Tai, a moose on drugs

As you may probably have noticed, we were accompanied by two mooses during our travels. Glenf & Soeren both come from Sweden where they grew up in a yellow & blue home called "IKEA". About ten+ years back they were old enough to go travelling for their first time: to Germany. Soeren was about to meet Martina, while Glenf crossed Philipp's path.


It was not until early 2009 that Glenf and Soeren finally met but they liked each other instantly. Since then they conquered glaciers, drove off-road, flew over Aoraki/Mt. Cook, sailed the Whitsunday Islands, were chased by Paparazzi, threw wild parties, and happily survived a dozen other adventures (while of some of them they still need to recover ... viewer's discretion is advised ;-) !).

But the best part - they told us - is always, when they meet friends: like Nils in Shanghai, Pätrick in Munich, or Urs while climbing the Mont Blanc.

No wonder they were very much excited when we met another moose in Bangkok, where we spent the last 5 days of our 4-month holiday: Tai. We immediately decided to adopt him and take him home with us. Unfortunately we heard rumors that he had turned towards the dark side of life and worked as a drug carrier from very early on. All of his seams have been opened multiple times. The wound in his head probably is a sign of a recent gang fight and for sure needed immediate treatment. We decided not to test the excellence of the Thai, Bahrain and German border control and drug search dogs. And with 4 heavy hearts we decided to leave Tai behind.


Our other adventures in Bangkok included:

1. Siam Ocean Aquarium - Ocean Walk - Shark Encounter (also under water!)
   This visit again proved it: Aquariums & Under-Water worlds for sure are my favourite sightseeing places, still waiting to be able to visit the world's largest
   
2. Emerald Buddah - Grand Palace - Huge Buddah
   Very much colorful!
   
3. Cooking Class - Hands-on activities - Surprisingly good food (although we made it ourselves!)
   Since he was first mentioned in the Lonely Planet, Nusi has 2 cooking classe a day, some of them as large as 14 people. We were lucky and were only 4. As an introductionary course it was a great experience but the famous Thai smile is missing in this place. No wonder, Nusi doesn't like Nutella, that's why! ;-)

Moving to Bahrain on our way home, we ...

1. Enjoyed the stopover arrangements by Gulf Air which included a giganto-enormous hotel room, dinner and transport - all for free. Great! But still, we had to add a new highlight to our "having fun while traveling"-experience. So much complaining, about nothing. Amazing. And in the end even we were "attacked" for being relaxed and smiling, can you imagine?
   
2. Miss-judged that 15 km on a GPS can actually turn into nearly 75 km on the road. Our taxi-tour to the Tree of Life was exquisitely expensive.
3. But with a sunset over the desert and a bread-baking lessons in the local souk still worth the fun.

All (and more) pictures from our last week are posted in the new "Bangkok, Bahrain & back home" album on facebook. Enjoy!