Y'ello!
It's been about a month since I left the Netherlands on another trip to South East Asia. During this trip I'm planning not to travel around a lot, but mainly stay put in places that I liked last year when I was here. I'm also planning to do camera work at a Circus Festival in Cambodia, get some writing and proposals done for my arts back home and in general just live an easy, healthy and inspiring life among great people from around the globe.
I arrived in Bangkok and found my way quickly to the place I'd stayed before. I'd entered the country on a single way ticket and therefor I had also reserved a ticket to Laos, just in case the border officials wouldn't allow me to enter without a ticket leaving Thailand. The flight to Laos would be 12 days after my arrival in Bangkok and after a couple of days in the city I wondered why for christ sake I'd planned it like this. Seriously, Bangkok is not too bad, but it's still very much a city! And so I studied the map for a not-to-far getaway and found myself the next day on a bus to the island of Koh Chang, close to the Cambodian border.
Koh Chang is a rather big island with several beautiful beaches. And although resort-tourism, like everywhere in Thailand, is massive here, there were still some really nice and chilled out backpackers places to be found. On Lonely beach I discovered it is hard to ever get lonely. From the very beginning of my arrival on Koh Chang, the experience has all been about the great people I kept on meeting and with whom I spend my days and nights. After 5 days I knew I had to leave Koh Chang and travel back to Bangkok in order to catch my flight to Laos, but I honestly couldn't leave... and so I didn't.
Every day the group of people with who I'd hang around grew bigger and bigger. Sometimes people would manage to leave, but a core of our family would always remain and would quickly attract new inspiring free souls.
Most of our days started at Lord's place, a Thai guy with the best, most beautiful little coffee house / art gallery. His place is a bit off the main road and is mainly only visited by people who know it from word of mouth. This is perfect, since the place is all about intimacy. Being there felt a lot like hanging around and chatting in the kitchen of a good friends home.
His food and drinks are always extremely fresh and the love that goes into preparing them can definitely be tasted. In my last week, we got blessed with Lord's cat 'Cat' giving birth to four beautiful little kittens, which boosted the homey feeling even more.
After a couple of hours at Lord's place we would basically then move ourselves to the beach for a daily doses of swimming, frisbee-action, reading and sunbathing. This session would then seamlessly flow into a sunset jam-session at the beach. With a bongo kit, one or more guitars, shaker-egg and kazoo we would play international songs or make up something on the spot. We found it very fitting to change the lyrics of Hotel California into Island Koh Chang, since everybody could check out any time they liked, but in reality no one could ever really leave.
After dinner at one of many lovely restaurants, the night would always behold some party.. somewhere. Every day of the week was attached to a place when it came down to the nightly hours. Especially Friday night at the Siam Hut was a fine party, with fire shows and DJ's rocking tunes at the beach. After a while we all learned to choose our nights to get bucket-faced or to take it easy and sleep early. :)
Anyway, this time not so much blog talk about culture and traveling, but I'm just letting ya'll know that life is freakin` great and staying longer at places with the right vibe is well worth a second trip!
A couple of days ago I got back into Bangkok and met up with Rachal from Melbourne, who I'd met last year in Laos. Together we will proceed to Cambodia tomorrow to work at an international circus festival in Battambang. After that I will move my way up into Laos and settle down to write...
Hasta la vista!
Peace and love.
Daan
