of time on the bus to think about and report on experiences and recent events.

The departure this morning went fairly smoothly, alarm clock at 6:30 a.m., the last time we used the fairly comfortable shower, woke up the kids, packed the last things (which is always associated with a reasonable amount of haste and chaos for 5 people), went for breakfast (although pretty much everyone didn't really eat anything because they all had a lump in their throat), quickly took two photos of the whole family (didn't happen often) on the beach,

feeling a bit nostalgic, putting on a sad face and off to check out, because our shuttle to the ferry will arrive in 10 minutes.

The ride across the island made us feel even more melancholic.

Arriving at the pier, our shuttle immediately boarded the ferry (which was basically full with our minibus) and before we had even unbuckled, the ferry was already moving. But what was that? Apparently, we weren't the last ones, there was a Landrover parked behind us, half-slanted with one wheel on the loading ramp.

It must have accelerated during the departure maneuver and made a daring leap over the pier wall, landing right behind us.

And again, another rusty bucket. At this point, our thoughts are no longer about our own survival, but only about saying goodbye.

Goodbye beautiful island, goodbye beautiful time, goodbye beautiful Thailand. When will we see you again? Will we ever see you again?

As Kerstin and I daydream together, just like Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di'Caprio on the bow of the ship, we promise each other to regularly and thoroughly visit the Asian tropics, at the latest after the last child moves out.

This time, at the request of a single lady in our travel group, we are sitting in an intercity bus ('VIP brand'). As I reported exactly 10 days ago about the kamikaze-like journey from Bangkok to Koh Chang, I can now highly recommend this type of transportation to the attentive reader and anxious passenger.

It is certainly slower than the minivan on the way there (instead of a fabulous 4 hours, it takes a whole 6 hours), but it is comfortable, you can get up and walk around if needed,

and there is a nasty toilet (during the trip there, I kept thinking about how to make it clear to the driver in case of emergencies that he should stop at a public toilet in the next 30 seconds, because otherwise one of his passengers would have a big accident).

We also had a planned stop at a rest area (called a tin shack in Thai, open on three sides, 'show kitchen' and quite a bit of garbage in the gutter), where we could once again eat truly authentic Thai food. Truly authentic usually means that you often can't eat more than half of the portion because you now have a strong hiccups, have sweated quite a bit on your forehead, and no drink in the world helps to neutralize this damn spiciness (by the way, milk is an absolutely unusual beverage in the Asian tropics, so to speak, you have zero chance of getting it at a food stand)... Yves then fed the leftovers to one of the countless street dogs, which devoured it without even flinching and even licked its snout afterwards. I guess if you fed it to a German dog, it would provoke a tortured howl and that faithful look that asks you 'why did you do that?...'