Relax while drifting down the mighty Mekong river for two days on a slow boat. Nothing to do but watch the world go by. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it? The reality was a little different! We used Easy Trip to make this journey. They are the Thai arm of Discovery Laos , and their office was conveniently located just round the corner from our hotel in Chiang Khong. When they collected us at 0830 in a brand new pick up, so new the plastic covers were still on the seats, we suspected we might have paid too much! First we were taken to Thai immigration on one side of the Friendship Bridge which links Thailand to Laos. Those formalities completed, we waited for a bus to take us over the bridge to Laos immigration. This time there ... read more

It was raining when we left Chiang Mai. It rained heavily throughout the near four hour bus ride to Chiang Rai. It then rained almost non-stop during our 2 day stay, not that we let it affect our enjoyment. Indeed, we loved it there so much that we are considering returning for a longer stay in years to come. First though, the bus. It wasnt too bad, although still not nothing compared to the VIP buses we have seen. What was remarkable was the way we bought our tickets. When you visit the Green Bus website look for the English option then select your route. In Chiang Rai you need to select Terminal 1 as, despite the bus stopping there, Terminal 2 produces no bookable option. Make sure you put something in the comments box otherwise ... read more

It took seven hours on the bus to get from Bangkok to Sukhothai. In reality it wasnt a bad journey but we were quite pleased to get there. At the bus staton all the foreigners were squeezed onto a local bus rather like a mini cattle truck. Luckily our hotel was the first stop and soon we were freshening up in our room ready to investigate the nightlife! We were staying in New Sukhothaui, some 11km from the ruins of the ancient capital. It is by no means a large town, nor is there really a lot to do within the town itself. To get to our hotel we had to walk through the market and thankfully the pungent smell from the fish sellers didn't drift too far down the road. There are a handful of ... read more

With no work lined up in January or February we have taken the opportunity to return to South East Asia for a bit of travelling. There will be some familiar places on this trip, but most of it will be new for us. We're quite excited really! KLM announced a few months ago that they were going to start flying from Alicante to Amsterdam, from where connections are available to the rest of the world. That meant we could get to Bangkok with just one change instead of the two changes we have to make if we fly with Qatar. The promotional prices to launch the route were unmissable so here we are back in Bangkok. The seats were nowhere near as comfortable as Qatar and the Boeing 777 was full so we had to endure ... read more

We took the train from Warsaw's rather grand Central station to Torun, a journey of just over two and a half hours. Torun was a place I had never heard of and so we were surprised when our friends put it on the agenda. It was about halfway between Warsaw and our next destination, Gdansk, and we are so pleased that this decision had been made for us. What a fantastic city to visit. I'd like to say there were fewer tourists but I can't. It was a public holiday in Poland and the place was packed with Polish tourists. Oh well, you can never win! A taxi took us over the River Vistual and dropped us right outside the Hotel Spirchz, just inside the old city gates. What a great choice of hotel this was. ... read more