The great unknown

the menu for the 10-course dinner - it was excellent

"So, what do you know about Taiwan", she asked me when we were on our way from the airport to the city center. I shrugged, "not much ... Well, acutally nothing if I have to be honest." It also came to a surprise for myself that I had no clue about the country I was in at the moment. Usually I make at least the effort to catch some facts about my destination in a travel guide or so, but this time - nada.
So what is Taiwan, or rather Taipei like?
Taipei was meeting up with a friend I met on my exchange semester four years ago and haven't seen in three years but felt still so comfortable with and had a great time with.
Taipei was learning about the local culture and getting a glimpse of the expat lifestyle of foreigners/westerners living in Taiwan.
Taipei was being lucky and being able to join an interesting trip with Melissa's colleagues and discovering about the lifestyle of the Aborigines in Taiwan and at the same time enjoying a 7-course lunch followed by a 10-course dinner.

Taipei 101 - the world's highest building

Taipei was exploring the world's highest building and trying out strange food like pig blood or cow bowel (only one bite).
Taipei was getting lost in translation and desperately trying to find my way among mostly non-english speakers.
Taipei was being in a country where I looked so different as I never experienced before (to avoid confusion: I don't only mean in realation to Asians but rather based on the ratio of Asians to Non-Asian people and then in addition me looking different from the usual expat-Westerner) which on the one hand enabled me to experience the hospitaly of the Taiwanese people but on the other hand made me so uncomfortable one time that I just wanted to run away because I couldn't handle the stares (and I have a 25 years of experience in being different and being stared at).

Shilin night market

All in all my travel to Taipei was a great trip, I could enjoy the city from an insiders perspective, thanks to Melissas hosting, and it will hold a nice spot in my mind among my travel memories.


current music: Zoe - Rocksteady

Pure shores

My next stop was Krabi on the East coast of Southern Thailand. The town doesn't offer much else than access to beautiful beaches and islands. While I was there I made a trip to famous Koh Phi Phi. The island where the beautiful beach from the film "The Beach" is located. Although this area of Thailand was heavily affected by the 2004 Tsunami and the dream of a secluded, peaceful beach remains a dream on Koh Phi Phi nowadays due to the masses of tourists and commercialisation, it was great to see it. I was lucky because my tour arrived quite early there so we had a few rather lonely moments there and I could sit down and listen to The Beach - Soundtrack on my Ipod :-)

Apart from that I was experiencing heavy rain once a day in Krabi, went out and met random people. As I don't have a fixed route and can allow myself to be spontaneous, I booked a plane ticket to Taipei for the upcoming days. I thought I should take the chance to visit my friend Melissa in Taiwan as I am quite near right now. And after checking the ticket prices I found that it was much cheaper to take the night bus to Bangkok and fly from there than flying from another destination in the South.


current music: Dario G - Voices

Island in the sun

After saying goodbye once again to my friends I made my way to the Bangkok train station and boarded the night train to the South of Thailand. I got out more or less well-rested 12 hours later in Suratthani, the gateway to the islands of the West-coast - Koh Phagnan, Koh Tao and Koh Samui. As I am not a huge fan of beach resorts and I am not that into diving, I opted for the first of the three islands and took the ferry to Koh Phagnan.


The island is home to many beautiful beaches and small hotels can be found on each of them. My first days and nights on the island were spent on a rather quiet part in the South of the island, close to the porttown ThongSala. After walking on the beach, walking around in the village and surfing the internet (yes, there is even wireless lan in the beautiful beach bungalows) I got a bit bored. The beach was ok, but far from a postcard location. And when I returned from one of my walks in the evening of the first night to my home for these days I felt for the first time the feeling of loneliness. I don't know exactly if it was because I just spent time with close friends a short while ago or because the rest of the bungalows was mainly rented by couples, but I guess I discovered that while I have absolutely no problem with being on my own among others, I am not necessarily fond of the seclusion of a lonely beach. Therefore I decided to check out the busier part of the island - Haad Rin aka full-moon-party-central. I forewent the luxury of renting a scooter (the number-one mean of transport) and decided to get a bit of work out instead by walking to Haad Rin. After I spent 3 hours walking in the blazing sun I planned to take a well-deserved rest on the beach but was surprised by an afternoon rainfall that lasted for about an hour and drenched absolutely everything. Unfortunately the one hour pouring rain became a daily routine for the next couple of days.

