Approaching Luang Prabang by air.

Seen from Lao airlines window seat.

Wow, so beautiful with all those mountains           surrounding the valley.

My room smells  after the drain. Seeing muskeetoes in my room

For the first time this trip.

Have to find my Deet. But first some  food.

My first time in Lao. :-)

Blue tea.

Merry Christmas everybody!!!.

With some Xmas pictures of the streets Of Chiang Mai. I took pics, but i cant find them.

This afternoon I took a course in hand reflexology at MTM Thai massage. So much information, how to remember everything.

Where we were served blue ?? pea tea.

After that I took a chance at ordering  taylor made pants. Shortly before flying tomorrow I will find out the end result. When the taylor became delayed this evening I used the waiting time for a Thai massage.

Panya 10 year PDC bonanza

All of us in the bonanza group has got their permaculture certificate, so now we can design your back garden or farmland for you.

 solar water heater, with thermostate.

making earth bricks.

 the showers, building made of earth bricks.

Earth pizza oven.

Today in Chiang mai.

With some of the panya people on a scooter to the top of the mountain, with a royal palace and a very commercial Chinese temple. 

Down therethere see chiangchiang mai.

A

At the top of the mountain, in the national reservate you can rent a tent, so you can walk back through nature instead of driving the steap s swinger road 

 Back down. Today I really learned how to drive, also in between lots of cars in the city. Glad to be home again:-)

Happy at permaculture project

Here some impressions of learning moments and the lot I am on.

 Water harvesting.

 Healthy fruit of the day.

Community kitchen.

 Grey water harvesting.

 Inside toilet building.

Inside a mud build house. Build of clay sand straw and some water only. Beautiful isn't it? The coloured glass comes from bottles.

Perma project panya

Alive and well at panya.

Permaculture yeh

Landed in Chiang mai in northern Thailand this morning. At 14.00 a truck will drive us 2 hours uP the mountains. At panya farm it will be all about permaculture for 18 whole days.

Colder here then in krabi yesterday, only 30c. Nights in the mountain 10c.

Having all kinds of problems withbanking here. Bankid is already a week not available. Bills cannot be paid because of this.

Rainy ko lanta. Finally, pictures.

Already 4 days it is raining, but today it started right after my wake up snorkeling swim... which was cloudy by the way because of very strong wind. But I still  saw some fish in the fog:-)

Today's breakfast to warm up again. Coconut soup and ginger tea without the black teabag.

This evening's dinner, cashew chicken, below.

It is still raining and storming, brrrrr. Then 26C feels cold, so long trousers and t-shirt instead of bikini.

I hope this boat will bring me safely to KO too tomorrow.

Ok, some more pics of klong jark at KO lanta

 Talk to you in a week again.

Rainy and cold.... inkfish?

 Today  was again a cold day, about 26c. No sun to see, but still a fantastic sunset. Tomorrow expects to give a lot of rain. Tomorrow night will be my last night here, the boat ticket to KO rok - last year there without hotel - is booked and they will pick me up at 09.00 the morning after.. the owner here suggested that I leave most of my stuff here, because the tent at KO rok will have no lock and during the day there will be a lot of day tourists. So everything digital will stay here, as well as my credit cards and most of my clothes. On my way back from rok, the boat will give me time to pick up my backpack here  and thereafter bring me to my hotel ,the old time, in the old village on my way back to krabi. Boats stop in front of the beach here, and then you have to walk through the water to get in. Interesting to do with my big backpack on..... see me fallling?

Fried bananas with chocolate after snorkeling to warm up again.

Inland view from my cabin, a6. A lot of green to see, so expect rain once in a while.


Have been studying the fish in front twice today. In the right corner I saw something I have never seen before, I think an inkfish....?, it was 50cm bodywidt + a head in front with long inkfisharms coming out of its mouth . Those arms went every time in a hole in the rocks coral, the tips became then light blue in colour. It was watching me carefully with his 2 big eyes while I was hanging 1 meter above from him. He had the colours of the coral around, reddish with white small spots. The big horizontal body had wobling things underneath... like a short curtain moving in the wind, here the waves. I wonder what it was? Somebody here who knows?

I found some thick dutch books here in the for loan cupboard, so in between snorkelling at KO rok I won't be bored. Hope that there will be good walking pathkos  there too. It is a national park so....

Some pictures, timetables, sunsets

 Always with a flower. Breakfast.

 Sunset at 18.20

 Ice coffee with a view.

Fishing boats at the horizon.

Review klong jark bungalows , snorkeling, sunsets

There are 3price classes here. I go for choosing for longer stay instead of better quality and am in the cheap 500 bht cabin. I am in the one closest to the beach but behind the aircon cabins,I even have seaview, lucky me. Hammock at my porch and some along the beach.

