Mui Ne Beach

12. March 2006, Mui Ne – the country of endless beaches and colourful sand dunes: white, yellow, red. The bus ride to this place seems to take you through a whole lot of different vegetation zones: foggy mountain forests, lush rice fields, stony and nearly desert like zones until, at the end, we arrived at the small coast strip which includes Mui Ne Beach.

There I met Katrin and Silvia again as agreed, the two ladies I had met earlier in Hoi An. Thanks God they already had reserved a hotel room for me, since the hotels were already filling up quickly. A long day finally ended with a wonderful dinner at the beach!

The next day was mainly characterised by walking the beaches, enjoying fantastic seafood and at least for me, Qigong in the morning at the beach while watching the rising sun. Spectacular!

Soon after, our guide took us in a jeep to the major highlights of Mui Ne:

the Red River and Red Dune,
Fishermen?s village
White Dune and Lake
Sunset at the Red Dune

All of them are definitely worth seeing, just for the fun of it. And fooling around in the dunes is great fun, especially when the sun starts to set and what just has been a yellow-orangish dune now is painted in warm, redish colours.

This night’s dinner was very nice: fresh seafood on the charcoal, prepared right at the table. Actually, some of the seafood was so fresh that it tried to escape when the waitress opened the bowl’s cover! One of the small „scampi“ really tried to run off the table and landed in the sand, before it was caught again. Minutes later I of course had a fresh scampi (at least freshly washed?). Needless to say that my two (female) companions were a bit disgusted once they saw the poor scampi landing on the grill – I think they had expected something a bit less lively.

Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City

14. March, 2006: Ho Chi Minh City and Saigon: After hours in the bus we finally reached the metropolis in the south of Vietnam. What a town! Millions are living here and to me, it seems it takes us ages to get from the city limits to the centre, where our hotel is situated. My room is in the 6th floor and I happily accepted the hotel staff?s offer to help me with the luggage. I assume they will carry it up and hope for a decent tip. But what a surprise: the clerk pushes a button, somewhere a motor starts and suddenly a hook appears from the ceiling. Quickly the steel cable is pulled around the backpacks ? and off they go!

Our next day takes us to the city: we are walking around all day, and visit two museums. Particularly the ?Vietnam War Museum? is worth seeing. Although it?s giving more the Vietnamese version of the war than the US, it shows the atrocities of war. Once you see this you lose any understanding for military actions except maybe to defend oneself.

But also the other buildings are impressive (post office, City Museum, atc.). Soon the afternoon draws in and we enjoy ourselves in a street café with ice, coffee and cake before we continue through the markets with their open air shops. There ? a man waiting on his moto with his litte son, his wife coming from shopping, and then the little daughter leaving school and joining them on the bike. Soon the family joins the thousands and thousands of other motobikers, heading home in the rush hour. We do the same and take a rest in our hotel before we again leave for a restaurant that Thy and Christian recommended to me. And what a restaurant it was! Open kitchens all around a central court with a lot of wooden tables ? and full of people! Good we had reserved a table for us 😉 A pity that this is our last evening as a group, since the next day I will return to Bangkok and soon afterwards, Katrin and Silvia will return to Germany.

Bangkok – Koh Samui – Koh Tao

16. March 2006 – I return to Bangkok and my flight and the following taxi ride take me just in time to Kenny, the tailor I asked to make some suits and shirts for me. This will be the second fitting and it happens just 24 hrs before I depart to Koh Samui. What a surprise as everything is already ready and fits perfectly. Since the taxi is still waiting I take everything right with me to store it at the hotel instead of coming back a week later.

Next day: flight to Koh Samui and from there with the Lomprayah Express boat to Koh Tao. I don?t see much of Koh Samui, but the airport is impressive. It resembles a big park like area, and each airport functionality is situated in its own little hut and from there a transfer bus takes us to the ferry?s landing area: a sandy beach about 30 minutes away from the airport.

A few hours afterwards I finally stand at Koh Tao?s soil, I enter ?Turtle Islands?. While waiting for the transfer taxi to the Resort at the east side of the islands I meet two other Germans: Anja and Thorsten, who will stay at the same hotel as I, and so we share the seats of the hotel?s pickup truck.

What follows is a wonderful relaxing week at a small bay with only two or three resorts and a diving centre! Of course I am in the water within minutes after arrival and much to my surprise I am immediately surrounded by small and colourful fish! So it is back to my little hut, fetching my brand new underwater camera housing (yes, I bought one specifically for this!!!) and hey-ho, back into the sandy bay. Not for long and I also stand in the diving centre and ask for fun dives.

The very next day we have our first house reef dive, a dive that for me also serves as a kind of check-dive (it is my first dive after finishing my CMAS* degree in December). It works great and Werner, our guide, explains the planned dive so precisely that you know he knows the place better than his pockets! Cool guy, and really, luckily he?s also my group?s dive guide the next day.

Unfortunately after that my back starts to hurt for two days, so I don?t do much more than laying around in the shadows, reading in the open air restaurant and chatting with people at the resort. It would have been a good time to mail updates but unfortunately the internet is ?broken? or computers ?do not have enough electricity? (the less formal explanation is that the hotel?s internet access only works if the owner likes to turn it on).

