Page 3 of Donna and Neil Travel Blog Posts


Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Samui March 4th 2012

The last 6 months have seen us have some bad luck with flights – one flight, in November, had us abort a landing where the wings of the plane were literally touching the tops of the palm trees below. At the very last minute the plane pulled back up and re-attempted the approach from a different direction. However, this latest piece of bad luck when we were on our way to Bangkok was something we have never experienced in all our years of travelling. We have to admit, we were a little bit scared! We were super-excited to be travelling to Bangkok as we were meeting Donna’s parents for their annual holiday, excited as well because this was her parents first time to Koh Samui. Everything went smoothly getting to the airport and we took off ... read more
The beach
Waiting for surgery
Bandon hospital

Asia » Hong Kong » Kowloon January 18th 2012

Hong Kong is definitely one of our favourite cities, so we have decided to blog about this visit as we haven’t published a blog for years on Hong Kong and we have quite a few pictures from our different visits which we have added to this blog. As much as we love HK, we don’t love the fact that at certain times of the year it gets really, really cold. Apologies to those of you in the UK and Europe suffering close to zero or sub-zero temperatures, but for us, 15 degrees is the new zero! When you become used to living in a tropical plus-30 degrees, 15 degrees is damn cold and pretty much close to the coldest we can now tolerate. So we were prepared with layers to wear and thick hoodies and off ... read more
Veggies in the market
Happy Valley Racecourse
Hong Kong island skyscrapers

Asia » Thailand » Central Thailand » Bangkok December 28th 2011

Panting and frantic, we anxiously looked between Donna’s watch and the Air Asia check-in man, who simply giggled and said ‘calm down, calm down’, much to our disappointment it wasn’t in a scouse (Liverpudlian) accent. But let’s rewind 3 and a half hours…we sat waiting for the minibus to pick us up chatting with the owner of our guesthouse, arriving 20 minutes late we weren’t too bothered as the journey to Krabi airport was only 2 hours or so from Koh Lanta, we had plenty of time. We stopped to pick up a Thai lady in Klong Dao (the beach just north of Long beach) and we were on our way happily to the car ferry. We knew there was something wrong straightaway when the queue for the car ferry was tailed right the way back ... read more
San Saeb klong (canal)
Dave getting fitted for his suits
Dave and Ronald

Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Lanta December 25th 2011

So, after crazy travel agent lady shouting at us and sitting waiting until 10:15am for our minibus to turn up, it finally did. The problem was it was pretty full when it collected the three of us and the idiot driver tried to cram us onto the back two seats which had absolutely no leg room. After we climbed over to the seats in front of us and the driver consulted his list several more times, we proceeded to drive around Krabi Town (3 times), picking more people up and ending up back at the hotel next door to ours…it was really weird! So when the driver had stopped giving us a random tour of Krabi Town, we were finally on our way the only problem there were 13 of us and bags (and bloody big ... read more
Heading back to the boat
Dave doing a lion impression
Donna and Dave

Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Krabi December 17th 2011

This next stop was just an overnighter, before we continued our onward journey for Christmas. This is a slightly shorter blog and looking now at the pictures we have uploaded, this stop was very much about food Kuala Lumpur to Krabi town We made our way back to KL Sentral station so we could catch the Air Asia Skybus to the Cheap Charlie terminal to catch our flight to Krabi. This part of the journey went nice and smoothly, the problems arose at the Cheap Charlie terminal. All we have to say about that terminal is that is has gone from bearable to completely unworkable in the space of 18 months – we have heard that a new Cheap Charlie terminal closer to the proper airport is opening soon…let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later. The ... read more
Songthaew adventure
Kids painting at the weekend market
Nutella roti being made...mmmm!

Asia » Malaysia » Wilayah Persekutuan » Kuala Lumpur » Bukit Bintang December 14th 2011

We had been planning our Christmas trip away for a few months, unlike our usual last minute preparations because one of our old uni friends from the UK, Dave, was coming to visit us. We set off for Singapore on a 7am flight with a full day of travelling ahead of us. Our source of amusement for the majority of the 3 and a half hour flight was the announcement that it was one of the cabin crew’s birthday…the laughter from us wasn’t because it was her birthday but because her name was 'Pringles'. We had an interesting discussion as to what her middle name might be – sour cream and barbeque were the main contenders. Singapore to Kuala Lumpur We breezed through the Swiss clock that is Changi airport, Dave was there waiting to meet ... read more
Petronas Towers at night
Exhausted after the walk up!
On the train

Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Samui August 2nd 2011

We were quite nervous about this trip to Thailand, we hadn’t been to Koh Samui for 10 years and we had been wondering if we had made the right decision to revisit since we booked our flights! Again, our flight arrived close to midnight so being the tight arses that we are, we waited in Bangkok airport until it was time for the first flight to Surat Thani. This time we were fully prepared for the transport mafia on arrival at Surat Thani as we had pre-researched our options. After our night in the airport with little sleep, we decided to go for the faster ferry option to Koh Samui. It was expensive at 650 baht each (£13) but it was half the journey time and we just wanted to get there at this point. We ... read more
Our lovely room
More food at Bophut night market
Donna on Maenam beach

Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Lanta December 25th 2010

Ok, so it’s kind of becoming a weird tradition now that whenever we are going somewhere we end up spending the night in an airport and guess what…our Christmas trip away starts with an overnighter in Bangkok’s airport! We will warn you now, this is quite a long blog as we had a very, let us say, eventfultime with transport on this Thailand trip. About the panorama...it makes the beach look like we are on a tiny, deserted island, which we weren't - for some reason it distorted as we stitched it together and looks a bit strange. Can we have an A for effort though? Our entertainment for the evening was taken care of almost immediately by some Italian tourists who didn’t speak English trying to order their sandwiches at the newly opened airport Subway. ... read more
Neil on the beach at sunset
Christmas Day meal
Donna looking impressed with the 'Transport Centre'

Asia » Philippines » Cebu » Moalboal November 22nd 2010

After a day and a half of food poisoning in Cebu city, we were hoping that the bus journey over the hills of Cebu wouldn’t be too arduous on our stomachs or bowels! As it was, the bus journey was ok…apart from the signs saying ‘Slow down, accident prone area’ which gave the driver the impression that he should speed up and drive like a complete maniac. The warp speed we went on the winding roads (with some sheer drop offs too we might add) and the few near misses with other buses well and truly kept our mind off the possibility of the food poisoning coming back to haunt us! Three hours later we arrived in Moalboal town, although quite why the 89km journey took so long with the warp speed we reached we will ... read more
View from the restaurant which was built out over the sea
The swimming pool
Donna on Panagsama pathway

Asia » Thailand » Central Thailand » Ko Samet July 30th 2010

Our flight landed in Suvarnabhumi airport close to midnight and we were disappointed to see that the airport was still as grey as ever (whoever designed this airport thinking it would look nice needs a slap!) and then we waited for what seemed like forever to get through the Immigration queues. We seem to be making a habit of sleeping in airports; secretly we enjoy torturing ourselves with the stiff backs and necks from lying on the hard, cold floors and the feeling of eye dropping tiredness the next day! Feeling a little worse for wear, we went to get the shuttle for the transportation centre, the lack of sleep is probably why we spent ages looking for the shuttle bus stop until the information desk pointed us in the right direction! What follows is a ... read more
Our room
Donna on the rocks
a mini beach




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