The cold water shower has warm water from The sun, in case you want to wash yr hair after swimming in the sea. The sunset is beautiful here. There are mostly couples and some families here, I am the only single. scooters for hire for 350 bht a day.  Fireshow In the evening.

Very pleasant owner and personnel. Bungalow with all you need!,clean, but maybe not for people wanting luxury.
Many Danish, French and Russian here. People coming from other hotels to watch the sunset here. Marvelous sunsets, different every evening.

The first days I only swam, because everybody else only dipped their toe in the water and went out again after just a couple of minutes. But today I tried snorkeling and became pleasantly surprised! There is fish from smaller to big to see. Remember those big green blue ones? Well they are here too as well as living coral.  The shortest way is Just to swim a few minutes ahead from the massage house towards the rocks in front. Best time in the morning with low tide. Even better  more coral more fish is in the right corner. When you don't wAnt to swim that far, then start from the rocks on the beach to the right.  But beware of the motorboats around 09.00 and 15.00 going to and from other islands on snorkeling tour. On the tour you will swim in a group while here at klong bay you probably be the only one spotting the fish. I know what to choose:)


I have problems again with uploading Photos so they come later.

From Norwegian chess to Thai mobile

O boy, of course when you need your bankid _ on my chess sim card _ to work, chess does not support mobile communication at an island like KO lanta and more places.

Nov. 30 I will be in town again, 1 day krabi, and hope then to be able to buy the right plane ticket. I don't know how it happened but I have a Laos air ticket going in the opposite direction of what I thought I booked:(

My Thailand phone for this trip is: + Thailand- 937462542.

Trip to KO lanta

If you fly to Bangkok international and arrive between 06.30 and 07.00 am with air norwegian a:-)s  as I did you can easily catch a flight withbangkok  airlines at 09.15.  At 07.15 I was already checking in on a machine for my flight to krabi.  Arrived at krabi in time and 11.30 I had a shared shuttlebuss to KO lanta.... to the harbour to take the boat was the meaning, but.... the bus drove us into krabikrabikrabio to buy the boat ticket at a restaurant where I had to wait 1.5 hours for the minivan to b ring me to the port. Well iI have not seen a port. The van drove us back 30 minutes passing the airport and another hour to a small car ferry taking us across in 5 minutes. Another long ride, another small car ferry, another 5 minutes on the water. Then a long drive across KO lanta to deliver everybody at their hotel. After half past four I finally arrived at my bungalow at the far south of the island. At 17.00 I was in the water only 26 hours after I left home:-)
Maybe a better idea is taking a taxi , half an hour, to the harbour, but only if you are sure there is a boat going.
My shared drive from airport to hotel costed 600 bht.  The last possibility for this busss minivan is daily at 16.00.

 The boat will very soon I think be replaced by minivan transfer, because the car ferries drove under the bridges Beeing build and almost finished.

Photos coming soon.

This winter will be a lot about Permaculture.

What permaculture is? In short, you can say it is living of your land, without buying a lot of stuff. Maybe even washing the dishes by hand and so using less water and electricity. Of course you always decide yourself how far you want to go.

From December 2 to 20 I will attend a Permaculture Design Course at the Panya project in the northern part of Thailand. There there are day temperatures of 32C, but night temperatures of 10C (brrrr), and ..... I will camp in a cheap small tent!, which I will give away to a child or so after the course is finished.

See this video of the permaculture place, the surrounding mountains and the view, the Thai people, as well as impressions of what permaculture is about. From humanure toilets to edible forest (matskog) and how to make the land on a mountain slope, so that it holds water, important in a warm climate.






Now that I have a little bid heavy tent with me, I am in the position of camping on a deserted island :) So after my stay on the touristic island Ko Lanta, I ask a boat agency with snorkling tours to leave me on such an island, Ko Rok. The park rangers of Ko Rok nature reservate control what happens on this island, rent out tents, and there is a restaurant for the snorklers, so I wont starve there, but there wont be a lot of things to do except snorkling and walking or swimming around the island. Probably no wifi either, but I read some rooms are build this year. With the same boat agency I go back about a week later. On the way back and forth by boat I will snorkel at some other islands.

Normally I spend my winters to better my health in only hot temperatures. This is the first time for me to feel the effects of cold nights in the tropics. To be sure I have a warm finish I will spend my last week on the island Ko Kut (also called Ko Kood) near the Cambodian border.

Hope you sent me a word back once in a while my friends; you can do that in the comment field down here or in an email. Always good to share new memories.