Blogs from South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 885

hey there, isn't that exciting, we're in Thailand, and i've never seen something more beautiful. since we've been to the Cameron Highlands, we met loads of people and we've all travelled together. from there we went to Penang, which we thought would be a lovely tiny island and it was another big city, so we all stayed one night and some of the group went straight to Krabi in Thailand. that night didn't really go well, we had some guests in our hotel called rats and it was really disgusting. i saw one running to the toilets, where one of my friends was, and 5 minutes later she came out completely white, saying that a rat jumped on her knees while she was peeing. charming! things are pretty much the same here, i'm sure everyone must ... read more

Spent a one and a half day in Kanchanaburi, the city of the bridge over the river Kwai. There was an encouraging sign over the road as you entered the city saying: ”Welcome to the land of happiness”. I was readily fooled. Not much to see, i saw. I bridged the River Kwai in an orderly fascinated manner, it was quite a beautiful bridge. But if not in a touristic obligatory mannner, you could also cross it as a meditation over the sufferings of war. This bridge was originally built by allied prisoner’s of war, driven like slaves by the Japanese during the late second world war as a part of the building of the so called death railway(popularised through the novel and later the excelent movie by David Lean ”Brigde over the River Kwai”). The ... read more

Hello again, Koh Phi Phi and Phuket are the two main areas in Thailand that were affected by the Tsunami. We arrived in Phi Phi and the first thing we thought was that it was amazingly beautiful. The affect of the Tsunami can definitely be seen but the natural beauty of the island and the hard work the locals put into getting the island ready again for the season makes it a fabulous island and one of the best we've been to so far. The nightlife is as good as the beauty of Phi Phi though and we partied like crazy here! Our first night out we made good use of a special offer on buckets of whiskey, 2 for 1, so of course being Irish we HAD to drink double! There was a full moon ... read more

I joined ICEMAN and we caught the noon ferry to Koh Toa, and island north of Ko Pangang which is famous for Scuba Diving. Iceman had already reserved a spot at Crystal Dive Resort so after the two hour ferry ride which I spent on the front of the boat, we jumped in a pick up and were welcomed to the resort. Don't let the name fool you, it is a basic joint (no hot water, toilets that you have to manually flush using a bucket) but they have great Dive Masters and Instructors and inexpensive PADI courses. As both Iceman and I had not dove for over 6 months, they made us do a review dive in the pool...it was boring but good to get the cobwebs out before hitting the open water. I signed ... read more

Well we were up early this morning ready to catch the bus down to Bangkok as we were making our way to Phuket today! The bus only took a couple of hours and as we had about 5 hours to kill til we had to catch our train to Surat Thani, we decided to catch the sky train into the centre and look around the shops! The train journey down to surat thani actually went really smoothly which was such a relief and we even managed to sleep on there-this time we were in the middle of the carriage completely clear of automatic doors! Once at Surat Thani we had to get a 4 hr bus into Phuket then a taxi into Patong Beach which we shared with the most arrogant isralies ever...it was a very ... read more