Over the past week I’ve been calling two islands in the Gulf of Thailand ‘home’: Koh Tao and Koh Phangan. Koh Tao is known for one, and pretty much only one thing: scuba diving. It is one of the cheapest places in the world to take diving lessons, and ranks second to only Cairns, Australia, […]
One interesting thing I noticed during my stay on the small island of Koh Chang Noi in the Andaman sea (see my blog post ‘My small island retreat‘), was that there is virtually no crime on the island. The resort where I was staying employed an honours system for food and drinks. You could order […]
Two days ago I flew to Ranong. Since there is no direct air connection between Chiang Mai and Ranong, I had to change planes in Bangkok. The flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok (DMK) I did with Lion Air. This airline company has a rather dubious safety record, and is banned in Europe, but at […]
Today was highly frustrating. It should have been an excellent day; I woke up and had breakfast on the beautiful Cat Ba Island, where I had spent the last two days. Aside from a touristy settlement around the docks, the island offers mostly natural beauty, and has some great hiking trails. This had been a […]
In many countries doing business is all about negotiating. If you live in Europe or North-America, you might not be used to haggling over the price of a box of cornflakes (although you can and should haggle if buying clothes at a boutique store or something like expensive camera equipment), but in other parts of […]
I just returned from a week of hiking in the Swiss Alps. Never having been to Switzerland before, all I knew was that it’s expensive, that they make delicious chocolate, and that the people speak some form of German (which is unintelligible to normal German speakers). I was pleasantly surprised by many things, about which […]