Even less good luck then the next two days when the dive centre?s air compressor down and the backup system spits oil into the tanks. Two more dives in the bay is all I can get. Hm, better than nothing.

And much too soon my stay at this lovely and tranquil place again came to an end and I head back to Bangkok: speed ferry to Koh Samui and then by plane to the City of Angels.

Bangkok and Goodbye

25. March – my before last day in Bangkok. I decide to once again soak in the atmosphere as much as I can (although given the smog in Bangkok, I probably also soak in other stuff as well). This time I had back to the business district, using the channel taxi, which is a very cheap water taxi. In fact, it?s not even a taxi, it works more like a bus system with large boats and regular schedule. And I learn that also the Thai?s think that they better not get into contact with the channel?s water. Each time, the boat leaves the piers, the passengers at the side hold up a nylon line at which a plastic cover is mounted to shield them from the ?water? splashes. Hey, did anybody test how much water this brown, badly smelling liquid still contains? Anyway, it is a great experience and it is faster and less annoying than the uncountable tribike drivers in hunt for passengers.

Soon I stand in Bangkok?s newest and hippest (and most expensive) warehouse: Let?s read the directory at the escalators: Bangkok Aquarium in the basement please. Oh, you want Maserati, Porsche and Lamborghini? Shops are in the 5th floor, just at the grand atrium. Posh, darling, this is the place for you! There is a Hifi shop and they offer?, wait a minute, I don?t know that brand? or that one? that one neither ? Heaven, this is a different world! Oh, yes, you have to see the food court at the first floor. You like different small restaurants in a great half circle, sitting area in the middle? This is your place. Or fancy something different, more ?traditional?? Come to one of the restaurants with the nice background music ? life music, of course. It seems they have everything here and if it?s not on exhibition you?ll find it in the catalogues and if it?s not here, they will find it for you.

After so much wealth it is time to get to a more tranquil, silent place again: the Aquarium. It seems you leave the noise of that ?other? world behind you as soon as you enter this brand new oceanographic aquarium in the centre of Bangkok. They have a lot of different species here, but at the same time it seems focusing on not too many different ones. Sharks, firefish, crabs, nautilus,? it?s an amazing world in its own right.

Later this afternoon I met Thorsten and Anja again, who returned to Bangkok already one day earlier than I. We had a few great hours again and agreed to meet in Munich or Vienna, whatever opportunity is better in the next months.

And then it is the last evening: packing everything, ordering a taxi for the next early morning, enjoying a last massage in the hotel’s spa (I believe, this time it is 5 hours?) and hitting one last time Kao San Road, the backpackers‘ bustling high street. I am still here and I start missing it already now, a strange melancholy taking grip of my heart.

Leaving the country the next day is easy, technically seen. Emotionally I would like to stay for longer, still learn more, see more, meet more people. It seems they haven’t been enough:

The crazy party Norwegians here during my first days
Maam, the waitress in Kanchanaburi, who once was a leading business woman and left everything behind
The two lovely German ladies in Kanchanaburi, travelling for just around two weeks
The Dutch guy who kept on crossing my path (or did I cross his??)
The two Aussies on their way to Europe, making a stop in Thailand
„Apple“, the liveliest travel agent I have met so far, enjoying her life in Chiang Mai
Vuthy, the young tour guide in Siem Reap & Angkor Wat, who studied journalism and who’s dream it is to once in his life visit Great Britain to improve his (already very good) English
Makara and her colleagues in the Swedish hotel in Phnom Penh who are so nice and made my stay there so comfortable.
The young French girl, who travels the world and her mom, who visited her in Vietnam and with whom I spoke my first French since I had passed my French exam at the university ten years earlier
Katrin and Silvia, my northern friends from Germany, whom I could accompany from Hoi An to Nha Thrang and later from Mui Ne to Saigon and with whom I had so much fun,
The lovely „Dreams“ hotel owner in Dalat, who runs three business at the same time and still finds time to talk to her guests in three languages and to make them feel welcome
Hong, the Dalat Easy Rider, who had worked in so many different jobs before and showed my the Vietnamese countryside, explained a bit of history and not only took me to the sights of Dalat but also the people
Anja and Thorsten from Munich, nice people and brave divers J
Werner, the best dive guide around
Kai, who is a very charming person and knows how to give fantastic massages

And then there is a group of people whom I would like to thank for many reasons:

Christian and Thy, for inspiring me to undertake this adventure and by this expanding my „comfort zone“, learn the value of freedom, curiousity and trust in whatever may come
Lupo, Flora, Roman and Doris for lots and lots of advice – and Lupo for picking me up from the airport 😉
All of you folks, who joined in my fun via this blog and who helped to to stay linked to homeland Austria J
Mama and Papa, Peter, Mirjam and Eva for their continuous support in the months before and during my journey – although some of them had wished I might not travel so far and still took me to the airport 😉

Thanks for your trust and support!