I relocated myself for the following two days to the sunset-beach and found a nice room in what was described in one travelguide as "the place where the party people stay" - not because of a craving for drunken teens but rather due to the availability and the affordable prices. Since I aim to be open to different kinds of experiences I decided to give the party-life on the island a shot and attended the pool-party on this evening. As I was sipping on my beer and observing the partying crowd I felt a bit old. Most of the people were in their teens - or at least acted like it, drank too much alcohol and engaged afterwards in the usual mating rituals of such occasions. And while I definetely am a fan of the nightlife, I felt a bit estranged by the mixture of summersplash- and ballermann-like demeanour of the guests.

An interesting and disturbing fact about the party - which I noticed when I left - was that Thais were not allowed, allegedly due to secuity reasons. There was even a note that stated if you have a Thai partner, you are allowed but he or she won't be granted access.


The remaining time on the island was spent with lying in the sun, enjoying the beautiful beach, strolling around, reading and listening to music. I left Koh Phagnan a day earlier than planned as I was not keen on attending the halfmoon -party, as originally planned, after getting a glimpse of the party life on the island. My verdict? Koh Phagnan boasts many beautiful beaches. It caters to those who want to party as well as to those who which to relax at a secluded spot. However, as I am right now not in the mood for neither, I am looking forward to exploring the East coast of Thailand's South.

current music: MGMT - Kids

Reunited

That's what I call a shrinking distances in a globalized world - where you fix a meeting with friends who are thousands of miles away and find yourselves hugging each other merely 24 hours later in a city far from home that functions as a reunion point and pit stop on your travels in various directions - in their case back home, in my case southward.

Last week I met up with Judith and Verena in Bangkok. I had planned to somehow meet Verena at some point in Bangkok as she being a flight attendant has the pleasure/duty to work on the flights over here and gets to spend about a day in Bangkok. Judith managed to tag along as a stand-by and so the small-scale reunion was perfect. It was great to see familiar faces and while I have been on the road for just a week, judging by our excitement you'd have thought that we haven't seen each other for months :-)



We had a lot of fun discovering Bangkok and spending time together - we always do. While I truly enjoy my independence and running into new people, it is really comforting to spend time with friends who know you and with whom you don't have to exchange the usual smalltalk phrases. There is not much that can beat bursting out into laughter after mentioning insiders that would make absolutely no sense to other people.

So don't get me wrong when I'm talking about how I'm getting sick of Vienna and how I cannot wait to leave the city - I am always well aware of the fact that I am lucky and I am somehow sorry that I'll leave amazing people behind (or scattered around in other locations around the globe as I'm not the only one with itchy feet). That is of course if I ever get to leave the country and find a job elsewhere, but this is a different story ...


current music: Coldplay - Viva la vida

La vie boheme

Before returning to Bangkok in order to travel down South, I decided to pay a short visit to the town Pai. Pai is a bit of a hippie town and is a four-hour bus ride up North from Chiang Mai. It seems like a village consisting of travellers on their journey through, wanting to relax for a bit, backpackers who gut stuck here and those who have fallen out of conventional society.
The combination of people results in a very chilled vibe in the city and I could definetely see myself spending more time up here if I didin't have to be back in Bangkok on the next day.

After enduring the seemingly endless trip up the very windy-roads with a crazy driver, I already regretted my decision to come up here for just one night. However, I had a really fun evening, met interesting and fun people. I ran into a group of solo travellers who found each other along the way - so we where seven people from six countries, as I ran into the first other Austrian on my trip. I hung out with them for the day and the most of the night and was happy to have taken the trip when I got home to my little windowless bungalow in the morning hours.


current music: Slightly Stoopid - Wisemen

Most likely you go your way and I go mine

I ended up spending more time in Chiang Mai as I also just hung out there and watched DVDs and talked to people. One can argue that you don't have to travel across the world to do that and that it might be the same thing I did at home - but believe me it's not.


