As I planed to start a new job at Copenhagen by April the 1st, I used the opportunity to improve my diving skills and to visit one of my favourite countries: Thailand.

At first I have to mention the comfortable transfer to Phuket with Thai Airways. They made the flight seeming very short. After that we got picked up and got nicely invited to stay at my mothers friends home at Kamala/Phuket, where we had some time to acclimate - puhh, it has been about 38°C hot!

Our next destination was Khao Lak, a small village about 100 km north of Phuket. Khao Lak has a more or less quiet wide beach with lots of lovely restaurants. At the Chong Fa Resort we had a nice small bungalo for a good price. The Kon-Tiki Dive Center at Khao Lak offered us a two days trip to the Similan Islands. They also provided us with the diving equipment, food and a tent to sleep in on island number 4. Around the islands 4 to 8 are some incredibly nice dive spots presenting almost surreal seaming underwater landscapes making you feel like in the middle of a picture from Salvatore Dalì. We have been to quite a few of them for doing the Advanced Open Water Diver license. This was really cool! I recommend every diver to visit these islands if possible. For non-divers: It's not only the underwater world that's amazing, it's also the islands themselves. Just look at the pictures...

After all the diving we traveled to Chiang Mai, where we wanted to get closer in touch with the locals and the Thai culture. The city itself is very nice - many old fashioned buildings, walls and monuments remind of the ancient times - and is a good base for excursions to the different interesting places around the town. We stayed at the Top North Guesthouse in the centre of Chiang Mai, where we were treated very kindly. The guesthouse also organizes all different kind of tours. You can also sign up for a course in cooking Thai food and learning Thai massage.

Initially we planned to join a course in Traditional Medicinal Thai Massage. But the shortest course would have taken 5 days. Instead we joined a two days trecking tour to small village of the hill tribes, which turned out to be great fun with seven very nice people from Syria, India and Japan. Our guide lead us by foot, elephant and bamboo boat to very nice naturally preserved places with wide soy and rice fields, forests, waterfalls and a Karen village about 1700 meters above sea level where we also spent the night. This tour was a really good experience - next time I surely do it again.

Back to civilisation in Chiang Mai we rented a car to visit one of the most sacred places in the north of Thailand: Wat Doi Suthep - a beautiful temple about 1600 meters above sea level. After that, while our taylor prepared our new suits, we drove to the east of Chiang Mai to Ban Bo Sarng where we visited an umbrealla factory and a lacquerware factory. In that village lots of Thai handicrafted products can be seen and bought for fair prices.

Knowing that we will return somewhen later (another holiday) to Chiang Mai, we headed down to the Jomtien Beach close to the overpopulated Pattaya Beach and an island called Koh Larn. These places almost completely turned into fun parks for tourists - of which you can see there a hell of a lot. If you don't feel like going to see one of these world famous Tiffany Shows, it's not really worth it then going there. We spent most of the time in the swimming pool of our hotel or collecting some golf experiences. Conclusion: Pattaya is not a recommended destination for holidays.

When we bought the flight tickets, there was a stay for three nights in the Hotel Landmark in Bangkok included in the price. This was quite perfect because we wanted to do some more shopping to finalise our holidays - and Bangkok is quite perfect for that. The combination of the Sky Train and the taxi boats in the river is a quite convenient way of coming around in the city. If one stays in Bangkok, it is almost a must to visit the Grand Palace and to do a boat trip through the side canals of Chao Praya River. And if one's looking for computer software, he should reserve enough time to visit the Pantip Plaza shopping center. This is a kind of Mekka for software pirates - it's just amazing.

Our thanks, greetings and love go to all the nice and friendly people who made this wonderful trip to Thailand real: