Schlagwort-Archive: digital nomad

Thailand

Digital Nomad Stop #15 – Ao Nang, Thailand (January 2023)

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As much as I love Koh Tao, I’m not the biggest fan of the climbing there. Sharp granite and crimpy face climbing / slabs are just not so much my thing. I was excited to get on some pumpy limestone again and get into the 3d-tufa-climbing-action of the Krabi region. While I had spent 7 weeks in Railay a year ago, I decided to stay on the mainland this time and settled myself in Ao Nang.

The climbing there has two main advantages compared to Railay/Tonsai: less people and less polish. What’s more, Ao Nang offers a lot better value and variety in terms of accommodation and restaurants – so I was pretty happy with my choice. Again, I was able to meet up with some friends and ran into some climbers I already knew from different places. The travelling rock climbers community is small, so it is nice to start seeing familiar faces everywhere I go! In Ao Nang, I focused on mileage and on getting into the swing of tufa climbing. Again, I was supposed to stay only for a few days but ended up staying almost 3 weeks. I didn’t get on any really hard stuff, but have plenty of reasons to come back and do exactly that!

I also climbed some multi-pitches with Mattias and Tomas – 2 very short ones and a longer one up Ao Nang tower. Previously, there was only a 6c leading all the way up there, but they had just opened a 6b („Joob Joob“) which I couldn’t miss out on. The climbing was fun, but the whole logistics of getting there in a kayak (which then ripped off the rope we used to tie it to the rocks) were a bit exhausting and don’t make me wanna go back there.

Next to climbing, I also explored the area quite a bit with my scooter – it is such a beautiful region with lots of picturesque limestone mountains. One day, I went on a hike up Dragon Crest with some people, which was lots of fun and offered the most amazing views! Definitely one of the best hikes I have done in Thailand. Overall, I really enjoyed my time in Ao Nang and will definitely be back.

Here are all my photos of my time in Ao Nang.

Thailand

Digital Nomad Stop #14 – Koh Tao, Thailand

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After my little detour to the Maldives, I spent a few weeks at home for Christmas, but decided to escape the grey winter quickly afterwards. I had always wanted to spend New Year’s on a beach, so returning to Koh Tao, Thailand, seemed like a logical decision. I met up with my friend Sarah from the Netherlands and we had a fun party night as well as a couple of fun days together before she returned back home.

Initially, I had just wanted to spend a week or two on Koh Tao, but ended up extending my trip to about 3.5 weeks to be able to finally catch one of the trapeze shows that I had missed last time. Of course, I also took some flying trapeze lessons myself again and I ended up swapping the silks for lyra which I think suits me much better (less options for confusion and entanglement). I also went climbing a lot and managed to meet up with lots of friends – Tiffany and Joska from the Koh Tao 2022 group, Sarah and the trapeze crew who live on the island, and Justin and Nia who I had met in Turkey. This time, I also managed to go scuba diving a few times and ticked off the top dive sites around the island – some of them surprisingly good.

Tiffany and I climbed the island’s first multi-pitch which was a fun adventure in very windy conditions! All in all, it was a great way to start the new year in Koh Tao – one of my favourite nomad places with some of my favourite people. Here are more photos from my time on Koh Tao.

Maldives

Digital Nomad Stop #13 – Fuvahmulah, Maldives

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After our India adventures, it felt just a little too early to return to (cold, grey) Austria and as I was already in Asia, I decided to do a little stop on the way home. As I hadn’t been scuba diving for a few years, the Maldives sounded very appealing. I had done a liveaboard here in 2018, but this time I knew I had to work and therefore needed to stay on an island rather than on a boat where WiFi is not that reliable. A quick research got me set on the Southern island of Fuvahmulah, promising 100% guarantee on diving with tiger sharks. Tiger sharks, one of the main species of shark that was still missing in my ‚collection‘! So I booked myself a diving and accommodation package for a week’s stay, diving in the mornings and working in the afternoons and evenings. And of course, exploring some of the quite little island in between!

I was lucky to meet some really nice buddies to dive with and to explore the island with. Together, we did 6 tiger shark dives and 8 other dives along the reef. During the other dives, we were not as lucky and only faintly saw a thresher shark at one point. However, there were plenty of reef sharks, moray eels, turtles and just overall lots of beautiful schools of fish and healthy looking reefs!

The shark dives were the highlight of course. There is a feeding station where dive masters hide tuna heads underneath some rocks which the sharks will then smell and start circling around and search for them. Sometimes, they were then really digging into the rocks, picking them up and even accidentally swallowing some (and spitting them out again). In the end, they always found the tuna of course! Really cool to watch and we were able to get real close. My favourite dive was one of the shark dives where we followed the reef a bit afterwards and I went really deep with my buddy. Down there, we saw the sharks coming up from the bottom and at one point some were circling around us. Super cool!

Overall it was a great week and my dive/work schedule worked out pretty well. It’s definitely something I can imagine doing more often – although unfortunately all my bucket list diving destinations are liveaboard-based now. Guess I gotta wait for better WiFi on the boats! For now, here are some more photos.