Thursday, November 21, 2013

A little bit of holidays

One, two, three – I bend my knees a bit to have more power, swing my arms back to build up momentum and jump. It seems as if my stomach moves up inside my body, closer to the heart while I am falling. Just a two seconds adrenaline kick and then my feet hit the water. Completely surrounded by water I immediately feel refreshed from the burning heat of the sun. It is absolutely quite, there are no legs of other people swimming and there are no children diving here. When I look downwards I cannot spot the white tiles covering the floor of the pool – I just see an endless blue.

I come up again and swim closer to the coastline, where the others are standing and sitting in the shallow stretch of water. We are ten or fifteen travelers from different parts of the world who just met here by accident. No one else is here. When someone randomly asked, "Where are you from?" the answer was "Citizens of the world." It would have been just too complicated to figure out who is travelling with whom, who met whom where and where we are originally from.

We chat about our travel experiences and dozens of other things while cooling down in the refreshing, but not too cold, water. After a while I climb up the stony shore, find a nice, big, flat stone to sit on and have a sunbath again.

And again I marvel at the location: Crystal-clear, turquoise water that is amazingly warm, palm trees whose leafs move in the slight breeze and the sun is shining from a cloudless, blue sky. Red cliffs rise up from the water and with heights up to 20 meters they offer the chance for a little bit of adventure: For the leisure time cliff jumper and risk takers.

We are not somewhere at the ocean or somewhere far away from the city. Chiang Mai is a beautiful city with tons of sights and beautiful nature but it lacks something. It is missing a tropical beach and the sea. But being at the Red Mud Quarry makes you forget that. This old, flooded quarry is just a 30 minutes bike or red car (Chiang Mai´s taxis) ride away from the city. 
 


It is a perfect place to relax from a week of exhausting training at Team Quest for me. Peace, a sunbath, a refreshing swim and a small adrenaline boost when jumping from the cliffs. 

I will definitely return to this beautiful place!

1 comment:

  1. Well, Thanks for this outstanding holidays information. It helps me more to to enjoy during my holidays.

    ReplyDelete