I mentioned in my previous post, that it was easy to meet up with fellow backpackers in Chiang Mai. That was on the one hand due to the unique atmosphere of the hostel I stayed at - a perfect spot to meet like-minded peole.
So I had company on my one-day trekking trip - a walk in the jungle followed by an elephant ride and rafting. As we are in the dry season right now, the rafting was more a matter of trying not to get stuck on rocks than trying to master the water masses. The whole thing was a bit touristy but I thought I might as well see a bit of the nature while I am up here. I also visited the Tiger Kingdom where you can touch .... surprise, surprise .... Tigers. Of course not the fully grown ones. The biggest ones have one-third of their future size but that's enough to have your legs turn jelly.


As I had hardly any plans for my travels beforehand and just knew that I wanted to meet up with some friends beforehand, I was really flexible and was able to enjoy the advantages of travelling alone and thus being independent. And I was actually a bit amazed how many solo travellers you meet on the road. It's kind of funny when I remember the reaction of people back home about my travel plans and their opinion that I am funny, brave, a bit careless or an adventurer. Having now met people who are on the road for 6 months or even a year or who have no fixed home-base at all anymore and haven't seen their home town for 2 years or so - I have to admit I am nothing compared to them.
Some are just spending their well-deserved vacation in Asia, some are travelling on an around-the world ticket, some are doing some kind of work and travel, some are running away from something and some are I guess trying to find something. I think you can count me to the last three groups. I quickly discovered that I was not the only one who took the current economy as a reason or rather excuse to travel. There are quite some travellers who were either laid-off or don't want to look for jobs right now - mostly from the US or Great Britain.
If you are staying in a hostel it's in general easy to get to talk to people as you somehow always have a common topic to talk about - travelling. So you always exchange experiences, tips, funny anecdotes. With some people you meet you end up having a good time and exchange contact details to stay in touch (and it seems like "are you on facebook" has almost fully replaced "what's your email/telephone number"), others you might meet again on your future route, but most you probably never see again.

The biggest proportion of backpackers I meet out here are Britains followed by Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and Scandinavians. I think this is due to the fact that in those countries it's much more usual to take time out to travel and many companies even offer their employees to take a gap year or some time out. However, I also met people who travel around and just look for jobs at any place they like. I have to admit this is kind of an intriguing lifestyle - but don't be alarmed I think right now I couldn't imagine completely giving up my homebase ... but then again I couldn't imagine doing what I am doing now a year ago or so.

current music: Bob Dylan ft Mark Ronson - Most likely you go your way

Northern Lights

I took the night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and after 12 long hours I arrived in the capital of Northern Thailand. Although I didn't know much about Chiang Mai before, I definetely was attracted to this charming city and therefore extended my originally planned one-night stay into four nights. I stayed at a cool hostel, that felt more like a flat share than a backpacker accomodation. So I had from the very beginning people to go out with and found company for various activities.


I started my stay here with a walk around the city and visited a couple of temples and drank way too much mango smoothies. As I was told, Buddhism spread out from the countries in the North of Thailand and found it's way down to the South. Therefore, as the cpaital of the North, Chiang Mai is a center and very important city of Buddhism in Thailand, which explains the fact that you can find a temple - or Wat - on every corner. After I saw a couple of Wats I decided it was time to learn a bit about Buddhism myself and attended one of the monk chats. Those are informal talks with monks who are right now during their studies. Visitors get the chance to ask questions and they get the chance to practice their English. It was very interesting, especially the answer to the question how you can be able to not pretend and stay true to yourself - it's actually quite simple: stop caring about what others think.


I signed up for a cooking class - haha, yes I'm not joking - I really did, and I totally didn't do it because I think in any way that my skills in the kitchen do need any improvement - I mean, seriously, how much better than microwave food, take out or spaghetti and rice with sugo can it get :-). But rather because I figured it would be cool to be able to do some of the stuff I'm having all these days here by myself and since Chiang Mai is somehow the culinary capital of the North of Thailand, I thought this is the right place and time. The course was fun and to my surprise the teacher asked me if I cook a lot because I am obviously a talent - haha. I guess she was more impressed by my talent to remember the things she said before than my actual knowledge of what to do. Anyway, after a short tour of the local market I learned how to cook things like pad thai, green curry chicken and thai pancakes. So if you are lucky you might get a taste of this once I am back home. I got a receipe book, so I hope I can repeat the dishes. And I don't want to brag, but my banana - coconut thai pancakes are to die for ;-)


