After our nightmare with taxis the previous day we were already over Bangkok so we decided to get out of town. On the advice of a taxi driver we crossed the main road outside our hotel and tried to catch a taxi to Bang Sue train station where we planned on catching a train to Ayuthaya - the old capital city of Thailand. We tried and failed three times to get a taxi driver to use the meter. I slammed the door shut on the third one in frustration and Jo casually pointed out that I would probably have been better just leaving it open! Our fourth attempt was successful and we joined the 12 million population of Bangkok in the early morning rush hour. We were in the cab for almost an hour to go ... read more

"Off the cuff" is probably the best way to describe this trip. I was home for a slightly shorter than usual 3 week stint and was still getting used to the cold at the end of winter. Jo and I were at Botany Town Centre for the midday showing of Mrs Browns Boys D'Movie when I had a thought. "We should go somewhere warm for a week" "Sure" came the reply. We walked in to Flight Centre and placed and order... "Warm and cheap please" After going through each of the Pacific Islands and realising that it is next to impossible to actually book the 7 night $1000 packages advertised everywhere we settled on Thailand. The airfares were a little more expensive but the cost of living was virtually nothing. 48 hours later we were 30,000 ... read more

We allowed ourselves the small luxury of a sleep in until 0600 after which we again headed into Mora to watch the boys flying. As each day of the SIV course went on they were doing more and more dramatic stalls and it made for great viewing. Jo and I were offered the chance to go out on the boat with Johan from where we could hear his instructions to the pilots and watch them as they fell towards earth from right above us. The debrief for the morning was held at the icecream boat so Nik, Jo and I tagged along. We all agreed that karting and a BBQ was the order of the day but first I was in for a treat. Johan offered to take me on a tandem paraglide. I was a ... read more

Jo and I were up earlier than most of the rest of the house so Jo put on a load of washing and we walked to the town square for a coffee. We returned around 1000 to find Nik had risen. After a lazy morning in the apartment, we had a quick look at a few local motorcycle shops and hit the road for Mora, a lakeside town in which Daniel had a log cabin that he was letting Nik, Jo and I stay at for a few days. Nik's paragliding teacher Johan was running an SIV course in the town and we met up with the crew on an icecream boat moored on the lakeside. Johan and the team appeared to be just like every other paraglider I have ever met... laid back, good fun ... read more

With the Herbys back in Sweden and just one day to see as much as we could of Berlin, Jo and I bit the bullet and booked ourselves on a bus and boat tour of the city. Generally we've found that just walking around sucking in the atmosphere between a few main tourist places is the best way to see a city and have learned to avoid tour busses like the plague - but time was against us. There are three or four different hop-on hop-off style companies plying their trade in Berlin and all seemed to be much the same so we bought tickets off a tout on the footpath and boarded a yellow double decker bus a few minutes later. We did around half of the loop before disembarking near Checkpoint Charlie. This is ... read more