How to propose to your girlfriend in Bangkok

Out last day in Bangkok was an eventful one.

December 9 was a day of shopping,,,and getting engaged.

After battling our way for xx hours through the famous MBK shopping centre collecting more things than I have ever purchased in one day, our night was supposed to be just to relax in the 5 star hotel we had booked into for the last night for some luxury.

After dinner at a small thai street eatery we decided to investigate the local "German Beer House" in the Sukhumvit area of Bangkok. It was that German but we had a nice spot and there was a burning question that i'd only really started thing seriously in the course of the trip. But honestly: how do you pick the right time to ask someone to marry you?

I had had some moments on beaches in the south but things had always been tainted by drunk bystanders, street vendors, fatigue, intoxication, rain, those damn singing birds, the colour of the napkins,,,something.

We were both sitting reflecting on the trip over a beer when I decided to ask:" so Annie, what plans do you have for next year? cause if you're not too busy I was thinking that maybe you'd like to marry me?"

Anne: shocked look, no answer, beaming smile: "um what?"

Mitch: Straitening himself up and placing his beer back on the table, takes Annes hand "I guess I´m saying, Anne Lidzba, my angel, my best friend, the love of my life, will you marry me?"

Anne: big smile, a tear, a happy face ,a big kiss, excitement but no answer
Mitch: blurts out more things about how he would be honoured and how great Anne is...
Anne: speechless, kisses me, "oh my god oh my god oh my.."
Mitch: "well um does that mean yes?"
Anne:" yes yes yes yes yes that means yes"
...the rest is history.

So, due my lack of proper planning our ring for the occasion ended up being a natural shell ring from Ko Lanta beach that fits her finger perfectly. I had kept it for Anne in as a momento, now it takes on a whole new significance.

The irony of everything was that we had avoided the 39208 million dress and suit makers that abound throughout Thailand with a sense of "yes they are reasonable but we would never need that". Now on our last night we both thought,,,geez If I'd proposed earlier those clothes could have come in handy.

So that was our engagement on the 9th of December. I'm now writing this Blog back in Berlin on 27 January as a married man. huh? you ask. How this happened will be the subject of coming blogs.

How to almost miss a train in Chang mai

I know this is not the biggest news from the last few months but It has to be told before going onto the other big events.
So,
As I was writing that last post in Chang mai, killing time before the train trip to Bangkok something had eluded my memory. The fact that all our important documents lay in a locker at out hotel was only noticed as we were at the train station, 20 minutes before departure time.

Normally no problem to get back and pick it up if our hotel hadn't been 20 minutes away. It struck me and Anne as our happy faces, busily chomping on ice creams, turned sour and that look of 'oh shit' hit us both.

Without a word I raced out to find a way back. The funny thing about tuk tuks is that they are a constant presence when you have no need for them. This was different.
Instead I managed to find a pick up truck driver who was willing to emulate those car scenes from James bond and race down side streets at 80km/h beeping his horn to rescue our precious documents.

In the end, mission complete. I made it back to the station with 1 minute to spare with all our passports, cards and whatever other things deemed locker worthy. Close call

Porn porn porn

Those coming to thailand will be shocked about the amount of porn here. We have come across "porn restaurants", "porn bars", "porn hair salon", "porn tailors" and the list goes on. I even saw porn snooker.

Gotta love the misunderstandings in other languages. "porn" in Thai means "blessed",,,a whooooolllee different packet of chips than what you might expect. "Moo" is pork,"guy" is chicken,,"shit" is a good friend.

So some people go to the porn restaurant with their shit for some moo curry and a guy soup. Love it.

Chiangmai, Gibbons, Massages and Food

Chiang mai is fantastic. We had had a lot of reports that it's a nice place but I was honestly not expecting much. Very wrong.

Well, our first accommodation was a bit strange. With 5 rooms in a bed and breakfast including shared bathrooms, our older English male neighbours with their young thai girlfriends seemed to be more interested in the bed than the breakfast part. Uncomfortable. So we found a new place with a pool, spectacular rooms and service for 550 baht,,,a very good deal.

