After a pleasant overnight train journey (pleasant in comparison to Malaysia anyway!), we arrive in Chiang Mai - and only just over an hour late. We had already booked accommodation so off we trekked out of the station ready to be harassed by tuk tuk drivers. Funnily enough, it isn't half as bad here we found a driver and showed him the directions, but following the patten that happens a lot out here, they didn't have a clue where it was, not even when we showed him the map! Bon made a poor attempt at pronouncing the road name but the guy seemed to understand and with a big smile, we set off. Chiang Mai is a lot bigger than we originally thought it would be, with the old city enclosed by a moat surrounded by ... read more

Today we set off for Koh Tao, I'm especially looking forward to this stop. The diving here is meant to be the best in Thailand and I am tempted to take my PADI Open Water! We packed our bags and jumped into the taxi (not a taxi in the sense of taxis at home, basically a van with benches in the back). It was a bit cramped with around 12 people packed in. We were all just minding our buisness taking in the scenery when there was a bit of commotion from the couple at the front (who we were sitting next too). I had a good nosey about.....HORROR, there was this spider making its way towards us. Now this spider wasn't particuarly large, but it jumps, was white and furry and looked like it had ... read more

We were picked up from our guesthouse at 11am on the dot, which is something of a rarity being on time in Thailand. We got into the airconditioned mini van which we had all to ourselves - what a pleasent journey we had ahead of us. We started to drive around Krabi and we picked up two more travellers, some post, some dry cleaning and a number of other random bits. We drove out of the main town centre and pulled into this shabby shack and was ordered out of the van and piled into an area containing about 60 other people. We were hussled into a corner after stupidly saying we had no accomodation - the guy was like you can have this one or this one and pointed to two faded old posters, neither ... read more

So we set sail for Koh Phi Phi (for those who are unaware Koh Phi Phi is one of the main locations where 'The Beach' was filmed). Phi Phi is split into two islands Phi Phi Leh and Phi Phi Don. Phi Phi Leh is a National Park only accessible by organised trip or by hiring a boat and has no accomodation. We arrived at the harbour of Phi Phi Don in the early morning and were quite surprised to find out we had to pay to enter the island - something that had only started 2 days prior!! However it is only 20Bht per person and apparentley it goes into protecting the island (or someones pocket!! hopefully not the pocket!). So when we arrived we hadn't booked any accomodation and were a bit worried. Although ... read more

Tuesday Morning we woke up early ready to set sail for Koh Lipe, one of Thailands most southernly Islands. We rocked up to the harbour waiting for our promised speedboat. Then we waited some more and then some more (is anyone else getting the picture here?). Finally we were escorted to the pier where we jumped into a little boat to be shipped to the main transport.....however speedboat it was not!! I think we had been done!!! To be fair though the Tigerline ferry only took about an hour and a half to get us to Lipe. We arrived in paradise! The seas were crystal clear, the sun was shining and the beach looked idylic. The water taxis transported us to the immigration office, where we picked up our passports grabbed a map and decided where ... read more