Thailand Continued...

So the last blog entry was back on the island of Koh Samet, We had such a great time there, it couldn't have been more different from Nepal, we left Samet and took a 3 hour bus ride to koh Chang the biggest of the island that are on to the south of Bangkok.

The best part about Ko Chang was the amazing sunset from our hut on the cliff top and the fact that it had a hammock which i couldn't prise Danny out of for 3 days. The seafood was great there if a little expensive for our very small budget of £5 for a meal for 2 lol. ko Chang was very 'resort' centred and we didn't like that so much so we bought a ferry ticket from a nice ladyboy who gave us a 100bt discount... Danny smiles at him/her nicely :)

So we took the ferry to Koh Wai a very small island that was about 1 hour away. We had a little hut on the beach and at hide tide the sea was just below our bedroom window. We were happy stranded on our desert island for 4 days, we spent most of our time sunbathing and snorkeling and we had great fun with the underwater camera taking pictures of the fish. There is a marine conservation project running on the island where they are building new coral reefs and its a great place to see all the fish. The little Damsel fish were like a pack of dogs and as soon as you got in the water you had a little shoal of them following you around :)

So, we left Koh Wai and stayed in a little town called Trat, where we discoverd the 'night market' Danny has decided that night markets are the best place on earth, they sell so much amazing food and they are sooo cheap. You could happily eat yourself to death at them and Danny seems determined to try to do jsut that. We spend a total of 12 days in the islands whic was jsut what we needed after weeks in Kathmandu.

The return to Bangkok was a Long 7 hour bus journey, followed by a local bus ride from some remote bus station north of the city centre. By the time we got back to central Bangkok we were both ready to drop, Danny was in pain and i was in need of a serous amount of beer.

We had a day or so in Bangkok traveling around on the water taxis, which is really the only way to travel round Bangkok. The Tuk tuk scam makes that form of transport not viable, and the taxis are metred when they feel like it and you don't look like a tourist. Otherwise you end up paying a fortune as tourist equals money in downtown Bangkok.

We, had a tour booked with TAT the Thai tourist office who are very efficient. We took a day train to Ayuttaya the old capital of Thailand which you'd think was interesting until you get there and realise it's a shithole with some ruins in the middle of it. It was baking hot and not the weather for stumbling though ruins of buildings that all look the same. Danny was so unimpressed, although we saw 1 cool thing the Buddha head covered in tree roots. That was it for the whole town.. so don't go there!

After we left the boring towns behind we took the night train direct to Chiang Mai in the far north. We have hired ourselves a moped and we have found the local climbing site which is really nice. All sport routes but great quality rock and really well looked after areas for belaying. photos of this will follow I'm sure.

When we arrived we took a 3 day jungle trek which is worth a blog all of it's own. It was good fun and it was great to see the countryside of north Thailand as opposed to the coast.

So that's about it for the Thailand story, we will be leaving for Laos in 4 days where we take the slow river boat (2 days) to the city of Luang Prabang which is supposed to be lovely. We should be spending Christmas in a place called Vang Vieng, lots of rock climbing, river rafting, trekking and the most important of all 'tubing' floating down the river in a tractor inner tube stopping for beer all the way.., we've even bought the Santa hats to where on the way!

Merry Christmas folks!