Thailand

Our main activities in Bangkok were shopping (especially Frank) and lying in bed recovering from concussion (that's Julia).

We tried to make an effort and went sightseeing as well.

Ayutthya is one of the many attractions in the reach of Bangkok's tourist mini buses. It was a boiling hot experience as there was no shadow to be found anywhere. We were wandering around the former capital of Siam, dizzy from the heat and couldn't really enjoy the trip as it was simply too hot (and this was still in the morning hours!). Still we were able to catch some nice impressions and learn something about Thai and budhist culture.

The next day we went to see the floating markets, famous for well, .. er .. floating markets.

On our way to the market, we first had to stop at a coconut factory. We first were really excited about finally getting to know the tiny men who hang the coconuts in the trees ;-) In the end it was a 30 minutes stop at a bus stop with about 20 other (big) tour buses, with uncountable amounts of other tourists who were amazed that coconut oil and coconut sugar does really come from coconuts. How to get sugar and oil out of coconuts was explained in a 20 seconds show, the rest of the time was used for a pee (about 15 minutes queing) and buying loads of souvenirs.

There are rumours that there are actually two floating markets. One is the traditional one which is somewhere further away from Bangkok, the other one is staged for tourists, about 1.5 hours from Bangkok by mini bus.
Counting the amounts of tourist boats in the market (there are about 8 times as many as the boats actually selling something), we assume that we have been to the touristy one ; )
It still was a nice experience though. The food on the market was great, we ate delicious things like sticky rice with mango.

By the time we got to Kuala Lumpur, Julia was absolutely annoyed of anything that moves or makes sound. While Frank rushed up Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers (he was almost the first one who got there that morning), Julia was lying in bed catching up on some sleep.

We had only one day in Kuala Lumpur but again tried to squeeze as much shopping in as possible.

After Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur we felt pretty drained when we arrived in Bali!

After arriving in Phuket we actually planned to stay there for at least 2-3 days. However we soon decided to move on to Kao Sok national park to do a one day jungle tour which turned out to be quite an experience! The night we arrived we first met some monkeys who were drinking from a river not too far from our bungalow.

The next day our jungle trip kicked off.

After a 1.5 hour boat trip we arrived at our starting point for the 2 hour jungle treck.

We felt a bit like Mogli from The Jungle Book without talking animals but including the original motion picture soundtrack sung by Stefan - father of a German family we met - who entertained his 3 year old daughter Milena. It was a nice group anyway - 2 girls from Canada joined as well as a couple from Liverpool and a slightly irritating guy from Equador. Anyway, the final part of the jungle trip was a 1 mile long cave packed with spiders (diameter about 5 inches (15cm) - no shit!),

all kinds of bats (you don't want to know their size), frogs and fishes swimming in a river which runs through the cave. After about 1 hour in the cave we had to climb through the narrow sections and even swim through the river which was pretty shallow so far. Oh and yes, did I mention that the spiders can swim as well? They can and they did! I think the happiest one of us was Milena who didn't notice that and who found spiders pretty cool anyway!
In the end we survived but this trip was not made for wimps really!

On our 4th day in Thailand we went on to Ko Samui but for a stay over only. The next day (today) we hopped on the ferry to Ko Tao, an awesome island for snorkelling and scuba diving and just for chilling out as well. And that's what we need!

A couple of days rest and we'll move on to either Krabi or straight on to Malaysia, we don't know yet, but you'll find out afterwards. We are more than happy for any fresh informations about Krabi area or hidden spots - imagine that, you tell us where to go and we will go there for you - it's like you're virtually on holidays! Kicks ass!