Pete and Rach

And our last stop, Singapore. Couldn't possibly be more different from the vast majority of our trip. Stayed in a big, standard hotel in town but like Phuket was actually nicely surprised by the place. Crazy mix of buldings anbd architecture with the shiny, glass towers of the business districts and then the beautiful charm of Little India, the Arab Quarter and the colonial bits. Wandered in to Raffles for a Singapore Slim and then out again to but one elsewhere ata price we could justify (few days accomodation in Cambodia!!). Also went on the Singapore Flyer with incredible views of the city and out to sea with huge numbers of commercial ships. And generally lots of andering around.....although must admit to not quite making it to the botanic gardens, we went to watch Wolfman at ... read more

After the peaceful Surins we hoped on a bus to Phuket for some more sticker fun and a boat to Phi Phi for some serious touristy times! Got cheapest accomodation we could, a ten minute walk past a sewage farm (to be fair it was a green reedbed type sewage treatment centre so could have been worse, bit of a stink!) to a precariously balanced bamboo bungalow at Snow With - wiedest name ever, presumably a spelling mistake but not sure why you'd even call it Snow White! Had a good four days on Phi Phi including: - typical holiday stuff of reading, snoozing, eating, drinking, beaching - a big boat tour with snorkeling, kayaking, trips to Monkey Beach (there are monkeys on the beach!), The Beach which was nental with tourists (but we also saw ... read more

Our next destination was to be Ko Chang, with rumours of a small, quite, relaxing beach getaway, one of the last remaining quiet island refuges in Thailand - we had high expectations! There is apparently a very busy, touristy, package type island called Ko Chang as well so we hoped we'd made the right call. From our Burma jaunt, we got dropped at the Ranong jetty for boats to Ko Chang, hoping that we hadn't missed the boat already. Luckily there was one in early afternoon so we waited around for a few hours, watching a huge amount of activity as boats laden down with sheets of raw rubber came in, were unloaded in the heat of the day by scrawny looking but apparently very strong guys, to be weighed and then trucked off - all ... read more

So we fell off the train at some stupid hour like 5.30am, Rach having slept hardly any....it would seem the chill out area in the Happy House was also a breakfast bar for mossies or bed bugs - all you can eat type affair as Rach spent most of the day there reading - she was covered in bites, not conducive to sleep! We bumbled out of the train station in to the arms of touts who sold us presumably overly priced combined bus and boat tickets to Ko Pha-Ngan - we'd decided to miss out Ko Samui as very touristy and quite pricey now, apparently. And this was our first experience of the Stickers, a tool that was used from now on for all journeys - everyone given a sticker, the colour dependent on their ... read more

(I'm not going to lie to you, I may be a bit behind - but will continue to finish the blog from London, all a bit hazy though!) At Chiang Mai we got a tuk tuk out to the public bus station and battled past some dragons at the Tourist Information Desk who seemed to feel that their job was to guard their info like golden eggs, hissing and snapping at anyone foolish enough to intrude too close. But on we battled, and finally victorious, we found the bus to Sukhothai and off we trotted, ready for some temples. Arrived in the early afternoon and found a hotel with bungalows and a swimming pool - it had just opened hence a low price and we could afford it - sure the price will go up soon. ... read more