Travel

It’s been underway for some time, but now I can make it official: I quit my job.

I’ve been called stupid because I quit my well-paying job right in the midst of a financial crisis, where jobs are scarce and as a graduate from 2009 (the lost generation) I should count my blessings for just having a job. On the other hand I have had a lot of people congratulate me for daring to go on this adventure – and there is an adventure underway.

I did not quit to end my current job (but of course that is a side effect), I quit to start a new phase of my life – a travelling phase. November 1. 2010 I’m going to leave Denmark to go travelling Asia with my husband. Not much is planned yet except the departure date, so if you know a place that we just have to see, please let us know in the comments of this blog.

We are hesitant to put an end date to this adventure, but just to be able to tell people something, we have said that this adventure will take a year. This could of course turn out to be 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years or whatever…

The last few months we have started to prepare this trip by giving notice to leave our rented apartment (we had to give a 3 months notice), I have quit my job, I have been going to doctors to make sure my nose will be fixed before we leave (it’s broken – long story), we put all our money in a travel fund and I have been researching places to go and sights to see.

I have arranged with my father that we can stay at his place from the date that we have to leave the apartment and until we leave the country, and our parents are going to store our furniture, while we are gone.

Along the way I will try to get some freelance work, either as a coder (I would love to do some Android, web or Java/C#-work), a photographer (learning something new every day) or as a blogger but if that doesn’t work out, I will start writing some e-books or tutorials and find some funding through advertising. I have also sold how-to videos before and if my nose get fixed I will consider making more.

Just writing this I get butterflies in my stomach – I can’t wait to start this adventure!

Bangkok by night - photo taken by Poul Foged

Last winter we visited Thailand for the first time. We have recently extended our family with a branch in Thailand (long story) and we wanted to see their country and learn about their history and culture.

Our trip started out in Bangkok. The city is, as all big cities, crowded, busy and sizzling. We loved it from Day 1. From a Danish perspective the prices seems ridiculously low with an hour of foot massage for 200 Bath, which is about 30 DKK or 5 Dollars and you could probably find it even cheaper. Shopping in Bangkok is an incredible experience and I bought so many books, some clothes, bags and gifts for the family back home.

We visited at Christmas time and the decorations was tacky and beautiful all at once. You can’t help but smile when you see how far the Thai people will go to mark a holiday that is not even celebrated by the majority of Thais. The dominant religion in Thailand is Buddhism but they do a lot for the turists at Christmas. The Christmas decorations on the big photo of the Bangkok traffic is the same as the one at the header of this blog.

Bangkok traffic

Even in winter Bangkok is hot, hot, hot and a whole day walking around the city can be hard work. A great break is a trip on the river with one of the fast boats. We chose the biggest turist boat and regretted it.

Fast boat on the river in Bangkok

After New Years Eve we decided to find us a deserted bounty beach and we rented a car (driver included) and headed south to a place called Blue Beach Resort near Pranburi. The only thing we knew about the place was that they had a website, free internet and free kayak’s. The place was a mixed experience. We stayed in the cheap rooms at first but had to move to a better room because the beds in the cheap rooms was really only a wooden board with a blanket over. On the other hand we found our deserted bounty beach. It was beyond words.

The Blue Beach Resort was a nice place but a bit plain and simple, so we decided to explore some of the other hotels at the same beach. We found a great place with a pool just up the beach. They served the best food, drinks and even though they had some problems understanding and speaking english the service was great. They brought us towels so we could use their pool even though we weren’t guests at their hotel. We ended up hanging out for a couple of days at this hotel only returning to our own to sleep at night.

The pool

We had 10 beautiful, happy days at that bounty beach with just a few days on tours to Hua-Hin and it was almost perfect. We returned to Bangkok a few days before we had to fly home and did some more shopping. Both of us were sad to leave Thailand.

As many other Danes we like to visit the Greek islands and we have been doing so every summer for years. Even for our honeymoon. This year the Greeks are experiencing a drop in turism most likely because of the deadly riots in Athens and the bad publicity with the economic trouble in the country that threathens to bring down the European economy. This is a shame because the Greek islands are in my experience both calm, safe and beautiful. The last few years we have visited Crete, Samos, Zakynthos, Rhodes and ancient Olympia at the Greek mainland.

This year we decided to visit the Greeks in Cyprus – an independent country since 1960 but with strong ties to Greece. Their language is Greek and the population are 77% Greek. Our decision not to visit Greece has nothing to do with the problems the country is facing as we booked the vacation many months before the riots. If we had not already booked this vacation I think we would have visited Greece – the prices are low right now and we would like to help the Greeks in these difficult times. I can certainly recommend visiting the Greek islands – I love the food, the people and the ancient history.

The view from Platanias, Crete

Greek sailor (Yannis?), Samos

Mozaic from Rhodes

Jumbled column, Samos