Back to Switzerland ???
Arriving in Phuket after two months of cycling across India is somehow strange. You board on a big motor sailing yacht, the Minico, on the Andaman Islands to arrive four days later in Phuket and everything is different.
Senta, my sister, who spontanously came to visit me here, and waited for me already at the Marina, promised me, that things do look slightly different outside the marina. So I was curious about Thailand. But when I reached the mainroad where expected to find something like asian life I was disappointed. On the fourlane highway one posh SUV after the other rushes past me. Empty, you could think, as I did not see anything, nor anyone behind the darkend windows. And on the 30km to Kata Noi Beach, where went to meet Senta again, there was not one single blowing of the horn. Trucks and buses, which were dominating the indian roads besides pedestrians, rikshaws and bicycles, are scarce around here, just as much as pedestrians rikshaws and bicycles. Traffic consists of cars, cars and cars. And there is no artistically painted "Blow horn" or "Horn please" painted on the back of the vehicles. Hello Thailand! Where is the music, please? The roads are clean. And when I saw a few plastic bags and plastic bottles together with some other rubish under some bushes, I was relieved. There is rubbish, there is a bit of dirt, this means, there must be human beings, somewhere, even if I don't see them.
Suddenly, a motorbike passes me, with a boy sitting on the back without a helmet. He turns his head. I smile at him, he smiles back. Hello!... Thanks for being!... I think and wave at him. A little later a man is standing on the side of the road, wearing a cycling helmet and a cycling shirt, holding a mountain bike. The first cyclist I see in Thailand, the first cycling helmet I see since Europe (with the exception of Mohammad's helmet, who - unlike me - is cycling around the world with a helmet).
Somehow it is strange. After I had learned to ignore the Shouting, screaming and horning of the Indians, here I am, cycling across the island of Phuket and wait desperately for some shouting, screaming or just a little horning, to confirm me, that I had been noticed. But in vain, nothing like that. And with surprise I start to realize, that I somehow miss all those things, for which I started to hate India. The obtrusively shouting people, the penetrating horning, the incessant noise, the chaotic traffic, the behaviourless, spitting men, the rubbish and the dirt all over the place....
It feels like cycling across Switzerland. And when I finally arrive at Kata Noi Beach, I am glad to notice, that touristic season is just about to end, most of the lying chairs at the beach are empty.
The restaurants, however, are still surprisingly full. But full of white faces, quite some of which speak swiss german, just as much as the guy next to me in the internet cafe. Where am I? In Basel, in Zurich, or in Bern?
No, I am in Phuket, in the middle of Asia, and yet somehow back to Switzerland. First I don't want to believe it, but already on the second day I resign and order some sausage with potato salad in the restaurant Helvetia, despite the delicious thai kitchen. After all, why not? I am going to enjoy this unexpected holiday back in Switzerland on Phuket Island.
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