My wife Susanne and I have spent three exiting and wonderful weeks in Thailand.

During our first week in Bangkok we soon realised that we were not “in Kansas” anymore. The city is a chaotic cacophony of colors, noise and smell. A tiring experience indeed, but also refreshing and stimulating.

We knew that we would need a “real” holiday after our stay in Bangkok and flew down to the island of Koh Samui in the south east of Thailand.

The city, Chaweng, had also some of the characteristics of Bangkok. It reminded us of a city out of the Wild West (or the Wild East rather) with its many counterfeit shops, tailors, restaurants, bars and hookers. However, a three minute walk from the noisy main street is the beach, peaceful and beautiful — exactly what we needed.

I’ll come back with more reflections on Thailand later on. However, Susanne and I have already written one post on our stay in Bangkok over at Tor Johnsen’s Enjoy Food and Travel, while Susanne has told the story about a cooking course at Koh Samui. Take a look!

See also my Enjoy Food and travel post: The contrasts of Chaweng Beach, Koh Samui, Thailand and our online Thailand photo album.

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Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Tallinn in Estonia. The Estonian government has asked the EU Commission to make a review of Estonian innovation policies, and I was asked by the Commission to be part of the review expert group.

Estonian innovation policy makers are extremely well oriented as regards the latest thinking on systemic innovation policies and the role of learning and innovation in economic development — much more so than most of their colleagues in the “old” member countries. It seems to me that this is a reflection of a general aspect of the development of post-Soviet Estonia: A great ability to learn quickly, work hard and do what it takes to catch up with rest of Europe.

And although the Estonian’s themselves are impatient people and will complain about economic difficulties and the ongoing conflicts with Russia, they are doing very well. The economy is growing at a breath taking pace, and as far as Tallinn is concerned, what I saw was a modern, successful, European county.

(The suburbs and other parts of the country will tell you another story, they told me. I am sure it will, but what has happened in Tallinn demonstrates the possibilities).

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In April Susanne and I went to New York for the Search Engine Strategies conference. We have followed the search engine scene for eight years now through Pandia, our site for internet searching and search engine marketing.

Many Americans tell us they find New York City a hectic, busy and unfriendly place. It probably says a lot about our won lifestyle that we feel right at home.

But it is not the noise that brings us back, but rather the amazingly colorful mix of people and cultures. The US may not be a melting pot, but what a wonderful salad the Americans serve!

Susanne has mixed a short video based on snapshots taken in the streets of New York.

You’ll find more pictures in our online .mac photo album.

See also our Pandia New York Search Engine Strategies conference coverage.

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My wife Susanne has made a slide show of pictures from our holiday in Spain last year and uploaded it to her own Vox blog.

Catalonia is a great place for experiencing art, food and Catalan culture. However, if you want to combine such experiences with a beach holiday, stay away from Lloret del Mar and most of the other concrete tourist traps found along the coast. Some of them are veeeery ugly.

“Our” town, however, Tossa de Mar, has kept many of its original buildings, and remains a beautiful fisherman’s village. There is even an old medieval city centre.

We have also a photo collection from Tossa online.

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