It seems that Chiang Mai is an excellent place to do many things and one of them is definetely shopping. You can get a lot of cheap stuff at the various markets and I liked it much more than shopping in Bangkok. Here you can buy things from local tribes and you also see more locals strolling around on the markets so you don't feel like in a tourist trap. I guess you can imagine what happened as my love for colorful accessoires like necklaces, bracelets and earings met the cheap prices and an enourmous selection at the Sunday night market - yes I definetely bought to much stuff but I truly think it's not my fault ... I was kind of forced to ;-)



current music: Let's Go Sailing - Sideways

One night in Bangkok

As I said before, I left from Vienna to Bangkok, where I arrived Wednesday morning, after a short stopover in Doha. From the airport I took the bus to my hostel (which is the only thing I booked for my trip in advance) which is located in Silom. The hostel was definitely a good choice, as it is one of the best I have been at so far and I met people to chat to and hang out with. I was thinking before to choose something in the famous Khao San road, but I am glad I didn't. Khao San is the center of backpackers in Bangkok and everyone is going there and therefore it is a road full or Westerners and Thais who try to sell everything from fake ID's to books, tattoos or food.

Khao san road

Lumpini park

Being still heavily jet-lagged I decided to do sightseeing on the first day and figure out how to continue my travels. I started with a visit to Lumpini park and continued to see the shopping centers around Siam square. As I didn't want to get ripped off by tuk-tuk drivers and since I am a fan of walking anyway, I did most of my sightseeing on the first day by foot. So I was walking for the whole day and collecting impressions of the city. After being on my way for just some minutes, I was already feeling the heat - the temperature is around 35 degrees, so it's a bit warmer than in Austria ;)

At night I visited the infamous Patpong area and was looking around the night market there. I managed to resist temptation so far and didn't buy anything, but I guess it's just a matter of time till I'll take advantage of the really low prices. The next day I continued to visit the main temples and arranged my travel up to the North.
Obviously, I am not the first one to backpack in Thailand so I got many tips where to go and which route to follow. So I decided to go North first and visit Chiang Mai and to meet people I know and then to go South to the islands and eventually to Malaysia and Singapore. For now I plan to do that in a month, which should be fine, but let's see.

I must say I haven't really made up my mind about Bangkok yet. I am generally a fan of big cities so I don't mind pollution and traffic and so on. And somehow I like the bit of chaos, but I don't kow if I could stay here for a long time. I guess I would get bored of the fact that as soon as people see you and recognize you as an non-Thai they try to sell you stuff or offer transport and so on.

current music: Razorlight - Wire to wire

The story so far

Not everything works out as you plan it and therefore I am in Thailand right now. Just to explain shortly how I ended up here:

on my way from Doha to Bangkok

Well, after being busy with applying to permanent jobs in the last months (which by the way did only result in rejections) for jobs abroad - mainly in London, I was looking forward to getting out of the country and was prepared to head to Hyderabad in India. Unfortunately, the financial crisis also affected me and the project on which I was supposed to work got canceled. There I was, frustrated about my lack of success and somehow getting totally bored and fed up with Vienna. And in order not to get totally depressed by sitting around in Vienna while waiting on answers for more job applications, I decided to come up with an alternative plan which would lead me far away.

As I always wanted to visit Southeast-Asia and my room was already rented, I decided to book a plane ticket to Bangkok and see where the road leads me from there. I had anyway planned to backpack around the world some day, so I just do a part of it now. I'll start in Thailand and then figure out where to go next. As I want to meet up with some friends who are living/visiting/traveling around the area there, I plan to head to Malaysia and Singapore and maybe also to other countries in more Eastern regions but this depends on the constraints of my budget and time. Depending on whether I get the job, I'll start my working life in Brussels in April (and then come back from Asia at the end of March) or I'll do a development traineeship for about 8 weeks in Kuala Lumpur and then go back to Vienna at the end of May and return to my job-hunt.

However, I am now less worried about the job thing, as I know that my plans were ambitious and times are difficult for job seekers these days, especially in London. Well let's say a bit less worried, as the thought of having to look for jobs once I come back still sits in the back of my mind and is kind of unrelaxing. But then again I already applied to other jobs and I am waiting for results, but till then I will definitely enjoy the last bit of my student (or rather unemployed) life and discover Southeast-Asia.

current music: Ingrid Michaelson - Be ok