Traveling
Around the Lake of Constance
After a quite long non traveling time, we went for a Lake of Constance trip with our bikes on white sunday.
You wont believe it, but we use our bikes the first time since my girlfriend arrived Switzerland. So we decided to remove the dust and pedal the 210 km around the lake.
Day 1
Starting point was Kreuzlingen. Together with our colleagues we head of across the german border to Constance. This is quite near and we already could enjoy the first sight at the lake.
Lake of Constance
We decided not to take the ferry to Meersburg, but to visit the peninsula Mainau and continue via Ludwigshafen to Meersburg.
It took us about half an hour to arrive at the peninsula Mainau. The entry of 8€ is not that cheap just to visit an island, but we wanted to see something on our trip, so we payed and entered to the paradise of the flowers.
Peninsula Mainau
Unfortunately a week before has been this thunder storm, which destroyed most of these wonderful flowers, but there where a lot of birds, restaurants and the butterfly house. The butterfly house was very nice, within a tropical winter garden with a lot of nice orchids and flying butterflies in every color.
After a quick Lunch we continued our trip. The way to Ludwigshafen was very hilly, four hours up and down can be very exhausting, so we where glad to pass Ludwigshafen where we made a small break and continued our way in direction Meersburg.
We arrived in Überlingen at 20:00 so quite late and we searched for rooms, but all hotels in and around Überlingen where fully booked out. With pure luck we finally me a guy from a youth hotel, which just got free space, so we immediately grabbed it.
Day 2
In the second Morning, we visited the pile dwelling museum, where they reconstruct several historical pile dwelling villages and show how they lived in these ancient times.
Pile dwelling museum
Afterwards we arrived in Meersburg, a small city with beautiful old town, where we made a break and discussed our further way. We where very affray that we wont find a room in the second night, because thew day before it was really tight. Finally we decided to drive to Friedrichshafen and take the ferry to Romanshorn, what we did at the end.
The plan was, to driver in direction of Rorschach, if we find a room on the way we’ll stay, otherwise we take the train back home. The pathway to Rorschach is very flat and peaceful. Where the many tourist shops and restaurants have been on the german side, only some fields, forest and a few camping grounds are on the swiss side.
Arbon, somehow, is the swiss counterpart of Meersburg, a small nice city, with a beautiful old town and a castle with the ruins of an ancient roman bath.
And nearby this village we found a small and cheap hotel where we booked our rooms. The hotel just has been renovated and has been clean that you could eat from the floor, very nice.
Day 3
On the third day, we first continued the last 8 km to Rorschach where we made a u-turn and drove back to Romanshorn and afterwards it just has been further 22 km back to Kreuzlingen.
The end of our journey , we enjoyed in Back & Brau in Frauenfeld.
Thailand the third…
Since I met my girlfriend in october 07, we have been in Thailand twice and continuing our tradition, we departed to Bangkok on 26th of december for the third time.
Aye, the cold weather, no sun and almost every day the grey fog over the landscape, as you can imagine, we were really looking forward to the tropical condition in the home of my girlfriend. And we had really a lot of plans in Thailand and only three weeks for executing.
Khon permformance (image from wikipedia)
In Bangkok, after a small nap, we head of for the traditional khon dance performance in the oldest cinema of Bangkok. Khon dance is the royal dance in thailand, the story is always being told by a chorus at the border of the stage, which is illustrated by the dancers in colorful, handmade cloths and masks. The story is mostly a part of the epos of Ramanaya.
The more important a figure is, the more detailed and beautiful is the dress of the dancer. Demons and monkeys are illustrated with a mask. Every mask is unique and shows the character of the figure.
After some days of shopping, we head of to the north of Thailand. On the 30th of december, we arrived in Sukhothai, the oldest capital city of Thailand. The hotel was an old, traditional thai house with a pool in the middle of the courtyard and with the small channels around, filled with beautiful lotus.
With this idyllic atmosphere, the hotel is like an oasis in the middle of Thailand for all travelers.
The ruins of the old capital city (more than 700 years old) brings an imagination of the brilliance and beauty the city had been centuries ago.
The many channels around the city areas let assume a very efficient city planning. The temples with all these Buddha’s seem to be a bit different to Ayuthaya, are influenced by the former architecture of burma.
Hook, a very good colleague of my girlfriend, thaught me some tricks in photography. We made a lot of photos and I think, I could improve the quality of my shots.
