Author: Kris

Back in September, I headed off to Bangkok, Thailand to attend the first ever AWS APJ Community Summit. This event brought together 130 AWS Heroes, Community Builders, and User Group leaders for two days of learning, sharing, and networking.

It was about a 10 hour flight for me from Munich straight to Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.

I found a couple of my coworkers in the airport – Rohini and Mark! We agreed to carpool to the hotel together.

Unbeknownst to us, we were about to hit rush hour traffic so it took us more than an hour to get to the hotel. I had a great first view of the city though.

The event was being held at the Anantara Siam Hotel Bangkok, and wow, it did not disappoint. Rohini and I were invited to sit down and have some tea while they checked us in.

My room was lovely! I felt very welcomed. 🙂

It felt odd to be taking a trip without the Snook! I sent him a selfie to show him I’d arrived safely.

I was pretty hungry, so I headed downstairs to have dinner with my colleague Ridhima.

To my delight, we ran into a crowd of AWS Community folks from Australia and New Zealand! A few of them were familiar faces to me, but others I was meeting for the first time. For most of them, this was the first overseas trip since Covid.

The next morning, I headed out on a city tour with the full contingent of Aussies and Kiwis. (Because of their long travel time, the Antipodeans all arrived a day early.) I’m sitting with my colleague Jason, who runs the Community Builders program.

Our first destination was the Grand Palace, the residence of the kings of Siam (and later Thailand) for hundreds of years. We parked some way away and then walked over with our local guide.

We entered the Palace complex, and it was already turning into a brutally hot day.

We walked past amazing murals showing scenes from Thai history and the Buddhist religion.

The Palace was very opulent and beautiful. I loved the colourful statues.

The Palace complex also contains Wat Phra Si Rattana Satsadaram, also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The gold tower here is the Phra Si Rattana Chedi.

You might notice in the photos that several of us are wearing questionable skirts and trousers. This is because the Temple is the most sacred Buddhist temple in Thailand, and having bare legs is not allowed. I bought a sarong from a local seller to tie around my waist.

The Temple of the Emerald Buddha itself was amazingly beautiful. It’s covered in gold and colourful tiles and precious stones.

You have to take off your shoes to go inside, and no photos are allowed. A crowd of people were sitting on the floor, just having a moment of peaceful contemplation. Many people brought in lotus flowers as offerings. After a short visit, I went for a walk around the outside of the temple.

I ran into my colleague Belinda, who helped organise the tour for us! ❤️

Even the ceiling was elaborately decorated.

We had some time to walk around, so I just wandered on my own, taking photos of beautiful statues and peaceful corners of the Palace complex.

This is a statue of a kinnara, a mythological half human, half bird.

I was starting to feel a bit pink by this point…

…so it was time to break out the sun protection. Behind me is the Phra Thinang Boromphiman, where visiting Heads of State stay when they visit Bangkok.

From the Palace, we walked the short distance to the Chao Phraya River, where we caught a ferry across to the other side.

Me and Belinda again.

That river water did not look very inviting, despite the heat of the day.

Our destination was Wat Arun (“The Temple of Dawn”), one of Bangkok’s most well known landmarks.

The central tower (“prang”) is encrusted with porcelain.

I climbed up a couple levels and walked around, checking out the statues and decorations.

The final part of the tour was a long-tail boat ride along the river. We had to scramble out on the prow to get onboard!

I’m on a boat! And thankfully by this point the sun had gone behind the clouds.

Our guide took us down some of the canals off the river and pointed out landmarks along the way.

At one point, we stopped along the riverbank near a temple. Our guide had a surprise for us, he said. He pulled out a bag of bread rolls, and I thought for a minute he was going to hand out a snack. Then he chucked one of the rolls in the river, and the surface suddenly ERUPTED with giant catfish fighting over the bread. It was one of the most astonishing things I’ve ever seen.

