We've headed to the South of Thailand and spent the last 3 weeks Island Hopping. Its getting towards the end of our voyage so we were looking forward to finding a hammock on some deserted beach , kicking back and relaxing. And believe it or not thats exactly what we've been doing. While its the middle of Monsoon season here we have been really lucky with the weather and nearly every day has been sunny the biggest complaint has nomally sounded something like " Agh f@#K this Maire, this is too hot for me"! so there has been plenty of time [View Full Entry]

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Aug 13th.. Wake up call at 630 am. Mini bus did not pick me up so had to get tuk tuk to catch my 8:30 am back to Phnom Penn. (It was twice as expensive for me to fly out of Siem Reap so had to bus it 6 hours back). A man was in my seat and they almost told me I had to wait for next bus. But, they found me a seat and at 230 pm I arrive. Straight to airport where my bag was too heavy. He made me redistribute my bags etc.. But, wasn't it all [View Full Entry]

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Despite a typhoon in Hong Kong which canceled our initial flight and grounded us in Kuala Lumpur for an additional six hours, we were able to reroute through Singapore and make it back to the states in one piece. Actually, because of that delay we were hooked up with a free upgrade to business class on Singapore Airlines for our return to LAX (BTW, the new international terminal at the Singapore airport is amazing). So after two months of squalid traveling conditions, it was only appropriate to finish our trip with a 15-hour flight home in first class. It's the only [View Full Entry]

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Tropical Paradise (mostly)... Ko Samui After one of our longest journeys ever..by train, bus and boat, we finally arrived at our first island destination..Ko Samui! Our lovely accomodation was situated on Silver Beach, just between Chaweng and Lamai beaches. It was probably one of the most beautiful beaches either of us had ever been to. However, this island was also deadly...stu in particular got injured, firstly by slipping on a leaf while we were rock climbing in flip flops (and getting his leg, foot and hand 'lacerated'), then by the razor sharp coral! Oscar also lost a [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, again we're playing catch up on our blog, think everyone seems to have the same problem, so please don't think it means we have become lazy! We entered Thailand, taking the day to travel up to Krabi, before overnighting there and picking up the morning express boat. We had decided to head towards Ko Phi Phi, which is on the western side of pennisular Thailand. As we're writing this Carol is lying down, having her tatoo done. It's very pretty, but i think she maybe in some pain as not only is her input limited, she keeps saying 'write [View Full Entry]

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On our last day around Phuket, we decided to head to the world famous Phi Phi Islands or PP as its known locally. After the scorching heat we endured over the last week, a trip on a catamaran over to the islands was looking like bliss. However, on the day it poured rain for about half the day and as you can see from the pictures we got drowned. PP island is also famously known as the location where the film, 'The Beach' starring Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed. It is truly a paradise island with its golden sands and warm blue [View Full Entry]

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We arrived into Bangkok and took a taxi into the city. Bangkok is different than I imagined... I was warned that it was busy and hassling but I never expected such a high rise developed city. We checked into our hotel- the Twin Towers- and the nicest room of the trip so far! We quickly headed to the 5th floor for a dip in the rooftop pool...bliss! Later that day Mark, Ian and Lola flew in from the UK to meet us. They will be with us for the next 2 weeks as we journey south and through the islands. Headed [View Full Entry]

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Watch out Nancy Lam and Ken Hom From the Golden Triangle, we caught a bus to Chiang Mai. We like Chiang Mai - it has a chilled out vibe, the old town is surrounded by a moat and the streets are narrow and quaint. It's nice to walk around, taking in the sights in the day and wandering the night markets in the evening. (Although there are a few too many old looking european fellas with very young looking thai girls for my liking!) We decided that we should enroll on a cookery course to learn the secrets of thai food [View Full Entry]

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Life on the beach is beautiful. After recovering from the full moon party, Catherine and I headed for Krabi, which turned out to be full day ordeal involving a taxi to a ferry, then entering a port and fighting crowds for another sticker (they give you stickers and people point you where to go--they have no faith in farangs' (foriengners) ability to navigate-- the Thai travel system is designed for idiots, they hold your hand every step of the way, which results in a kind of chaos because you don't know what is happening and you are just herded like cattle, [View Full Entry]

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Wow, what a great day. We had a speed boat tour of the 2 ko Phi Phi islands that were devasted by the Tsunami. It's beautiful and the reconstruction looks pretty nice. In one of the shops that we stopped in, they had a line on the wall of how high the water was, in was above Denny's head. This shop was like a block from the water. So wew toured and fed monkey and snorkeled in a marine sanctuary and on reef comparible to Great Barrier (well, smaller, but more stunning), we beached and swam and explored Maya Bay ("The [View Full Entry]

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