Sukhothai has been very nice, but we still had about 4 hours driving with the car to Chiang Mai, the northern city. On the way there, we stopped in a very old temple, which is still in use. Behind the building with the ash of Buddah, a small hut drawed our attention. In the door of this hut where a small hole. If you go inside and close the door, a natural projection of the building with the ash of Buddah gets visible. It is really amazing an not fake! This phenomena is holy and no woman is allowed to enter this hut.
In Chiang Mai, we went for dinner in a restaurant serving the local food of the northern thai. A dance performance showed the different dance styles of Thailand.
The ruins of Sukhothai
The next day, we head off to Mae Cheam, a small village in the middle of the mountains, still belonging to the district of Chiang Mai. On the way there, we took bath in a hot spring. A lot of people are visiting this place and boiling some eggs. Seems to bring luck and good health to eat eggs boiled in this hot spring.
Mae Cheam has only 4 hotels and 3 of them where fully booked…
We rent a bungalow on the last one, it was the emergency bungalow of the owner, very dirty and in a bad condition. After complaining, we go the room of some people, which did not come yet. But we had to wait until they cancel their booking. Afterwards we went to a very nice hotel with only four rooms (which we wanted to go first) and booked the rooms for the next day.
The night in the first hotel was a bit cold and we did not have a lot of space, but at least we had a ‘almost’ clean place to sleep. In morning, we searched a temple, where my girlfriend can make her merit. First we found a temple with a holy spring, where Buddah drank from, but unfortunately all monks where out, so we had to search further. Finally we found a small, old temple where we made a merit to an old monk. While hook and me shot some photos, my girlfriend talk to the monk about the religion culture in the mountain.
The afternoon and night, we spent with drinking coffee and relaxing in the fabulous bungalow hotel we booked the day before. The house was made out of teak wood and the small bungalows with the platforms in between integrated into the garden is very beautiful. Rice fields surround the hotel and far away the forested peaks of the mountains were in sight.
Mae Cheam
The way back to Chiang Mai, we visited the Orb Laung national park, where the Mae Cham river is flowing in the canyon. Special is the view over the whole valley on the view point on top of the hill and the prehistoric paintings. The night in Chiang Mai and the seven hours back to Bangkok were not really spectacular.
The after a few days in Bangkok we took the bus to Kuhra Buri (12 hours) near Phuket. With the speed boat we reached the national park Mu Kho Surin. Surin is a small island, with white beaches and cyan, glass clear water.
There is a small restaurant and you can rent a tent. My girlfriend went there since many years and knows the stuff quite well, so we got the best tent and sometimes some special menus.
Surin is one of the best spots in Thailand for snorkeling. The reef with all its beauty provides a lot of animals to see. Among other thing you can see turtles, moraines, sharks, stingrays and a lot of colorful fishes. Unfortunately, it was very windy and the waves were quite high, so we couldn’t go for snorkeling a lot, but we enjoyed the see with the sunshine and relaxing.
The way back to the mainland was quite adventures, the see was very wavy, some passengers had to fight with the see sick and nothing remained dry.
Mu Kho Surin
Back in Bangkok we used the remaining time for shopping 
On the 17th january we head back home.
Have a look at the pictures:
Sukhothai
Chiang Mai
Mae Cheam
Mu Koh Surin
Alpin hiking tour
On saturday, we went to Bettemeralp in Kanton Wallis. There is a really good connection to go there. From Winterthur to Brig is a direct train and the we had to change to the local railway “Matterhorn Bahn to Betten TalStation. Afterwards we took the Rotair (Big cable car) up to Bettmeralp.
It is very nice up there. We could see the valley of the Rhone, Eiger, Mönch and Junfrau and even the significant peak of Matterhorn. The Bettmeralp is a big holiday resort in this small village. We could find everything we needed up there,so we went to Coop buying our lunch. Afterwards we took the cable car up to the peak of the Bettmerhorn and visited the Aletsch glacier.
So far so good, but a good hiker should know the hiking signs. Full of enthusiasm, ignoring the alpin signs, we followed the hiking trail for the Expert Hiker (UNESCO HIKING TRAIL)to the top of the mountain. It was very tough at the start, my girlfriend and her collegue had to stop every 5 minutes, because they were not used to get that less oxygen, but we were already in the middle, when we realized that this was the climbing trail, haha …. So we continued and climed up to the peak, but on top, we decided not to follow the ridge to the next mountain, so we climbed down again, what an adventure!
Down again, we took the normal hiking way from Bettmerhorn to Fieschalp for 1 hour then cable car down to Fiesch. From Fiesch we catched the Matterhorn Bahn back home..
So never follow the sign “Blue-White-Blue” if you are not the hiking expert !!!
The photos of this trip you can see here.