Coming home to Spring

Coming home after almost half a year away felt like the first day of school used to feel when I was little.

After our 26-hour car ride from France to Sweden, a 3-hour boat trip and definitely not enough sleep, I woke up too early and too excited to stay in bed. I just had to go out and see what had (and hadn't) survived the winter, couldn't wait to go meet the people I hadn't seen in such a long time, couldn't even wait to start work!

The fig tree, the grapevine, my parsley, and the strawberry plants were all doing just fine, and I managed to capture the very first mirabelle plum blossom on the tree outside our living room window. 

Life was picked up where we left it and work was waiting ...

Fast forward 10 days and this happened: 

The other day I made the remark that our days now are very comparable to our days in South East Asia. 

We swapped the beach for work but the rest of our days still pretty much revolve around mealtimes :)

Wedding bells in Burgundy

One of the many things I love about traveling is how much more I appreciate home when I'm back.
Skipping winter and returning just in time for spring is definitely a plus, 

but there is no better way to end a vacation than sharing a castle in the French countryside with a bunch of people from all over the world and ending the week with a fabulous wedding!

R&D, congratulations, again! You sure know how to throw a party! :)

South East Asia was amazing, but Europe will aways be Europe :)

Face to face with cruelty

Even though our trip was mainly an excuse to escape the winter and our goal not much more inspiring than finding the best beach and the clearest water, we did manage to give it a bit more substanance.

Our visit to the War Remants museum in Ho Chi Minh City exhibiting the unbelievable atrocities by the U.S during the Vietnam war, which for some reason did not make it into our history lessons at school, left us wondering what else in our eductation has been whitewashed.

At the killingfields in Phnom Penh the proof of human cruelty just hit us in the face. Fragments of bones and teeth still surface from the mass graves after rainfalls and are even embedded in the paths we walked on.

I'd initially stated I refused to go. I guess I was afraid of how bad it would make me feel.
I changed my mind though, refusal to acknowledge what happened - and what is still happening elsewhere - undoubtedly is far worse.

Georgeoustown

No photo can do Georgetown justice, but the pictures of StudioHoward come pretty darn close.
One of our first souvenirs purchased on our South East Asia trip is this man's calendar, which will fit really nicely on our kitchenwall!

Great street food, beautiful colonial buildings, street art, and some really nice coffee shops for hiding from the heat and indulging in Western breakfast, plus a guesthouse that easily deserves an award of some sort, made it really difficult to leave - a feeling we have been forced to get used to along the way.

Halfway

Halfway through our time in South East Asia.
We left without a plan and whatever vague idea we had of our itinerary got thrown out of the window within the first week. Everything we need is in our 10kg backpacks (8kg when we started) with the freedom to go wherever budget transportation takes us.
My kind of luxury!

So far we've done some immensly enjoyable islandhopping in Thailand followed by a crossover into Malaysia where we've marveled at the beauty of the Unesco world heritage site of Georgetown before taking a rather spontaneous flight to Borneo for some rainforest adventures.

The picture above is taken on sunset beach on Koh Lipe, hands down my favorite island so far.

From 2013 to 2014

Before and after :)

Happy New Year!



Last year ended with quite some traveling, and 2014 will start exactly like that as well.
More blog activity can be expected around the end of April!

xxx

Aina Maj

Yet another storm

The media might have spiced it up a little, but shouldn't a storm that threatens to flood even a small part of European coastal areas together with expectations of sea level rises in the future due to climate change make people realise that things are getting serious?