We had five marvelous days on Sweet Robin, the Jeanneau we borrowed from new made friends in Phuket. After checking everything on the boat and doing some necessary work on it as well like changing the oil and tightening the V-belt we sailed into a new cruising ground.They only had 20 meters of anchor chain so we had to find shallow spots for the night to anchor and with the common squalls gusting over us, having only 20 meters of chain went to my nerves a bit, but luckily the anchor had good hold and we didn’t encounter many problems. Phang gna bay was our cruising ground for that week and even though we where on a different island every day the time wasn’t even nearly enough to get a good view of the bay. Phang gna bay is scattered with huge pillar rocks sticking out of the water and islands formed out of limestone with in numerous caves and hongs. Hong is the Thai word for room, which the enormous openings in the middle of these islands are called, mostly entered trough a cave or narrow opening. After 5 days of sailing and exploring we sailed Sweet Robin back to the marina and lived on board for another couple days with the family before heading off to explore another part of Thailand. Five rides with locals a short bus ride and a train ride of 12 hours later we arrived in Nakhom Pathom at 3am. The benches at the railway station looked quite comfy and we slept there until daylight, and hundreds of Thai’s rushing on and off the stopping trains woke us up. The trip continued westwards to Kanchanaburi where we stayed in a very cute guesthouse build on docks along the riverside. A very basic hut with a shower, cockroaches and ants included served us well, we where glad to leave our heavy backpacks somewhere while exploring the city.As everywhere in Thailand eating on the streets at local stands is the cheapest and easiest way to fill your tummy with yummy food. We didn’t visit a single grocery store, except for a ice cream every now and then… Hiring a scooter costs about 5 dollar a day and turned out to be a great way to go exploring and drive to the local markets which are a great cultural experience, so is the driving… most of the time they drive left but that seems to be as many rules as they have for scooters. After a night in Kanchanaburi we traveled to Ayutthaya where we explored the old capital city with it’s many impressing ruins and tales. The city isn’t to big and a bike seemed to be the best way to explore the many old ruins and get lost in the littlest streets and backstreet markets with the cheapest best food. By then we had booked our tickets to Germany and time was getting a bit little. I will be in Europe for a while to promote the German version of my book and hope to do some presentations as well. We left Ayutthaya and went into the hectic of Bangkok where we didn’t spent to much time looking around as it was far to busy and commercial for us, instead we spent a night at the airport and flew back to even more hectic and busy europe. Since then it has been a culture shock again, every time I get back into this rushed and strange society I wonder where this world is heading to. People just not thinking for themselves any more and following the ‘protocol of life’ made by media and people that just care about themselves. But mainly the mentality created by civilization is something that really bothers me. In Thailand or New Zealand for instance it is normal to greet people on the streets or in the car, but now I just get strange looks, and people probably think I want something from them… Friendliness is not something from this society anymore. Luckily there is still places in this world that are ‘untouched’ and people that haven’t been sucked into the tornado of the western civilization. And I’m extremely thankful to be one of these people that can see and explore these places, but so far it makes me sad to come back into a world that has been so destroyed already..

Laura