Patrick's hungry elephant

Back in Belgium

After a long night on the plane we're back home now.

Holiday is over, but it also is always nice to come back home. We anyway need to work again to put some money aside for the next one ;-)

Thailand was much better than I expected (I honestly was not really attracted by Asia); it was a great journey in a great country to discover (even if we only discovered a small part) ...

... smiling people
... different culture & big variety in food and nature
... good guide(s)
... personalized service (thanks Patrick & Suwat)
... nice people to travel with
...

Very nice start for 2007 ...

New-years Eve in Chiang Mai

We were not very enthousiastic to spend New-Years Eve in the hotel, but this was a mandatory dinner linked to room reservation.

After the welcome drink first entertainment soon started.



The animator (nice assertive women) made it a real success.



Several dances, live singers and games. Guess which ones are real women and which not ?

Phil doing the Limbo

And other party people

At midnight : Chinese dragon dance

To end start 2007 we had our first drink outside

Royal Flora Ratchaphruek - 31 December

As promised, here some images of our visit to the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek - Horticultural Exposition in honour of the 60th anniversary of His Majesty the King's reign.

Hot hot weather that day and a lot of people. In general 31st of December was the most crowdy day in general for us.

We're maybe used to avoid umbrellas when going to the market when it rains, but not when visiting an exposition when more than 30 °C. What about a boy of +/- 25 wearing a pink umbrella ?

The Belgian Pavilion, created by Daniël Ost had a lot of success. Maybe the next time one created by Amore di Fiori ;-)

I didn't mention that there is always a real mix of young and older people at each place we visit, so apparently all Thai generations have similar interests for this kind of activities.

We went back to the hotel with the local taxi

Bye bye Bangkok

For our last evening in Bangkok we decided to eat more 'chique' and went to the exclusive Bangkok Banyan Tree Hotel. It of course is always a plus to know people with connections (thanks Suwat ;-).

Oysters as starter are always delicious. Not possible to put on picture how it looked like, but it's a world of difference with our first lunch at China Town :-).

During our last day we did some shopping and went to the Lumpini park in Bangkok, with view on the above mentioned Banyan hotel (the one in the middle on the picture).

Some local animals sunbathing (Turtle & Iguana ;-) but nobody on the fitness equipment in the park; probably not only due to high temperature but also the kind of equipment.

We had a little drink in the expensive Hyatt hotel (the lobby alone is certainly twice as big as our house).

Bye bye Bangkok with it's busy streets and colorful taxis, ideal start and end of our wonderful discovery tour in Thailand ...

One night in Bangkok

You're right again Bob, that was me snorkeling.

Considering the pale skin this was a rather easy question, wasn't it ? ;-)

After our breakfast today we had to prepare our luggage to leave Krabi.

Seen the very good experience with Thai massage 2 days ago, I first went for a manicure and pedicure and Michele for an oil massage, while Kathleen had a swim in the sea and Phil read his book (not possible to convince him for a second foot scrub).

Phil and I went for our last fruitshake at the beach.

Since this morning some things made us remember home :

Sweet dog at the beach looks like Lulu

First Pepsi Max since our stay (at the Krabi Airport)

We're back in Bangkok now for our last night... tomorrow evening (after 23h local time) we have our flight back to Belgium ...

I'll have to show you some pics of our day at the Royal Floral exhibition and New-Year's eve, but that will be for later.

This is probably the last message directly from Thailand - Happy days here are almost over ... weep weep...

37 degrees - Ideal for a day trip with speedboat

Alarm clock at 7h40 this morning for our trip with speedboat to the Phi Phi Island group

Some islands were very busy (Phi Phi Don)

but enough possibilities to relax on other islands or in open sea

view from Maya Beach (location of the movie 'The Beach')

OK Bob, you asked for more interaction ;-) What is this ? And no, it is not a dead body floating in the water ;-)

Only trace left from the Tsunami 2 years ago are these signs

While returning to Ao Nang beach ('our' beach) we saw again

Chicken Island. Yes, the name is linked to the chicken head.

We'll now enjoy our last evening at Krabi

Where sky is blue and sea transparent green/blue

Today we enjoyed a very relaxed day :

While walking on the beach we saw a little hanging bridge and wanted to see what that was.
It went into the forest on the side of the hill.

At the entrance we saw some monkeys and we arrived at a magnificent beach.

It was kind of a private beach of a very luxurious resort. We drunk a fruit cocktail (yes, Patrick again the same habit ;-) which cost the price of a whole meal here (but still much less than a fruit juice at the 'Grand Place' in Brussels).

After a little lunch we left by speedboat for Kai Island (=Chicken Island since part of the Island looks like chicken head).

And yes ... there we saw what they show in the magazines :

Blue-Green transparent water with white sand

Less people than we expected, but they certainly didn't disturb us, especially the ones that seemed also to appear in the magazines :-)

Little picture after Phil being attacked by a fish ... (probably thought Phil was some kind of bait and bit him in the arm ;-)

Back to our hotel for some relaxing and shower before evening dinner.

If you wonder where the name 'long tail boat' comes from, this picture explains everything :