Ko Lanta

Hello, you sweeties!

The time in Ko Lanta was a huge rollercoaster of emotions... but let's start from the beginning.

As usual, we were picked up by a minibus directly from our accommodation and driven towards Ko Lanta. After a short while, an older gentleman got in and sat next to Julian. He smelled so unpleasantly of sweat that we all felt sick. Julia had a small bottle of liquid deodorant in her bag and started to spray us all with it, hoping to cover up the smell a little. It worked reasonably well.

When we arrived on Ko Lanta, we moved into our bungalows with only one window and visited the beach, which was practically on our doorstep. As I learned in my training, a newly formed group goes through various phases of group formation. The first few days after Julia's arrival, we were in the norming phase, in which we first familiarized ourselves with the new constellation. Now the unpleasant storming phase began, which was characterized by a lot of friction and conflict. Since Tobias had already lived with us, we were familiar with each other as a group of three, but as a group of four we first had to sort ourselves out again. In order to give Julian and Tobias more time as siblings (which is why Tobias was invited by Julian), I had decided to spend time with Julia again and again, which turned out to be very difficult in our existing storming phase. Well, I did my best.

We spent a lot of time on the island's beaches, battling the waves and building sandcastles, which made my inner child jump for joy. It's good to keep a little bit of childhood. There's plenty of time in your life to be boring. One of the few things I learned from both mom and dad.

We rode our scooters across the island to the Old Town on the other side. This had some very cute jewelry shops and the typical colorful tie-dyed clothes that you find everywhere in Thailand. The day before Julia's birthday, Julian and I had probably the most heated argument in three years of being together, which wasn't even about anything between us. At least this argument led us to eat reconciliation cake in a small, cute café, and we immediately ordered a birthday cake for Julia's birthday the next day. For Julia's birthday, we went on a snorkeling tour early in the morning, which felt like half an eternity. But that might just have been because we didn't have breakfast and the mood that came with it. The snorkeling spots themselves were really pretty, though, and I feel comfortable floating through the salty water and admiring the sea creatures. Unfortunately, we didn't get any fins, which made the whole thing a little more exhausting. We arrived back at our accommodation in the afternoon. I quickly jumped in the shower and prepared the birthday cake that the nice lady from the bakery had brought to our accommodation especially. Julia was happy about her birthday cake, which made me very happy. Birthdays were always very important in my family, and as far as I can remember, there was never a birthday without a decorated kitchen and a delicious cake from Mom, Lea, or now also my brother Jakob. Unfortunately, Julia only got the cake, but it was with a view over the sea.

We also took a trip to the national park, which was a blast. It was like a big, natural and slightly dangerous playground for adults. We had to climb over huge roots, go under fallen trees that were lying on the path, and past a crumbling bridge that had been crushed by a tree. A national park like this is just amazing. We saw lots of different plants, some of which could have been used as saws because of their sharp spikes and needles.

The last few days with Tobias and Julia felt easier. This was perhaps partly due to the knowledge that Tobias would soon take the little piece of home that he had brought with him and that had felt so good with him. Saying goodbye felt worse than it did five months ago when we started our trip. Like someone had covered you with a cozy blanket and suddenly took it away again before you had even finished resting. When Tobias and Julia got into the minibus, we wanted to go with them and it almost felt like a punishment not to go with them. Julian and I spent what felt like half the day crying, cheering each other up and laughing at each other when we both started crying again. We planned our onward journey back to Krabi to visit a friend of Julian's and spent the rest of the day doing nothing. It was good to do nothing again after the last few weeks had been so action-packed.

See you soon! 🐑

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