After a short stopover in Germany it was finally time to explore Asia, starting in Bangkok...
well... first the plane made a stopover in Muscat, Oman, time to read a newspaper and check the weatherforecast for the desert over there... ;)
?!
Bangkok
say hello to temple complex of the Grand Palace!
Garden of Grand Palace
sitting Buddah (..behind me ;)
feet of Wat Pho in the temple of the reclining Buddha, what is connected to the Grand Palace
now you can imagine the full length
Wat Benchamabophit... or easiser.. - the Marble Temple
lovely horse, unfortunately I could only find some stone made horses over there, so to go for a ride through BKK by horse wasn't possible... ;) in the outside you could have taken an elephant instead, but horses not longer do (or never really had?, not sure now..) a big meaning in the Thai-culture, what's another big difference if I think back to Latin America.
the Giant Swing, constructed by Rama I, next to Wat Suthat Temple, during a royal ceremonie people where trying to catch a bag of silver coins placed up on the pillars while swinging here and... a lot of accidents happend so that they changed this tradition now...
on the way to the "Golden Mountain" of BKK
entrance of the "Golden Mountain"
miniature
*gong***
on the top!
you can find many of these little bells with a place for writing your wishes down
atmospheric in the inside
would have been nice just to fly the way back
..cause the view from the stairs looked so inviting!
Golden Mountain at night
the best taxi driver I could ever meet in Bangkok. He picked me up accidently close to the Grand Palace and finally he showed me around for more than two days, while we became friends.
In general going with a taxi in BKK is crazy - I never needed so much time for such small distances, but the good thing is, you have a loooooooot time to talk in the car, and he really rocks, if I'm ever in BKK again, for sure I would try to call... thx again* :)
In general going with a taxi in BKK is crazy - I never needed so much time for such small distances, but the good thing is, you have a loooooooot time to talk in the car, and he really rocks, if I'm ever in BKK again, for sure I would try to call... thx again* :)
street restaurant
producing the special bowls for the monks
..and here they are...
like a little king ;I
really tasty cakes on the swimming market..
different kind of lychie
2nd level
3rd
like in a ferrytale, right?
traditional handwork
River Kwai
yucca-plantation
finally reaching Kanchanaburi,.. exploring all by myself (how nice this felt after the guided tour!) and quickest by bike instead of walking...
*river kwai sunset*
..and here they are...
like a little king ;I
my favorite street bar not far from the super touri-crowed Khao San Road... but here it was a kind of cosy and well... the night before I still danced salsa with a mexican girl on the street, forgetting that I fell off a horse a few weeks ago and that my damaged leg still needed a bit of a rest.. (especially after climbing 1000 and one templestair at daytime!)
so the next day I ended up with a "thai plaster", the flip-flop taped on it...
btw - the visit at the BKK-doctor was a fun experience itself... listening to stories of a throat-ace after a sexual contact (??!), while watching all these really depictiv (and disgusting!) pictures of the "most popular" sexual illnesses in the waiting room, seems like this is normal buisiness for the doctors here....
Later the nurses invited me to have the spiciest dinner ever with them in the clinic, because it needed sooo long to organise the raw materials for the plaster in the daily BKK-traffic... but finally, after the "plaster success" when the little clinic was closing (Nana-Clinic is the name by the way, if you ever want to give it a try... ;) I had a drink together with the docter and the nurses and they invited me to come again - just to talk - what I actually never did, but anyway this was my most amusing doctors visit so far...
To finish the day another Caipirinha at my favorite bar on the street was the best way then!
so the next day I ended up with a "thai plaster", the flip-flop taped on it...
btw - the visit at the BKK-doctor was a fun experience itself... listening to stories of a throat-ace after a sexual contact (??!), while watching all these really depictiv (and disgusting!) pictures of the "most popular" sexual illnesses in the waiting room, seems like this is normal buisiness for the doctors here....
Later the nurses invited me to have the spiciest dinner ever with them in the clinic, because it needed sooo long to organise the raw materials for the plaster in the daily BKK-traffic... but finally, after the "plaster success" when the little clinic was closing (Nana-Clinic is the name by the way, if you ever want to give it a try... ;) I had a drink together with the docter and the nurses and they invited me to come again - just to talk - what I actually never did, but anyway this was my most amusing doctors visit so far...
To finish the day another Caipirinha at my favorite bar on the street was the best way then!
ok, a closer look at the plaster... later in Sumatr was kind of hard to travel with it, but somehow it worked (thanks to everybody who helped me carrying my backback!!!) and after a while luckily I was able to change the plaster into something more flexible...
Trip north of BKK in the region Kanchanaburi
Because I wasn't able to walk really good, I decided to book a guided one day tour to the swimming markets, Erawan waterfalls and the river Kwai bridge to reach Kanchanaburi in the end, where I stayed for a day...
it felt so weird to follow this guided thing, like you cannot think by yourself one day this kind of holiday really was enough...
Because I wasn't able to walk really good, I decided to book a guided one day tour to the swimming markets, Erawan waterfalls and the river Kwai bridge to reach Kanchanaburi in the end, where I stayed for a day...
it felt so weird to follow this guided thing, like you cannot think by yourself one day this kind of holiday really was enough...
really tasty cakes on the swimming market..
different kind of lychie
I tried to catch some pics without the tourist masses in it, but they are lying in fact I would never ever advice this markets to anybody for a visit, it's unbelievable crowded with tourists, stinky and loud because lot's of boats are also driven by fuel and you cannot by something special here anyway...
maybe you can imagine what I mean a little bit better on the next pic I took (I liked the contrast of the laughing tourist man with his wife and the Thai boat driver...)
maybe you can imagine what I mean a little bit better on the next pic I took (I liked the contrast of the laughing tourist man with his wife and the Thai boat driver...)
Erawan waterfalls
you can climb up to seven different highs, with a special guide only for myself ;) (..who cared for my foot and me..) I made it up to the fourth level and prefered relaxing there instead of pushing it too far
2nd level
3rd
like in a ferrytale, right?traditional handwork
River Kwai
they build this whoha high! railway line during war times in an extremely short time, loosing a lot of lifes... like many we drove the 30 min way from that point back to Kanchanabury
yucca-plantation
finally reaching Kanchanaburi,.. exploring all by myself (how nice this felt after the guided tour!) and quickest by bike instead of walking...
*river kwai sunset*