Continue reading “AWS APJ Community Summit in Bangkok, Thailand”

It was still quite warm at the beginning of September, so we squeezed in a day trip to the Ammersee. This lake to the southwest of Munich is the sixth biggest in Germany, and it’s just a short 45min train ride to the end of the S-bahn line to Herrsching. As soon as we disembarked we hopped on a couple Deutsche Bahn “Call a Bike” bicycles to go for a ride along the shore.

Herrsching is on the eastern shore of the lake, and along the Promenade there is a statue called “Die kleine Seejungfrau” (“The little mermaid”). Rather than having a fish tail herself, she sits on top of a giant fish.

Nearby is the Kurparkschlösschen, a “little castle” built in the 1800s. Apparently you can rent it out for events!

We rode south along the Promenade dodging crowds of tourists and families, and then eventually got onto a hiking/cycling path right along the shore.

The Call a Bikes are pretty sturdy, and they do have a couple gears thankfully.

At a couple points we had to ford small streams running down into the lake!

Our goal was the Froschgartl, a little biergarten around 6km (3.5mi) south of the Kurpark. Eventually we made it there and put in an order for our lunch.

Not a bad little burger! It’s not really much of a biergarten; more a couple picnic tables around a snack bar. Still, you can’t beat the view.

After our lunch, we walked over to the rocky beach to sit and digest for a bit.

We had our swimsuits and there were people swimming, but that water was pretty cold! Instead we took off our shoes and socks and went for a little wade.

That water is SO CLEAR. The rocks were pretty slippery though so we soon retreated back to safety.

Ahhhh, can’t you just feel the serenity? Look at that sky! (Also, there was a fully nude old dude like 10m to my left. Germans, man.)

Eventually we put our shoes back on and rode back to Herrsching, this time using the paved bike path along the highway so it was a lot faster. We went further north this time to the “Fischbach” part of the lake, where there’s a marina and a sailing club.

Soon it was time to head back, so we returned the Call a Bikes and caught the S-bahn home. The Ammersee was honestly one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. If you’re in Munich and you have nice weather, this makes for a lovely day trip!

You can see our ride on Strava here:

As with last year, we decided to celebrate the Snook’s birthday at the end of July by heading off on a big summer vacation. The only problem was that I had just arrived back from a work trip to the US, and while I made my short connection in DC, unfortunately my suitcase did not. Oh well.

Fortunately I had other suitcases and enough underwear to head off without it. 😂 We caught the “Alex” train from Munich to Prague at 12:43pm on Monday and spent nearly six hours watching the beautiful countryside roll past.

That evening we crossed the Vltava river and pulled into Prague’s main train station.

Our hotel was the Falkensteiner Hotel Maria Prag, just a short walk from the station. It has been newly done up, apparently, and it was really conveniently located for getting around. After checking in, our first goal was dinner so we headed (up a big hill) to The Tavern.

Yummy burgers and Czech beer! We were pretty happy. And wow, food and beer are cheap here.

The next morning we downloaded Rick Steves’ walking tour of Prague (mp3) and walked the few blocks from our hotel over to the starting point at Wenceslas Square.

The “square” is actually a long boulevard with the Czech National Museum at one end. It’s the site of many famous historical events, including the Velvet Revolution in 1989. It’s named after Saint Wenceslas, aka Václav the Good, the patron saint of Bohemia. (And yes, the one from the Christmas carol! I had that song in my head for days.)

There were a lot of pro-Ukraine flags and signs in Prague. ❤️🇺🇦

We followed the tour and slowly made our way down the square, learning about famous points along the way. At one point we ducked into the Lucerna Arcade to see a special artwork – Statue of King Wenceslas Riding an Upside-Down Dead Horse. This is by surrealist artist David Černý.

We also wandered through the nearby Franciscan Garden. There were a few other tourists and locals having their lunch in the sunshine.

Another stop along the way was the Powder Gate, one of the 13 original gates to the city. Now it separates the Old Town from the New Town. It feels a bit odd to see this medieval tower from 1485 alongside modern cars.

Just past the Powder Gate is Municipal House, a stunning Art Nouveau civic building that houses a concert venue. We ducked inside to have a look around. (Trivia: It’s also where INXS filmed the “New Sensation” video!) There were a LOT of places we passed along the way advertising classical concerts for tourists, so my tip if you go to Prague is to do your research ahead of time and book something in.

