With our guide Oni and driver Can we went discovering the immediate surroundings of Chiang Mai. We first visited the King. Unfortunately he wasn't home, but we could walk through his nice gardens and such.
After that we saw the Phra That Doi Suthel temple, one of Thailand's holiest shrine. There Eddie and I did some worshiping, pulled some bells and took a lucky number. It turned out that I will be very lucky indeed and (Marijn: this is for you!) wil win a lawsuit...Chiang Mai has millions of scooters or so it seems. Everyone is driving them. No Gileras though, and no helmets either.
Chiang Mai is a lovely place. A small town in a valley full with history. (and tourists). We are staying at the D2 hotel , a brand new boutique hotel with lounge music and hi design. It is great!
As everywhere in Thailand the food is excellent and ridiculously cheap . My Diet Coke costs 25 cents and a plate fried rice with chicken 50 cents. Taxi's, clothing everything is one Euro or less. And yet: people don't look poor. The town is cheerful, clean and looking prosperous.We did a walking tour and saw the temples of the ancient regimes. On the way back we took our first tuktuk - and last because you don't see alot from it. :-)
For a lousy €12 (including beverages and hot lunch) we made a 12 hour trip from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. The train (a south Korean Daewoo) and the tracks were in good condition so we had a smooth ride.
However nice the landscape (endless rice fields and forests) is, it was a very (to) long trip. So on our way back we will take the airplane from Thai airways. That will cost us twice as much: € 24... :-)
We made a bicycle trip through Bangkok and its surroundings. This is organized by a dutch guy who obviously cannot stop bicycling... We were with one other Dutch Couple (who are planning to bicycle some more - from Bangkok to Vietnam to be accurate... :-) )
The town was busy and everywhere we found people preparing food on the street. We had some lovely coconut pancakes, some pineapple and some fried sweet potatoes. We a boat we crossed the river and came in a completely different world: a sort of jungle where there were small paths where we could bike trough.
Although the temperature was high, a light breeze made everything quite comfortable.
We stopped in the middle of nowhere to have lunch (fried rice - what else) and I must say: it tasted very good. :-)
After 6 hours we returned and had dinner again in our Hotel (only this time on the teras at the 51st floor)
We have to sleep early because tomorrow we have to catch the first train to Chang Mai.
After a good flight we have arrived in Bangkok. We went straight to the Lebua Hotel and tried to catch up some sleep. At sunset we went upstairs to the Sirocco restaurant at the 64 st floor. It has breath taking views over Bangkok.
We had dinner with Tineke & Bob our friend s whom we haven't seen for ages. We had a lot of catching up to do, so it was late when we turned to bed.
Let's hope that Oprah's endorsement of Barrack will make that difference. I know I can believe in it...
We were invited at Time & Christel for a real Philippine dinner. It was great! According to Christel the Philippine kitchen is easy: just add garlic and uh... garlic and a dash of GARLIC...
After a complaint from a local Islamic party the City Museum of Den Hague will not expose this picture of Soorah Hera of two gay men wearing masks of Mohammed and his son in law.
Again a lot of fuzz about nothing. I wouldn't hang them anyway because I think they are bad pictures (and ugly guys)... ;-)
This is perfect! It is a clock
radio, alarm clock, and digital picture frame. You can play your own MP3 music.
Comes preloaded with music. Also has SD/MMC slot, so it's easy to upload picture You can even upload video clips. The built-in FM radio has 20 presets and a dual-alarm function
with gentle wake mode, which gradually increases the music volume. The
7-inch display screen can also display a large time readout and
calendar functions.
$99 by Amazon, € 150 in the Neterlands :-(
The revolutionary new Eye-Fi Card looks and works just like a standard
2GB SD card except it has a tiny secret: Wi-Fi is built in. Now,
docking your digital camera, connecting cables, and fumbling with card
readers are a thing of the past. The Eye-Fi card will wirelessly upload
your photos from your camera onto your computer and the web. So you can take unlimited amount of pictures and all of them are immediately on flickr (or vox)
Why did I have to buy an other Sony? It uses Memory Card... :-(
Spend the whole day preparing for our trip to Thailand in two weeks. Arranging the Thai cooking lessons, the guide at Angkor, the bicycles in Bangkok and the tickets for the Thai Boxing match. Also checking all the gear we have to take with us and buying mosquito repellent...
The Sony DSC-T100 is making great pictures (of a great lady...)
We had a little launch party at De Hemelse Modder with the whole development team of Zomoto. Everyone worked hard the last months and I am very pleased with the result so far.
Today was a big day: we launched Zomoto during a press conference in Amsterdam. The press came in large numbers and the whole event was excellent. Let's hope that they write favorable about our little venture...
We received a letter from the Zurich guys while registering our logo worldwide that were not that pleased with our initial choice. They have no businesses in Holland anymore, but for our future foreign expansion it would be nice to be able to use our Dutch logo. Zurich suggested an other color and for us to stay away from financial services.
So they were very nice in trying to help us, but be decided to develop a new logo altogether. So here it is: the NEW ZOMOTO! :-)
I don't know who started this new trend in which women put shawls around their head: I guess it's Marijn...