So what has been so great you ask. For all of you who have been to Bangkok and were impressed by what they had to offer, but were distracted by the size, the smell and the stress of it, you would love it here. The days have flown by in whirls of food, thai massages, pool, markets (night bazaar is big but over priced and full of a lot of rubbish but there are others), beer, walking and tourist activities.

Our first thing was the "flight of the gibbons". For the uninitiated the flight of the gibbons is a series of cables high in trees through the rain forest along which you fly from tree to tree. The 6:30 start was not to our liking but definitely worth it. Between the 7 people in our group I'm quite sure we took enough photos to fill the internet so I'm sure Anne will have some up soon. Unfortunately, my camera decided to have a rest day leaving me with zippo.

The kings birthday came and went. Another night full of fireworks and lanterns shooting off into the nights sky. The royal family is revered here like nothing i've ever seen. I've been told that you can land in jail by uttering any slur on the royals so none of that for me. Yay, I said and celebrated with my little thai friends.

Further reason to celebrate has been the exit of the prime minister and his party after the stand off that lead to the occupation of Bangkok's airports. Qantas starting flying from there again yesterday so we think it should be fine. Most Thais we met seemed not to be too fazed by the situation. Apparently every prime minister in the last 40 years has been ousted before the end of his term so not a big surprise. I just hope that things get back in order. This place really relies on its tourism industry.

Today we did cooking course. To any fan of Thai food (ie Mitch) this is an absolute must. I was surprised at how quick and simple the actual cooking is. The only difficult part is getting together the 20349503 rare thai ingredients that you need, in the right proportions, cut the right way and hey presto. Even bottomless pete couldn't finish all the food we came up with. Sooooooo good.

So tomorrow we leave for Bangkok on an overnight sleeper train to check into our 5 star hotel there. Last minute shopping Tuesday then Wednesday night is time to fly. The time has absolutely flown by and I'm very jealous of all the people we are meeting whose trips don't finish until next year.

Mango shakes, pancakes, panang curries, phad thai, thai massage, energy drinks, fruit in general. It is all soooo good.

Into the north, demos and thai winter

So finally get time to write something on here.

Well since my 15 hour bus trip from the south sitting on a wet seat that reminded me of old running socks we made it up to Ayuthaya for the start of the cultural element.

Cultural you say. One day of ruined temples there was enough so we hurried along to the next bunch of ruins: Lopburi. Anyone going there should know: there is only one bar (a nice one next to the only good guest house), the womens shopping is unbelievable as I was to find out the the hard way following Anne around, and the Monkeys are very very cheeky. I was standing near a group of them holding a closed bottle of chocolate milk. The one monkey decided that by the look of my stomach I didn't need any more calories and jumped on me, ripped it out of my hands, skipped away, opened the bottle and drank the whole thing in front of my eyes. Hilarious.

Anyways,next we took the train/tuk tuk/bus combo to Sukhotai national park for some more Wat (Temple) ruins. The place is great and blah blah but the thing that really hit me was the fact that there were no tourists. The thai people told us that this time of the year is normally time for them to stand at the guest houses beating away the prospective guests. We were courted from the bus stop by several proprietors who are all definitely feeling the pinch from the stupidity that is taking place at the Bangkok airports at the moment. We only saw about 30 tourists in the Sukhotai World Heritage sight that is normally guest to hundreds.

Yesterday we made it up to Lampang in the north and spent the evening walking awound aimlessly hoping to find something of interest that didn't involve street food or a medical practice. I swear that town had a good 40 practices in one street, a giant hospital if nothing else. Needless to say I was very careful with my food there and happy to leave this morning.

