Blogs from Asia - page 14362

I was forced to leave Thailand due to those stupid 30 day visas. However it was getting a little too comfortable and I had at this point only seen just a small piece of what I set off to do. It was off to Laos next. I headed up to the north of the country where there is a boarder crossing at Chiang Kong. From here I would catch a two day slowboat to Luang Prabang in northern Laos. In Chiang Kong I had met three other people, 2 British girls and a German guy who were planning on doing the same trip so we stuck together. I really had no idea of what to expect from the slowboat, just something that everybody making this leg seems to do. Its a bit frustrating sometimes here because ... read more

It has taken a while to poke through my hundreds of pictures to get to the start of my visit and fill in the blanks! When I got off the plane at Krabi I was greeted by virtually the entire Rotary Club! My host Club in Krabi is amazing as you can see from the welcome pictures. Every one showed up and there were hugs all around. Once the first week was past, I got to settle in with Coun Ma and Coun Paw. (Thai for Mom & Dad). Coun Paw was great about sending me information and pictures before my arrival so I felt that I already knew them. He is a lawyer and has his office attached to the house. He has three assistants who will occassionally change as new opportunities arise. They are ... read more

With the typhoon over and a chance for a second go at HK's clubs I actually headed home early to get a good nights rest. And I felt better for it which is more than I can say for silly old Steven who beat me to the plane, but apparently not by much and certainly he looked worse for wear. Happy and upbeat that he felt worse than I, we boarded the plane last and stevie took a slump in his seat as I headed down to the back to find a double or triple row all to myself. I’ll come down for a beer, Yeah ok stevie, we will see . The 5th and final major ahead of me I was feeling optimistic and why shouldn’t I. Upon landing in Denpassar we checked some of ... read more

We flew back to Bangkok for a couple of days of "shop til you drop". We decided to get suits and dresses made since Bangkok is known for its worldclass tailors who can recreate top designer styles. That was fun. I went in not knowing if I actually was interested but decided it couldn't hurt to have one good suit...and then that turned into jacket, pants, skirt, blouse, and a gorgeous silk dress (that I will wear to my brother's wedding). We sat down and looked at designer label magazines of different styles, picked ones we liked, got the tailors opinions of what would look good, looked at three different qualities of material, haggled about the price, and then finally were measured. The next day, they sent a van for us to come to our fitting, ... read more

It was sad leaving Thailand...I loved it there so much. My current ranking of the countries we visited so far is Thailand, China, Japan, South Korea. In Ko Pha Ngan we stayed at this really cool Cabana and met a lot of fun people. The highlight of my time there was definitely the night of the Half Moon Party. We went to the party with our Cabana friends and most of the staff. We were in this big hooked up van with a karoake machine in the back and were passing around a bucket of Samsung Whiskey and Coke and a water bottle filled with something i am still not quite sure of. The driver was awesome and he was even participating in the pail passing. Only in Thailand would you encourage your driver to drink ... read more