It has been a while! Apologies for my absence, I've been flying around like a homing pigeon itself. Crazy long days of work and very little sleep. I did a european tour in 3 days with a total of 10 flights. Bit too much if you ask me, especially when you need to wake up at 5AM. It hurts! But I'm back home now, packing my bags for a weekend with le boyfriend to Brugge, Belgium.
For the outfit: I bought these amazing very skinny and very high waisted jeans at Primark for just 5 euro, such a bargain! I love to try out a little bit of a schoolgirl look. It's years ago, I left highschool at the age of 15 (check my 'about me' page if you want to know why) and sometimes I'm still thinking about those crazy years as a teen.
P.s: for those with a very sharp vision: yes I did dye my hair myself. It turned out to be a bit too dark. Thanks to boredom and the lack of sleep. Amazeballs.
Temperatures are rising slowly but it's definitely noticable. I changed my long pants into a comfortable playsuit which was hanging in my closet -unworn- for the past few months. Finally it was warm enough to wear it! Tomorrow the temperatures are rising even more, up to 30 degrees celcius for what I've heared, perfect!
I still truly miss Thailand (and my boyfriend, we were together 24/7 so it's kinda strange I don't see him that much right now) and can't wait to go back. But enough about my holiday, today we were watching a huuuuuuge cruiseboat passing by. Still can't believe why people would visit The Netherlands, there's not a lot to see. But oh well, maybe it's just a short stop in Amsterdam, don't know.
Still no phonecall from my work whatsoever, so hopefully I can enjoy the high temperatures tomorrow here in the Netherlands. Today, I decided to give my beloved floral pants another shot. I wore them a dozen times and still love them. It's the print I think,... I wore them here, here and here before. :) Gotta love a little bit of color, right?
Luck was on my side this week! I recieved an email that I was one of the 10 lucky winners of the 200 euro voucher from Asos. Do you know Stylight? A couple of weeks ago I recieved an email if I would like to join their fashion network and create fashion moodboards. So I joined, recieved an amazing goodiebag and started creating my own personal fashion moodboard. And so it turned out that I was the winner! Thanks again Stylight! Here is my order from asos! :)
Finally just a little bit of sunshine today! Combined with a very strong wind makes it again very cold, but it's good to feel some sunshine on my skin. I decided to make a classic yet sportive look today with my gold pants and -fake- converse allstars. I think a dark blue sweater is something every girl should have in her closet. You can combine it with basically everything.
Today I'm waiting with my phone around me, because it's reserve duty time again! When the company calls me, I need to be at the airport within one hour, so bare with me and hope they don't call me. Got lots of stuff to do at home :)
What happend with the summer? I hate it! It's so cold lately here in the netherlands, I'm longing for more days in Thailand. But since that's not going to happen anytime soon, I just keep looking at the pictures.
After being away for more than 3 weeks, we arrived back home a week ago. I wish I could have stayed longer in Thailand, but we'll come back for sure.
It's a big change, to be back. It's cold, rainy and grey outside and my summer feeling is gone. But I still have a lot of great pictures to look at! We're already thinking about our holiday this winter, so if you have any tips for 1 week please let me know (we're trying to go 3 weeks, but if that's impossible, we go 1 week).
Just three hours before our flight back to Amsterdam we took a couple of outfit pictures. Nothing special, but this is what I wore while searching for breakfast (which our hotel unfortunately didn't offer). I hope you like it. It's all primark.
The last day of our holiday. We ended our Thailand trip in Bangkok, but we both didn't like it: too crowded, too hot, too much of everything. Maybe one day is even too much for us, but we made the most out of it.
We woke up early as usual and took the tuktuk to the market in chinatown. I really wanted to buy some beads for at home (I make my own jewelry every now and then). After our shopping trip we took the boat to another part of the city while passing the 'Wat Arun' temple. It became bloody hot that day and since we were both really annoyed by the stupid tuktuk drivers we decided to go to the big shopping mall MBK.
After MBK we changed our outfit and went to Lumphini park to escape the hot and crowded city. During the sunset we headed to Vertigo Moon Bar and enjoyed an overpriced beer during the sunset. It was beautiful yet crazy at the same time.
After a quick breakfast it was time to leave Koh Phangan. We booked a boat/bus combination ticket at a local office here in Koh Phangan to go to Sarut Thani airport. The boat/bus ticket was 600 baht per person. The boat left exactly on time and 2,5 hours later we set foot on shore. Afterwards there was another 2 hour busride to the airport of Sarut Thani. We booked our very cheap flight (50 euro per person) at Air Asia to fly to Bangkok.
We arrived during the evening and had to take a taxi from the airport to our hotel, Chiang Siam Inn. The taxi was about 300 baht in total, not really expensive for a 45 minute ride. After dropping our stuff we had dinner at mac donalds and took the tuktuk to Khao San Road for a nice drink and a little bit of shopping.
During our last day on the beautiful island of Koh Phangan, we took our motorbike for one last trip to one of the beaches on the east side of the island. The ride itself was also a lot of fun. From the good concrete roads we had to conquer some dirtroads as well. After this holiday Pim definitely deserves a master degree in riding a motorbike if you ask me!
The beach was beautiful, the sea lovely for a little swim and the weather was amazing. After our break at the beach we took the motorbike to a waterfall. A real waterfall indeed, because all the others we went to were dry. But this one was still there, a bit weak, but oh well it was still lovely to see!
