Life is a festival

You live with 3000 people in a forest. You can't get the smell of cheap wine out of your water bottle. Your tent has been your home for longer than the average camping trip. The dancefloor is where you spend your days and nights. You get hugged by strangers and call them your brothers and sisters. The music never ends. The people around you get tired and when you look in a mirror you see the big black bags under your eyes and realise it's time for sleep. There are no clean clothes left, you don't remember the last time you had a shower, you don't even remember when your last real meal was. You have absolutely no clue what has been happening on facebook or in the world outside the piece of nature you reside. Yes, your life turned into one big festival. And you love every smelly bit of it. 

Thai paradise

Koh Tao must be one of my favourite islands on the planet. After five days and nights of dancing on top of a hill at Experience festival, we rented bikes and drove through the jungle, looking for the most beautiful beaches and the best Thai massage. We found what we were searching for and it was good. Oh, how good it was! Letting an old Thai lady crack all the bones in my body while falling asleep and waking up feeling light as a feather. But looking like I just got run over by a truck. 

There is nothing a snorkel session can't fix, so me and my broken body decided to go for a mission: swim in the ocean every day of the new year. So far so good! I bought a pair of goggles and floated around the whole island. It was magical. I fell in love with fish so much the thought of getting one tattooed on my arm was crossing my mind. But then we found this gorgeous blue butterfly on the road. Love hit me hard and I felt like a confused teenager. I couldn't stop thinking about this amazing creature! Until we bumped into a bungalow with ocean view and called it our home. Watching the sunset from our balcony, while music played and new dance moves were invented. That's when I realised I'm madly in love with life. 

And I would be going back to the country of my dreams soon. Australia, I'm ready for more of your craziness and adventures. Your festivals, smiley people and ridiculously expensive everything. I will spend my money on road trips, wine in bags and wedding dresses. And sticky date pudding. Lemon meringue cake. Chocolate fountains filled with happiness. By the time I leave this place, I will be fat and I will be broke. And it will be worth it! Anyway, who cares if you end up poor? Isn't that the point of youth? ;)

A new year in hippie paradise

The last couple of weeks have been an absolute Thai madness. Chilling on different beaches every day, snorkeling and enjoying happy hour cocktails during sunset. Madness I tell you! We called the islands around Thailand our home. Koh Phangan was for christmas celebrations. The way there was bumpier than expected, with money that got stolen out of our bags and seasickness all over the place. But we found bungalows with hammocks and the local beach bar was our living room. We rented motor bikes and drove until the air tasted salty and birds sang sweet songs of freedom. 

Then, a little bit of awesome happened. After yet another seasick journey, we arrived on Koh Tao. An island filled with the cheeriest faces around. We camped on top of a hill with old and new friends from all over the world and a seemingly inexhaustabe supply of fresh coconuts and gin to celebrate the new year. We started 2014 on a festival so good it makes me weak at the knees just thinking about it. Experience festival was one big reunion of friends, family and jolly hippies sporting enormous beards. The dancefloor soon turned into a pool of dust, sunscreen and sweat. It wouldn't be Thailand if there wasn't a beautiful beach nearby where we could wash our dirty hippie bodies before covering them in fluorescent paint. 

From Bangkok to beach life

Bangkok was about half as hectic as my flight there. Squeezed in between two big bald men on a plane filled with crying babies, I arrived in Thailand with a jetlag people would pay a lot of money for. All of that disappeared when I saw my love waiting for me at the airport. Is there anything better in life than people waiting for you to arrive in a strange country, hug your lungs out and throw you in a tuktuk straight to new adventures? No, there isn't. Except if that person has a bar of Belgian chocolate. 

Anyway, Bangkok was crazy and fun as ever. Meeting up with friends from all over the world, eating pad thai, drinking chang and watching live magic shows. Not to be confused with the famous pingpong shows, where magical things happen too. After two days all nine of us got on a night bus and boat to Tonsai Beach. A beautiful piece of paradise where we lived the perfect beach life for a couple of days. Swimming, kayaking, massages on the beach, walking with monkeys and squirrels in rainforests, watching the sunset with our feet in the sand and sleeping under the stars. 

Life is beautiful!