Got 2 public buses today to Krabi, quite a fun experience and dead cheap. Tomorrow we move onto Ko Lanta which sounds promising. Krabi is like a ghost town, Tsunami has really hit business on this side of the island, so looks like we may have Ko Lanta to ourselves! Have seen most of the latest films here: Ocean's 12, Ladder 49, Aviator, National Treasure, Wimbeldon, Bridget Jones 2, Meet the Fockers.....go Thailand's pirate film industry ! [View Full Entry]

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Decided to not bother with Ko Samui, and got a boat straight to Surat Thani on the mainland. From there it was a minibus ride to Khao Sok National Park. It is inland and to the north of Puket near a town called Takao Pa. Stayed there last night. To call it a park is a bit of a sham, as it really is the jungle there.....great work on the recommendations from Matt, and Jo! Hired a guide for the day for just the 2 of us. Set off at 8am until about 1pm. Animals we saw in the park: HornBill [View Full Entry]

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Left Ko Tao with a heavy heart, it's a great island! Arrived in Ko Phan-Ngan 2 days after full moon party. didn't like the Had Rin area of the island, which is where the full moon party takes place once a month. Just relaxed there and did the Reggae Boat Trip one of the days. Anyone who has done it will know what it entails.....a very mellow day ;-) [View Full Entry]

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Word, Myself and Ruth both became certified Open Water divers on Saturday after completing our Scuba courses. This meant we are both able to dive to 18m. However we both enjoyed it so much that we decided to do some more! I signed up for the Advanced Open Water course which involved learning some more theory and doing 5 more dives, and Ruth did 1 extra dive: 1.) Deep Dive to 30m. Ruth also did this dive. Saw much bigger fish at depth although it is a bit darker when you go down that deep. Had to do some tests on [View Full Entry]

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We left Bangkok on a very comfortable double decker bus on which we got plenty of sleep during the night. Arrived in Chumpoon at about 5am and had to wait until 7am to catch the boat to Koh Tao. Boat took 3.5 hours on really choppy water......plenty of people being ill off the back of the boat. Made it to terra firma anyway where no one was boasting about having sea legs! Had prebooked accomodation and diving course so were wisked here from the pier yesterday on arrival. The place is really cool, 2 thumbs up for Koh Tao all round [View Full Entry]

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Hi all, We left Koh Chang after what turned out to be a decent few days, even though the weather turned bad. Arrived in Bangkok on Friday, and have just chilled out here. Saw 'Meet the Fockers' in the cinema and 'Dodgeball' & 'The Terminal' in bars. The cinema here is great, for 13 euro you get a 'lazy boy' leather armchair wuith waitress service and the chair massages you also!!! Sadly our backpacking budget did not allow a visit to that cinema! Overall I have to say that I really liked Bangkok, despite what ever told me about it being [View Full Entry]

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So we left Siem Reap in Cambodia at 7am for Thai border. Bus eventually got going at 8am (this is Cambodia after all!). Got moving for 1 and a half hours before the bus broke down (overheating). Another bus from the same company came along and said they could take 17 of us further up the road to wait for a new bus. 22 of us duly complied to leave this new bus very full. Reached the 'new bus point' and stopped for food. 'New bus' arrived and turned out to be our original bus with some of the original people [View Full Entry]

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Hi all, Well we finished are days sightseeing around the unbeliebable temples here. Spent about 7 hours each day looking around and just taking in the scale of the different temples. On the bus journey from Phonm Penh to Siem Reap we stopped at this place and they had buckets full of live bigish black spiders. There were then women walking around selling the fried variety of the spiders ! We are getting a bus in the morning to the Thai border (PoiPet). When we get through the town on the Thai side is called Aranya Prathet. Buses only go fro [View Full Entry]

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Hi all, Well we left Saigon and crossed the border into Cambodia to the capital, Phnom Penh. Not a great city at all, quite bland. Stayed 2 nights there and went to see S-21, which used to be a school but was turned into a prison by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge after they took control of Cambodia in 1975. Men, women, and children of all ages were kept there and tortured. Most were then taken off to a place now called 'The Killing Fields' outside Phnom Penh. We went to see that and they have exumed loads of mass [View Full Entry]

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As you can see my Vietnamese has developed nicely....that means Happy New Year! Hope you all enjoyed the last of 2004 whatever you did in your various locations around the world! We left Mui Ne and arrived in Saigon on the 30th. New Year's Eve here was out of this world ! They closed off the street where our hotel is, and set up food stalls and outdoor beer bars, Winner! As the hours passed and the large crowd started getting into the swing of things (beer induced) we noticed that family loads of locals were taking trips past the street [View Full Entry]

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