Life has settled down here at the Resort in Karon Beach, Phuket and one day is beginning to resemble another. Today though, is the first cloudy day I have seen since arriving here and therefore a good day to stay inside. So I have exercised for an hour by walking down the road, on pathways and the clean sandy beach, coming back dripping with perspiration and now need to wait until I am cool enough to go to breakfast. The sort of food I have chosen to eat at the resort for breakfast is fried rice, soy chicken and a range of fruit with my favourite being the pineapple, but watermelon is nice too and the cantaloupe…not sure what the fruit itself looks like but texture is similar to a not so crisp apple and actually ... read more

Today I set the goal of taking some excess stuff, such as my boots, juggling balls, a skirt, hat, mosquito net and the like out of my bag and posting back to New Zealand as I have no room in my bag seeing as I packed for every eventuality. After my walk to Kata Beach at back that took just over an hour, I showered and breakfasted at the resort ensuring I had a balanced meal and enough to get me through to about 2pm then grabbed the box I had packed up the night before, put it into a black rubbish bag for ease of carrying and headed off to catch the local bus I thought. Actually, I was approached as you are, by the local taxi drivers and it seemed that to travel the ... read more

Day 20 and 21 We arrived on Koh Tao by ferry, a speedier boat than the last with very comfortable seating and air conditioning in a boat that would have held maybe 200 people. The trip was one and a half hours but otherwise quite uneventful. Our accommodation this time was only 10 minutes from the port so we were ensconced in our rooms by just after midmorning. The day was ours. I changed into my lovely pink togs and headed for the resort pool as the beach was quite littered with longboats with people coming in and out on them. Also the sea was quite choppy and there was a strong breeze coming off the sea. The pool was considerably colder than anywhere else so definitely the place to be. Later on in the day ... read more

Chiang Mai is a lovely city to visit as it does not have the tourist hype that you find in places like Bangkok. There are still the lovely arrays of markets with a wide variety of articles that are handmade or copied from originals. The food is a little different here, but most Thai dishes are available as well as Burger King, McDonalds, Starbucks and KFC. On our last night in Chaing Mai Harold and I opted for Burger King. This is the only “home” meal I have had the whole time. It was nice to have something much more familiar. Earlier in the afternoon we had taken our washing in to one of the local laundries. The cost was 30baht per kilo so about $1.20. After dropping it off I decided to explore a bit ... read more

Day 11 Today I decided to spend a few moments on reflection. Such as did I make the right choice to come on an Intrepid? How does one translate the experiences I am having into a meaningful context for readers? I certainly feel that I am actually a real tourist who has had the opportunities presented by the Intrepid people that one would never have had an opportunity to experience otherwise. The places we have visited would have been fairly well vetted to make them a meaningful experience and they are not in a city or town but in the out of the way places. Maybe a veteran traveller would be able to find these places but I am really happy that I made the choice to travel so that I got to experience these places ... read more