And there I am, in Bankok. I tell you, it was not an easy trip to get here from Cambodia. First we had to take a 4 hour boat (which almost capsized a few times due to a light storm on the Thailand sea), then we took a ride in a speedboad, followed by a car ride of 30 minutes. This brought us to the Cambodian/Thai boarder. After all formalities were over, we got into a minibus for a 2 hour ride to the first mayor town in Thailand (Trat). This is where we called it the day and June, Tosh (Japan), Vincent (Belgium) and me hit the night market for some delicious Thai food. This was topped of by some great beers in a local bar (and I almost forgot - we did go to see a movie, but it turned out it was all dubbed in Thai..).
I will stay in Bankok untill Tuesday, when I will travel to Vientiane, the capital of Laos (today is saturday so I can not get my Visa untill monday). Most of you will have visited Bankok so you all know what I'm talking about when I say that I'm staying at Kho Sahn Road. Take care. Floris

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Back in Thailand - After an 8 hour bus journey from the Thai-Lao border we got into Chiang Mai around 7 PM last night. I see shops again, a "Seven Eleven", many modern cars, CD and book shops and.. many Internet cafe's. Chiang Mai looks fine to me - We'll spent here today and tomorrow, before getting a plane to Mae Hong Son, a town on the border with Myanmar. Here, we'll do a 4 day treck through the mountains and villages before heading south to Sukhothai. Outside it's warm - 2 in the afternoon. I'll have a look were Hiro is and we'll get some lunch and a cold beer. Floris

(Trecking in..) Mae Hong Son, Monday June 5th 2000

I must say that after three days walking, I do feel the muscles in my legs hurting a bit. We just got back from a three day treck in the North-West of Thailand (Mae Hong Son), along the Burmees border . Hiro and me took a flight out there from Chiang Mai. Considering this is was only $10 and the bus ride would take 8 hours the choice was quickly made. Mae Hong Son lies beautifully up in the hills, with many hilltribes still populating the numerous mountains. This is why we decided to go trecking here for a couple of days. In a sentence, it was a really nice treck but I find that we could have walked a lot more!

Back in Chiang Mai, this time by bus. Yesterday we took the 4 hour ride from Mae Hong Son to Pai. Pai looks like a nice little town - plenty of bars around and also a good place to start your treck or go wild water rafting (which I will save for Australia). This morning we got in from Pai - relaxing the rest of the day in Chiang Mai. Outside it's cloudy which makes the temperature bearable. Finished some more books over the last week (my god, I really seem to be catching up on a lot of reading and good books I missed out on the last couple of years!!) Probably see a movie tonight. Tomorrow we'll travel to Sukothai, the old Siam capital.

And yesssss - back in Bankok after having been gone to Lao and the North of Thailand for about a month. Won't stay long though this time, only a couple of hours before taking the night train to Kho Phan-Ngan, one of the three islands on the east coast of Thailand. Hiro will go his own way from here on. I'm going to be doing nothing, nothing for the next week - that is if you call diving, reading, laying on the beach, drinking beer and going to the Fool Moon party (the 16th) nothing...
After Chiang Mai we came down to Bankok, stopping at the two old capitals of Thailand, Sukothai and Ayuthaya. To be really honest, I thought most of it was just a pile of bricks - there was not a lot left of the old ruins of the city's, who have seen there glory days in the 13th to 15th century. So yes, I guess kind of dissapointing. On the other hand I think that I've traveled from guesthouse to guesthouse enough in the last week, not stopping at a place for longer then 3 nights. Basically it's time to dome some relaxing ("do" some relaxing, that's interesting) and the islands will be just the place.

Euro 2000

The Euro 2000 has started - all the bars and many people here go crazy for it!! Saw that Belgium won over Sweden 2-1; good job. Now let Holland do the same tonight against the Chech Republic. The only downside of being in Asia right now, is that I'll have to watch all games at night (yuk). But then again, you can't have it all. Voor vanavond, "Laat de Leeuw niet in z'n hempie staan!" Floris

Five thirty in the afternoon and I'm quit tired. Last night it was a full moon which meant that the famous Full Moon Party was on at the Thai island of Kho Pha-Ngan. It was 07:30 this morning before we finally made it back to the bungalows on the beach. These have been 6 days of relaxing - getting up late, reading and swimming a bit. On the train from Bankok I met David, a guy from Holland (Den Haag) so we hang out together for a couple of days. It was good to be able to speak a bit of dutch again. Here I also met Susanne & Michiel from Amsterdam. So yes, it was a Dutch reunion after all.

And what a great thing that we WON last night from Denmark. The game was on at 01:45 in the morning, but I did manage to watch it at the beach, halfway through the party. I'm now waiting for the nightboat that will bring me back to the mainland of Thailand. Then tomorrow I'm off to Malaysia. Yet another country. Floris