We took the local bus to an Elephant centre on the way to Chiang Mai. Mannnnn I so want an Elephant for christmas. Those things are so great. We watched a show, then went for a 1 hour jungle tour whereby the elephant showed us he can climb things I wouldnt even attempt (and would be a mean customer at a buffet). As we left and waited for a bus on the highway 2 friendly old thai ladies stopped and gave us a ride all the way to Chiang Mai,,,just great.

Anyway. As more of the political crisis comes to hand Ill let you know if im gonna be able to get out of here. Sabai Sabai

Beach, Rainlay and Animals

Just as an update we are currently in Ao Nang in the south getting ready for the so called "Travelling" part of the trip. Up to now we have spent out time going from island to island, beach to beach. Ko Phi phi, Ko Lanta, Railay bay and now Ao Nang. In every place we have spent more time than was planned (except Railay where the great scenery was soiled a little by the constant rain, hippies, package tourists and extreme prices). Loved it all.

In the last post I mentioned the some of the human species that we have come across, this time its the animals. I think every day we stumble upon some different random animal. Better than my trip to Berlin Zoo last month:

Bangkok: Turtles and Iguanas in the park, Geckos in the Room (and in every room since)
Ko Phi Phi: Monkeys, Healthy cats,Sharks,Tropical fish, Dolphins, biting ants (and a hell of a lotta fish and prawns on my plate)
Ko Lanta: A tree snake in the restaurant, an elephant on the road, industrious ants and some lizards. And of course all sorts of animals on my plate.
Railay: stinky diseased cats in the restaurant (not a good way to get more customers), hippys, a rabbit next to the toilet and some very happy mosquitos.
Ao Nang: Squirrels, lizards and OYSTERS the size of a fist on my plate (the oysters, not the lizards).

So maybe Zoo time is over. Tomorrow we are leaving for Ayuthaya on a nice long 15 plus hour bus trip. The goal will be to get to Chiang Mai in the next week, become extremely cultural in temples and most probably add to the list above.As long as they have green curry and pad thai I think i`m gonna be fine.

oh Ko Lanta

So 3 days ago we made it all the way across the Andaman Sea (20km) to Ko Lanta. Ko phi phi was great but after 7 days we thought it was time to move out of our bungalow and enjoy another island. It was so great to meet up with some old dutch friends of ours, Lennart and Marijlene, who just happened to be in the same part of the planet as us at the same time. Fantastic to meet up with familiar faces so far away from it all. I'll always remember all four of us being contorted like dough by 4 thai massage experts, all of us being stretched and wretched in ways I never knew possible.

So Ko Lanta. It's definitely not difficult to find a place to stay here. The only difficult part is sorting through the 203940 alluring offers of "cheap cheap, on beach, with pool, with elephant, with fire dancing elephant, with fire dancing elephant with snake on head and free beer" (well the free beer thing is pushing that a bit too far) but you get the picture. We decided on a place for 300 baht a night, with a pool, right on the beach, which doesn't require a mosquito net. 300 baht is about 6 Euros so a bargain. To add to this we found a place offering a 3 course meal with a whole fresh tuna as main for 150 baht,,,

We've met some more fantastic people and observed many more. Just a few:
We have the "I don't talk swiss couple"
- the "we want to get into porn positions in the pool in front of everyone" German couple
- the "let's take all 20 of us to thailand cause it's so cheap" swedish family
- not to forget the "yes we know that we look like absolute super human good looking and your jealous that we are so damn perfect" swedish couple
-the "I don't want to admit we are German" German people
- and of course Lindsay and Lincoln the down to earth good americans (people like them should be sent overseas more often to remind us that the bad Americans are the exception)
- the English guys here in groups of 5 who can always be found in the bar, any bar
- the English girls who we just keep running into wherever we go
- the French who just refuse to speak to anyone who is not French
- the Thai people everywhere who have to be some of the warmest amazing people on the planet.

The sunsets, food, people and the beaches are incredible here but the show must go on. Today was motorbike day around the island. Tomorrow we are off to Railay-Ton Sai Beach for some more of the same.

If you want to see some photos just go to the link to Anne's blog on the right.