Tieske's Adventures

Fog machines blow smoke into the crowd, hard beats follow each other rapidly and thousands of hands are in the air. It’s a little after midnight and we are on Koh Pha Ngang, partying at the Half Moon Festival. Multi-colored strobe lights offer extra effects, entertainers are dancing with fire and black-light emphasizes beautiful colored body paint. Paint is all around us. On our bodies and by accident on our clothes. Some people look like Native American, others like Mexican death masks. A handful of tough guys have the Superman logo painted on their chest. It just started drizzling and the sand underneath my bare feet is getting muddy. It doesn’t matter. Nobody seems to care. The party continues. We came here with a group of people. In Koh Samui we met Nikki and Maartje, two Dutch girls who are here on an internship to learn about castrating dogs. They are fun to be around, but I keep a safe distance, planning to start a family one day. Then there are Piotr and Kasha, ne...

As we exit the airplane, we are welcomed by a warm blanket of humidity. We are on Koh Samui, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. The plan is to stay here for one night and continue by boat to Koh Pha Ngang tomorrow. We booked a little bungalow room in Chaweng Beach. The room is not much more than a space for three beds, but it is dirt cheap and why stay in your room when you have an incredible backyard fifty meters away? When I’m looking for my iPad to read a book, I realise that I’ve left it in the plane. This is not something I typically do. Luckily the Bangkok Airways personnel found it before taking off to their next destination. I return to the airport and the iPad is back in my possession. Yay Bangkok Airways!  The food at our resort is amazing and we devour a delicious barracuda steak. The beers keep on coming and we’re having good conversations.  Later that evening we decide to go to a beach party at the Ark Bar. So much fun...

A ten-hour bus ride takes us to the north of Thailand; to Chiang Mai, located 700 kilometers north of Bangkok. Chiang Mai has a population of 150 thousand people and the vibe is quite different than in Bangkok, which has 8.2 million people. There are barely high-rises and Chiang Mai is situated amongst the highest mountains in the country.  We meet up with Jibby, a local girl who likes to show us around in the city where she grew up, for a culinary tour at the “evening market”. Unlike the one we visited in Bangkok, this is actually a market. We try dim sum, bamboo worms, roasted roaches, sushi, crab omelettes, pork sausages with lemon grass, chicken with satay and mini crepes with fish eggs and cream. An explosion of flavors.  As Chiang Mai is surrounded by some outstanding nature like rainforest, jungle and mountain tops, we decide to rent scooters to explore the area. Not only is this the first time I ride a scooter, we also have to drive on the left si...