During the evening we took the kayak and paddled towards a HUGE raincloud. Luckily, I got bored pretty quickly and after about 20 minutes we were back in our lovely bungalow at Baan Manali watching the cloud became bigger and bigger. We enjoyed a lovely singha while watching this extreme power of the nature. While it came closer we saw and hearded a lot of thunder as well, but the rain never came. It was just really heavy wind and thunder, that's about it.
Not a lot of pictures today! Sometimes one needs a little bit of relaxation during their vacation without holding a camera all the time. But you know me, I still need to capture just a little bit of the everyday live here in Koh Phangan.
Pim went on a very cool diving trip with Sail Rock divers to the sail rock. This time he went alone (if you have read my previous post about his diving trip, you know why I'm not diving nor joining him on the boat, haha). According to Pim, Sail Rock divers is a really professional and good diving company and his diving experience (2 times 1 hour) was amazing at the 'Sail Rock'. I enjoyed a nice coconut oil massage in the mean time and did a little bit of handicraft shopping.
Today we went for a nice hike trip to the so called 'bottle beach' here on Koh Phangan. We parked our motorbike where the road ended, somewhere around Coconut beach if I'm correct. We saw on the map of Koh Phangan that the hiking trip would take us about 1 hour before we would reach 'bottle beach'. Strange name for a tropical beach, huh?
We took 1 litre of water per person with us and started our hiking trip on our vans (Pim) and cheap primark sneakers (myself). We soon discovered why bottle beach is called bottle beach. When you're hiking to this place, you need to follow a track of empty bottles. In the beginning, everything was easy peasy and we really thought it would only take us 1 hour. But after half an hour, our hike became very intense. The track was really hard to follow despite of the empty water bottles. It wasn't actually a track, just a jungle route. We needed to climb as well, which was pretty intense because of my shoes which were very slippery (fail) and the almost vertical climbs. Heavy!
We ran out of water after 1 hour and became really annoyed by that. No sign of bottle beach whatsoever and still those intense climbs up and down the rocks and through the jungle. We even saw some monkeys, who weren't very delighted to see us. I wanted to go back after one hour but decided that the way back would be just as hard as the way to bottle beach. We still had no idea how long it would take us to get there. After two hours into the jungle, I cried because of fear (we were climbing really high and my shoes were so slippery) and the lack of water. But we reached the point of no return an hour ago. After app. 30 more minutes, we finally reached bottle beach. So relieved! It was difficult to enjoy because I was so tired, but after 1,5 litres of water and a good lunch, we swam in the amazingly clear sea and went back by longtailboat (thank goodness). We enjoyed the most amazing sunset I've ever seen and here are the pictures!
Today we moved to another resort. I heard so many great things about the Baan Manali Resort here in Koh Phangan that I really wanted to stay there. The first two nights Baan Manali was already full, therefore we stayed in the other hotel I told you about. But today we could finally move and we're here for the next 4 nights!
After the move we walked around on the private beach and explored some new beaches as well. Koh Phangan is just so pretty! We rented a motorbike again, this time a little bit more expensive (200 baht per day) because of the hills here. We needed a powerfull motorbike. During the evening we had a nice dinner at Nic's restaurant in Haad Rin. Really good food, friendly waiter, just perfect :)
We both enjoy Koh Phangan alot! It's so peacefull here, the roads are good and the weather is really nice! We took our motorbike (150 baht per day) around the island and enjoyed the beach life. I found a cute new bikini in a local store for just 500 baht, cheap! We're still in the Sarikantang resort but we're moving to another resort tomorrow, so stay tuned!
We took the Lomprayah catamaran for 450 baht per person from Koh Tao to Koh Phangan, and so we arrived at our last tropical island before we're heading back to Bangkok and eventually back home. We decided to stay longer in Koh Phangan because it's a bigger island than Koh Tao and there is more to do. We're not the type of persons to sit on the beach all day, we need some entertainment!
We arrived a couple of days after the full moon party, and since it's low season right now it means the island is basically empty. Everyone left after the full moon party and now it's peacefull and quiet here, exactly what we like! Phangan is beautiful, big and has a lot of white sandy beaches!
We had a very active third and last day in Koh Tao. After our breakfast we rented a motorbike and decided to explore the island. It was the second time that we rented a motor bike in Thailand. This time was a little bit more difficult: it was very hard to read the map, no directions along the way and a lot of dirt roads. We ended up pissed off and exhausted. But we did make it to one view point and to two beaches.
We had a relaxed morning with a nice breakfast and some chilling at the beach on our second morning in Koh Tao. During the afternoon my boyfriend (an advanced open water diver) booked himself a fun diving trip at 'easy divers' and I could join him for free (read: sitting on the boat and watching Pim do the diving, I don't dive, I'm scared).
So the boat headed to Koh Nuang Yuang and Pim had a nice diving experience at the japanese gardens around the small island. I did a little bit of sun bathing (errr, burning actually) on the roof of the boat. Everything went well and when Pim came back we also snorkeled around for a bit.
The second dive spot was a little bit more at the 'open' sea, and that's where things went seriously wrong. Not with Pim, he enjoyed the underwater world while I was desperately looking for a seasickness pill which I ofcourse forgot to take while we were still on shore. So yeah, the pill came too late and I threw up three times and felt so sick! I was looking monsterish green. I was so reliefed when we were finally back at our hotel. But anyway, Pim's diving trip was nice and he want's to go again. But I won't join him next time, I'm staying on the beach, haha! Therefore, also not a lot of pictures. Just Pim diving and a lovely dinner at the restaurant. Hope you like them :)
