my hobby: adding red colour to the “countries i’ve visited” map.
having visited 10.4% of the earth’s countries, i still have a long way to go…

countries i’ve visited, 1985 – 2008

it’s a shame you can hardly see the red dot that is fiji. ;)

during my time in thailand, i was able to tick off several items on my virtual “i’ve always wanted to …”-list.

number three: i’ve always wanted to see a shark in its natural habitat.

blacktip reef shark (carcharhinus melanopterus) in koh tao, thailand

this was the first time i was able to observe a shark in the wild.
i was snorkelling near shark island (it was named for its appearance, not the occurrence of sharks) in the south of koh tao, thailand. i even caught its attention, and it circled around me a few times before heading into the distance.
incredible.

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during my time in thailand, i was able to tick off several items on my virtual “i’ve always wanted to …”-list.

number two: i’ve always wanted to try fried insects.

markus tastes a fried grasshopper

while the grasshoppers and maggots mostly only tasted like the old fat that they were fried in, the beatles were the nasty ones!
in a nutshell: been there, done that, not likely to do it again in the near future. ;-)

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cindy, larry and me at the austrian parliament

we did more than 22.000 steps through vienna today, which adds up to about 11 km (?) covered on foot.
i’m tired.

i’m back home again, now busy trying to cope with the insane temperature drop (37 degrees to 07 degrees celsius).

during my time in thailand, i was able to tick off several items on my virtual “i’ve always wanted to …”-list.

number one: i’ve always wanted to try durian.

markus tastes a durian

the stinky fruit is considered a delicacy by some, and an olfactory offense by lots of others. to give you an idea: durians are usually banned from hotels and public means of transport (flashback).

using it’s awful smell as a standard, the fruit itself didn’t taste as bad as i expected…

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Thai PM to review state of emergency
September 5, 2008 – 7:50PM

Thailand’s prime minister says he will consider lifting a state of emergency in Bangkok amid anti-government protests because it is being ignored.

if you ignore a problem long enough (even if it’s a prime minister), it will go away!

greetings from bangkok, by the way. :)

update 2008-09-10 21:26 it only gets better…

Thai leader forced to resign over TV cooking show
September 10, 2008

Thailand’s prime minister was forced out of office Tuesday after a court ruled that he had broken a conflict-of-interest law by hosting TV cooking shows.

ap.google.com

walking through the rain in khao sok rainforest, thailand

“we walked for hours through the tropical rainforest in what can only be described as …the rain.” – douglas adams