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We are so kissed by life…

Beside the fact that we have had contact to so unbelievable animals like Luwaks and Balinesian monkeys, the life offers us now a next level of drifting:

We have become house and pet sitters.

Faye had this flash of genius (or gift by universe) about 3 weeks ago while searching for a nice place to stay in summer. So we invested a little bit of money and registered at two platforms for house and petsitters. We have always loved pets and had some pets of our own and we remembered our lovely relationships to the animals we took care in the past – hope you are well Bob 🙂

We knew it would be hard to get the first sits without any testimonials and reviews. But thanks to some lovely people who gifted us with their trust we now have already three agreed sits in the UK this summer. Yeappy!

I‘m so thankfull about what life gives us, it let’s my heart sing and jump.

And of cause I‘m thankful to the pet holders who entrust us with their habitation and their ‚babys’. Faye and I promise: we will treat them like our own!

https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/house-and-pet-sitters/germany/baden-wuerttemberg/karlsruhe/l/1050604/

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Live.Die.Repeat. – we did it again :)

Yes, we love animals! Staying with them is always very easy for us. No small talk (like with the other tourists). No playing games. Just simple living. Being here, right now. That’s what we like most. So we didn’t visit another typical Balinesian Instagram attraction today, but monkeys and luwaks (yes – again!!) 🙂

Remembers me a little bit of some of my former massage clients ^^ what a lovely relaxed face … 😉
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Ubud Monkey Forest

We enjoyed nearly 5 hours sitting and walking between the nearly 900 monkeys (and we didn’t count the human ones). Absolutely amazing! And not always funny, as they are really clever in grabing and opening your bag very fast or even having a look in your trouser pockets.

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Quite aTrip for a day

Seemed quite easy to travel from Koh Chang to Bangkok, Don Mueang Airport – if you schedule a whole day:

6:30 – wake up call

7:45 – searching the mini van

8:10 – finding the mini van and traveling to the ferry port

9:15 – arriving at the port and waiting 1,5 h (we still don‘t know why)

10:40 – entering the ferry

11:15 – arriving on the other side and entering the coach bus

15:10 – stop for toilet and some food

17:30 – passing the airport and wondering why

17:40 – arrival of the bus, standing somewhere next to the highway and haggling with the taxi driver to get to the airport. We got fucked anyhow, this sucks.

18:00 – arriving at the airport and searching for the shuttle bus to the other airport

18:11 – found the station and waving the bus driver good-bye, who just left the station

18:31 – sitting in the next shuttle bus and enjoying the landscape of Bangkok city

19:25 – arriving at the second airport and starting to walk to the hostel

19:40 – arriving at the hostel, having a room on the 4th floor, no elevator

20:00 – writing this post and wondering why I do so rather than having a cold Chang …

20:05 – forcing Faye to go for a Chang and some food

12 hours trip for 372 km, that‘s Thailand!


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Beach, dogs & monkeys

Finally we found a beach today that had more than one foot high water, as nearly all other beaches here … and that ment the water didn’t have about 36 degrees even when you swim 500 m into the sea, but only about 32, which is a very very tiny little bit refreshing, but not like stepping into a hot tub when it has about 40 degrees outside, as it was at the other beaches 😉 That’s Thai dry/hot season! Even the Thai complain about the great unusual heat here, so you can image, we are so groggy and worn out just from living and breathing! But today we really had luck: a beautiful beach, lovely dogs and even some monkeys on the way back 😀

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What a freaky location

We should be completely honest about this: we have chosen this accommodation at a Greek guesthouse, right above the restaurant, just for imaging having great Greek food every day (and Ouzo of course). And so it is!!!

And it really is on a long long pier, right in the ocean (that has only very low water most of the time) and, we also have to accept the not to lovely fact: it doesn’t smell very nice here sometimes, especially as it is the hottest season in Thailand … but that’s just how it is 😉

El Greco Lounge bar Greek restaurant guesthouse
Koh Chang Tai, Amphoe Ko Chang, Trat, Thailand
https://goo.gl/maps/T8BKe18T3yA2

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Songkran – Thai New Year

5 days of Madness. Even if you don’t like it you have no chance not being involved as soon as you go outside.

You will be splashed with water and painted with white powder.

So we did the best and enjoyed it…

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Feeding a Chang and then drinking a Chang on Koh Chang :D

The Thai elephant is called “chang” and is the namesake for the best Thai beer (in our opinion) and this lovely island, where we are staying right now. Touching the elephant was really interesting as the trunk felt like a piece of a tree. As Andy had the fruit for the feeding he got to know how strange it feels when the trunk is moving around your face ^^

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And again … back in Thailand

This time we are on Koh Chang Island (near the Cambodian Border) and for the next two weeks we will again enjoy the more chaotic and slowly lifestyle here and the good vibes of beach life! Afterwards it will be Bali for 3 weeks 🙂 Anyone good tipps for Bali?

Indie Beach Bungalow
32/3, Hat Sai Noi, Moo 1, Bang Bao Tambon Koh Chang Tai, Ko Chang Chang Wat Trat 23170, Thailand
https://goo.gl/maps/EPhBS4CsTYQ2

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My final personal thoughts about Japan

For sure it was worth to visit this country. Not only because of the cherry blossom but more to get a deeper view into this culture. And for me Japanese people are trapped between their traditions and the modern world. Their biggest concerns seems to be loosing their face by doing something weird. Hah, my country 😉

I also saw a lot of old (I guess retired) people who did meanless activities, e.g. guidung the traffic in a car park where only one way is possible. Or in a case where these men held up signs ‚watch your steps‘ Freaky for me. But later I learned that this tasks are very important for the retired people because they didn’t want to annoy their wife at home and they needed a structured day flow. So it makes sense in the Japanese culture but felt very weird for me.

But there are also things we could learn from them, hygiene for example. Especially the public toilets are super clean, desinfektion spray everywhere, and the toilets themselves, well, you saw the pictures. The other side of this hype was that approx 40 percent of the people had breathing masks, which was extreamly strange for us. It spoils completely the face mimics so you never know that the person you talk to really thinks. But maybe this was the real intention?

Something I didn’t thought about at the beginning was the language and the writing. It is Japanese. Point here for us, we have no chance to understand or even interprete a single word. And except in Tokyo most Japanese don’t speak English. But thanks to modern technology (mobile phone and google realtime translator) we managed this challange. And while thinking about the situation realized that for Japanese German and the German letters are also strange and not readable.

What I mostly loved in Japan was the side by side of old architecture like shrines or castles and modern skyscrapers. Faye did some pictures which show that perfectly. And even in Tokyo we found a lot of parks with very old trees so you could relax and forget where you are.

I‘m fully sure if we got the chance to see this country with a local, many of the ‚strange‘ behaviours would make more sense for me. So let’s see what the future brings 🙂

The old and the modern

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The consequences of rules

Here in Japan lots of things are handeled by rules. This is not that different from other countries (maybe except Thailand 😉 ) but the interesting thing here is that everybody takes care that everybody keeps the rules. An example:

Tonight we went to the landscape to a recommended pizzaria. The only way to get to this place was indeed by car. So we arrived and ordered our food, pizza and beer. The waitress refused our order because one of us has to drive home and therefore we can’t drink both a beer.

Never ever heard something like that in other countries.

The positive part of the fact that I needed to drink an alcohol free beer was that I got a flower with it. But not Faye with her ‚ordinary‘ beer :-p

Celebrating a 0% beer