There was a steady stream of tourists heading towards the Old Town Square.

The Old Town Square is ringed by buildings in lots of different architectural styles. I liked this very decorated one.

Here’s the Snook looking across the Square to the Old Town Hall. The Square is also where the Prague Easter and Christmas Markets happen.

The column coming out of Rodd’s head is the Marian column, with a statue of the Virgin Mary on top.

The audio tour also directed us over to the Jan Hus Memorial, where we heard all about the Hussites and the Bohemian Reformation.

I love the spires on the Church of Our Lady before Týn. It reminds of some castle from a Disney movie… a bit Gothic and scary. I’m slightly regretting that we didn’t go in, as it’s where Tycho Brahe is buried.

After exploring the Square itself, we turned back towards the Old Town Hall for our next landmark…

See that crowd of people gathering to the left? If you ask any person about going to Prague, they will invariable mention the astronomical clock.

The clock was first installed in 1410, making it the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest clock still in operation. We managed to time our visit to noon so we could see the little figures go around and Death come out to strike a bell.

As you can see, it’s a massively popular tourist stop! Once the chiming was over (which was honestly a bit anticlimactic if you ask me), we followed the crowds down Karlova Street through the Old Town towards the Charles Bridge.

The Old Town Bridge Tower is very imposing. Construction it was started in 1357! For many centuries, Charles Bridge was the only means of crossing the Vltava River.

Just off to the side of the Bridge Tower is a statue of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor. He’s the one that started building the bridge, and who it’s named after.

Time to head across!

The bridge has lots of status on it, and it’s the final stop on the Rick Steves tour. One of the most famous is John of Nepomuk. The story goes that Nepomuk was the confessor of the Queen, and the King wanted him to divulge her secrets. Nepomuk refused, so the King had him chucked over the side of the bridge into the Vltava, where he drowned. Poor Nepomuk! At the base of his status is a bronze relief with a dog on it, which has been rubbed gold by thousands of visitors over the years. (It’s said to bring good luck.)

On the other side of the river, you can just see Prague Castle up on the hill. (We were saving that until the next day.)

And that’s the end of the audio tour! We had worked up quite an appetite, which was perfect as we had a very special reservation to get to back in the Old Town.

This is the Church of St. Salvator, which we passed along the way. Nice support of Ukraine!

Over in the Jewish Quarter we found this statue of Franz Kafka. Kafka was born in Prague, and there are a lot of tributes to him.

Our destination for lunch was La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise, a Michelin-star restaurant that we saw on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show. We went for the full tasting menu, with the Snook getting the wine pairing and me going for the non-alcoholic.

For the amuse-bouche, they brought us beef tartar with tuile crackers, salad, and a sort of savoury macaron with fennel seed. I had seen Bourdain rave about the tartar so I was excited to try it, and it did not disappoint. I also remember really liking the salad leaf, which had some intense dressing on it.

And how beautiful is that lacy tuile cracker! I have no idea how you make something as delicate as this. (We both seem to remember the waiter telling us it was made from potato starch.)

The first course was “Golden beet, tomato, ramson.” If you’re wondering if that sauce has a lot of butter in it, you’d be correct. 🤤

Next was “Trout, toast, horseradish.” That’s not trout skin; that’s a piece of very thin, golden, salty toast on top.

Third course was “Duck, sweet corn, cranberry.” I believe the cranberry was actually that pinkish powder on the side.

Last savoury course was “Pork, mushrooms, pasta.” The pork was hiding under that beautiful silky sheet of pasta.

Dessert was “Dark beer, blueberry, basil.” It looked a bit like a strawberry, with the green dots of intense basil. Rodd described it like a beer zabaglione. (He also said it gave him mild trypophobia.)

They also brought us a few small bite-sized bits to end the meal, including a little frozen dessert and a plate of fresh fruit.

That was a lovely way to spend an afternoon! ❤️

Continue reading “Prague, Regensburg, and Walhalla”