For our trip north to Chiang Mai, we decided that there was no way on earth that we were going to brave the economy class again. We paid the supplement, which actually was not much and we travelled on the VIP class no less. This was a whole different ball game, with reclining seats, hostess service, TV and a warm face cloth in the morning. The funny thing to notice was that the Thais tended to take the VIP buses and left it to the foreigners to take economy. Ignoring that fact that we could not understand a word of it, the Thai television was the pits. Nothing but game shows followed by more game shows. I don't think they would have been any more entertaining if we could have understood them. The whole idea of ... read more

It was back to the buses and boats again, this time to another island called Koh Samui. As per usual, there were plenty of people to meet the boat. We chose a hotel on Cheweng beach 20km away from the port, which meant a long ride in the back of a pick-up truck. The general attitude towards road safety here, and most other things for that matter, is "who gives a shit", which suited us fine. The skin cancer didn't get much attention here due to the rain, so Tiny, Andy and I hired some motorbikes and set out to tour the island. We visited the main town on the island and the originally named Big Buddha, before cooling off in a waterfall. Andy and Tiny lost control at one point and ended up spread over ... read more

The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere at some awful, antisocial time of the morning and those of us going to Phuket had to get onto a mini-bus, which was a lot more comfortable than the big bus. I sat with my arm out of the window, which was well stupid as it was burnt to a crisp when we eventually arrived. On our last legs, we started the final part of our journey, a two hour boat trip to Phi Phi (also often spelt Pee Pee) island. We had travelled by every conceivable form of transport in the last three days - train, car, plane, taxi, tuk tuk, bus, mini bus and boat - and finally we could relax. Koh Phi Phi is actually two islands - Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Le. ... read more

We arrived in Bangkok and got reunited with our backpacks (always a relief) and then proceeded through customs unhindered (always a relief, but then who in their right mind would smuggle drugs or anything else for that matter into Thailand). There were a lot of very stern looking guards with very big machine guns in the airport, but that didn’t stop you being accosted by people offering you everything under the sun. It was basically a case of "spot the foreigners who have just got off a plane and are therefore disoriented, tired and haven't got a clue about the country they've just arrived in. As I will elaborate, this is one of those times when it's handy to have a backpack. It also means that the porters who frequent many airports can't grab you luggage ... read more