Why would you write a travelblog when you don’t actually travel anywhere? Last year we went to Thailand and spent the Christmas period walking through powdery white SAND. This year we stayed at home and spent a lot of our time walking through powdery white SNOW! It was such a change from the usual damp, cold Christmas's that we normally have that I decided to put some photos out there to let family and friends in warmer climates see what England has to offer. Christmas started early for us because Gary and Milena were off to Poland on the 22nd to spend time with Milena’s mum. So, the weekend before Christmas they came to us and we had a ‘mock’ Christmas. It felt exactly like Christmas day, we all sat around the tree in the morning ... read more

It's hard to say why we love this part of Bangkok but it somehow draws us to it like a magnet each time we are in the area. Maybe it's the chilled out bars along Soi Rambuttri where you can sit and 'people watch' or the delicious food you can buy so cheaply from the street traders. There's never any shortage of interesting travellers to exchange stories with and new places to find out about from them. And of course the beautiful warm evenings, well ok, I know it's rainy season right now but the rain soon dries up and life gets back to normal again. Not that it changes much, the locals seem to carry on regardless! By Saturday we were recovered from the long travel days and ready for some sightseeing. We booked ourselves ... read more

One problem of coming to the island immediately after full moon are the tides. Within two days of arriving the tide was so far out that the water was too shallow over the coral to be able to swim or snorkel until 5pm or even later. ( Of course someone out there reading this may tell us it’s nothing to do with the moon and it’s phases!) For this reason we went in search of something else to do. We climbed the steep road from our resort down onto the next bay from there we were able to walk several kilometres along the beach from bay to bay. It was impossible to get into the sea from any of the bays, just a few inches deep maybe. The bays were picturesque with gorgeous soft sand but ... read more

I wasn’t looking forward to the next part of our journey. It involved getting the 11.30am boat off Kapas, then the public but to Terangannu followed by a bus to Kota Bharu, further north, where we would stay overnight (not one of my favourite places). From there, next day, we would need to get the public bus to Rantau Panjang on the Malay/ Thai. border. Walk across the border to Songai Kolok before taking a 10 hour train journey to Surat Thani. Another overnight stop, then make our way, by a series of buses and a ferry, to Koh Phanang, an island off the East coast of Thailand renowned for it's full moon parties. Sounds daunting but not so bad if you just take it day by day. In recent years there’s been a few terrorist ... read more

We arrived at the dreaded Puda Raya Bus Station in good time for our 9am bus to Mersing. 'Dreaded' because it is mega crowded, very dirty,so noisy you can't hear yourself think and scores of buses spewing out hot air making the temperature hotter than hell! Suprise suprise, our bus was delayed an hour. Thankfully when we finally dropped our weary bones into our allocated seat we discovered they were actually quite spacious and comfortable unlike the buses in Indonesia where we were squashed 5 people onto 4 seats that were broken, lost all their stuffing, hot and stuffy with people all around you chain smoking! We plugged ourselves into our I Pods and settled down for the 6 hour journey to the East Coast. Quite soon after leaving Kuala Lumpur we were driving through picturesque ... read more