Arrival in Thailand

...unfortunately a bit late, the wifi is not great here, so the pictures will follow later and the text is coming late...

Sunny, tired greetings from Thailand to the wintry homeland. Yayyyy, I made it, after a journey that was way too long for me, I finally arrived in Thailand and I'm soooo tired. On December 30th, I left Selfkant at almost 11 am, then flew from Brussels to Dubai at 2:30 pm. After a 6.5-hour flight, I had to wait for about 3 hours in Dubai before continuing with a 5.5-hour flight to Bangkok. After arriving in Bangkok, I had to wait another 5 hours for my connecting flight to the south of Thailand (Surat Thani), and after another 1.5 hours of flying, I finally arrived at the airport there (on December 31st at 1:30 pm German local time). It took me more than 24 hours to reach my destination, which is even more exhausting than I thought. I'm totally tired, I have no sense of time anymore, and I hope nobody can smell me ;)! But other than that, the journey went really well, no delays or bad turbulence (except that I had my craft scissors in my hand luggage and they thought I was a terrorist in Dubai :D ). My parents were so kind to drive me to Brussels. And this, even though they don't really understand my travel fever and the farewell was not easy because of their worries. Thank you again, I will take extra care of myself because of that ;)! The flights were with Emirates, I have to say, very nice! There's no need to go to the movies right before an Emirates flight because they have the latest movies, games, music, ..., so the flight time literally flew by. The food was really frequent, abundant, and good, so I practically had restaurant visits integrated into the flight. On the first leg to Dubai, I even had three seats all to myself, so sleeping would have been easy if the movies weren't so good ;). But in Dubai Airport, the relaxation was gone. I think I've never seen such a huge, spacious airport. We drove (or rather crawled) almost half an hour by bus from our plane to the connecting flights area on the airport grounds. But that actually had its advantages because I met 2 cool Belgian backpackers. I already love the mentality of the Dutch (especially those from South Limburg) because of their relaxation. But I never knew that Belgians were so relaxed and friendly. The guys started a conversation with me and gave me helpful tips about Thailand. We were speaking in Platt (Flemish is really close to our Platt), drinking a glass, marveling at the gold prices and the huge airport as we strolled around. Time flew by for us in Dubai. Our plane from Dubai to Bangkok was really huge (the new double-decker plane, I forgot the name again :D), but unfortunately this time it was rather full. There was a child sitting right behind me that cried throughout the whole flight (that confirmed my decision against having children ;) ), so I couldn't really sleep and I arrived in Bangkok quite exhausted. Thank goodness the airport was quite nice, the coffee was very good, and I could spend some more time with the guys, so the time was bearable despite being tired. My first impression of Bangkok? Stressful, western, pleasantly warm, and surprisingly there's a rather rude and unfriendly way of interacting. Maybe I shouldn't compare everything with my beloved super-friendly Americans, but because of Buddhism and the great weather, I expected more relaxation from the Thai people. Compared to Canada or America, I didn't feel welcome at all...but I hope that was only at the airport and that the friendliness will manifest itself more at other places in the next few days! After all, this is supposed to be the Land of Smiles...according to my first impression, even we Germans smile more and that means something ;)!

On the other hand, my first host is an extremely friendly Thai who seems to be the happiest to welcome tourists :). He picked me up in Surat Thani, where I landed after a short flight from Bangkok- finally my final stop for today with a big bed and a shower! I was sweetly welcomed with a name tag (a great feeling to be welcomed after such a long journey), he had prepared food for me, and tomorrow he will drive me back to Surat Thani Airport from where I will take a bus and a ferry to Koh Phangan. All these kind services, including accommodation and breakfast, only cost 8€, and that's even in a single room, a financial dream for students with wanderlust! Admittedly, there's nothing going on here in Surat Thani, the airport is even smaller than the one in Aachen-Maastricht. But I'm still happy to finally be able to get some sleep and then start the journey to my first actual destination, Koh Phangan, tomorrow. Koh Phangan is an island in southwestern Thailand, probably quite touristy unfortunately, but at least according to descriptions, it's not only full of party tourists but also many spiritual, alternative travelers gather there. I'm curious to see if that's actually the case. There probably won't be much New Year's Eve celebration here in Surat Thani tonight (by the way, I'm 6 hours ahead of you). My host just explained to me again that today is only celebrated artificially for tourists since the Thai calendar is different. I'm curious how tonight will be...I was never really a big New Year's Eve fan, but sitting alone could still be strange. Well, I always like to challenge myself, so I'll report back on what it's like to live alone in a foreign culture during New Year's Eve. I wish you all a Happy New Year, good health, joy of life, and above all lots of love for the new year. And of course, that you plan a trip :)! Good night.