The start of Songkran in Bangkok Saturday 11th April 2009 Some people armed themselves with huge water pistols this morning, ready to soak unsuspecting victims in the Khao San Road. It is the start of the Songkran weekend, Thailand’s New Year. The water pistol terrorists needn’t have bothered! By lunchtime Khao San Road had become Khao San River, flooded by torrential rain after a dramatic thunderstorm, unusual for this early in the year. We got drenched and had to paddle through some pretty filthy water, adorned by floating dead cockroaches. Nice! Yesterday, we were shopping in the fabulously elegant Paragon Centre near Siam Square, escaping the hot sunshine in the perfectly-controlled air conditioning. Siam Square, despite the fact that today’s prices seem to match the euro, even in the bargain MBK centre, is still a great ... read more

Bo Sang, San Kampaeng handicrafts Monday 6th April 2009 The Bo Sang, San Kampaeng region, which is a western suburb of Chiang Mai, is home to several handicraft centres, a silk farm and provider of employment for a large percentage of the local Chiang Mai populace. Tourists can see craftsmen and craftswomen working in leather, silver, silk, cotton, lacquer ware, bronze and jade, jewellery, ceramics and in the production of paper parasols. There is a bit of pressure to purchase, especially in the gems factory and silk works, but we managed to resist both (we did, however, buy some lacquer ware and a small piece of jade). The local cotton, once harvested is sent to Bo Sang where it is cleaned, spun and woven into fabric. When one sees the labour intensive work involved in this ... read more

The Journey to Chiang Mai Monday 30th March 2009 The train took the strain. The journey to Chiang Mai by train was considerably more comfortable than the long-haul bus trip of a few days ago. Despite the fact that the train arrived 30 minutes late from Bangkok to Ayutthaya and it was sweltering (and inescapable) heat at Ayutthaya station, we knew as soon as the train arrived and a smartly dressed cabin stewardess alighted to welcome us aboard, that this was to be a better journey. We only had second-class allocated seats but there was plenty of leg-room, reclining seats, luggage storage space, clean loo, air con and best of all drinks, snacks and a midday meal of rice and chicken, served by the stewardess just like on a plane. Later on came tea, coffee and ... read more

Are we in Thailand? Thursday 26th March 2009 Khao Lak is one of those places that could be anywhere. Full of mostly German tourists, pizza restaurants and “Happy Hour” bars. Travel guide books usually give an accurate impression of a place, but not this time. Our “Lonely Planet” unfortunately is rather old and other guides are misleading. We envisaged this area to be similar to Ao Nang (we wish we had stayed there longer) without the limestone crags but with a mountainous backdrop instead and similar Thai bungalow huts fringing a sandy beach. Well, the mountainous backdrop is here, but so too are large package-tour resorts and kids who should be in school back in Europe. Oh well, can’t get it right every time! The Khao Lak National Park, which we came through on the journey ... read more

Maybe Song Kran has come early to Thailand? It is very wet! Saturday 21sy March2009 It is raining heavily here in Phuket. Tourists have enjoyed brilliant sunshine for months, until we arrived, trailing the thunder, lightning and torrential rain in our wake! Our ferry trip from Langkawi to Georgetown on Thursday started and ended in rain! In between, however, it was a smooth and sun-blessed crossing. The flight yesterday from Penang, on a small prop plane, was wonderful, as we watched the sun setting over the islands in the Andaman Sea. We had no problems on arrival at Phuket airport and got our 30 day stamp in our passports. This was what we flew to Phuket to obtain; otherwise we would have been in Thailand on Thursday having arrived by sea. As soon as we left ... read more