Life is quite simply wonderful....We've just had the most flavoursome thai beef chilli and red chicken curry ever (for a whooping 5 pounds !) after spending a beautiful day strolling amongst ancient temple ruins invaded by monkeys....
We're in Lopburi, Thailand, and we're loving it !

We've arrived in Asia about 2 weeks ago, landing first in Singapore.. The city was a gentle introduction to Asia : incredibly clean, all English-speaking, and very cosmopolitan ... it wasn't too much of a shock ! Singapore is all about shops, shops, shops and more shops ! Anything you need, you'll find an entire mall dedicated to it. As our taxi driver told us : "One day Singapore will drown under the weight of all these malls that keep popping up !"
So we did what was expected of us in Singapore : we shopped ! After breaking 2 MP3 players during our travels, we decided to treat ourselves to some cheap new MP4 players and spent the afternoon in a gigantic electronic mall, browsing and bartering :)

But the best about Singapore is its food speciality : the chilli crab ! One evening, we treated ourselves to this relatively expensive delicacy in one of the local food market. Unforgettable ! Eating it was a messy business, but the flavours were incredible......welcome to Asia !

After that we made our way into Malaysia, direction Kuala Lumpur. The city felt more authentically Asiatic : buoyant and dirty ! That's also where we fell in love with the Petronas Towers, the Eiffel tower of Kuala Lumpur ! They're the highest twin towers in the world at 452m. Funky shape, mesmerizing symetry, shiny silver coating, they're beautiful. We must have spent a full hour admiring them. That is until the sky suddenly turned black with flashes of lightening, and all hell broke loose : unbelievably heavy rain, winds bending the palm trees... nothing was missing ! Our first taste of the monsoon . No point rushing back to the hotel, in the space of 1min we were drenched. So we simply walked back, jumping in puddles and singing in the rain ;)

After a few days in Kuala Lumpur, we went to Penang. Pretty little town in the north of Malaysia, where a big Chinese community has settled. As a result most streets are lined up with fake goods and gold jewellery shops !
This city was our base to cross the Thai border. We wish now we had had more time to properly explore Malaysia. The East coast particularly is supposed to be beautiful, but unfortunately you can't do it all ! It will be for another time...

So after a day in Penang, we woke up at 4.00 in the morning to board a cramped rusty old bus and undertake a 14h journey up to the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand.
It was a long day... What didn't help either was the loud karaoke and silly thai game show that they put on the bus TV for about 4 hours, which got the locals falling off their seats in laughter while we were left with pounding headaches!!

We arrived to the beautiful island of Koh Samui start of the evening. That was also the start of our troubles. Finding a hotel didn't turn out to be as easy as expected. First of all, the hotel prices had quadrupled since our last guide publication, so we had to re-evaluate our luxurious bungalows aspirations... To check a few hotels out, we took a cab who decided at the end of the ride to charge us twice the price originally agreed. In front of our refusal to comply he suddenly became aggressive and threatened to drive off with our rucksacks in his trunk. Not good ! So we ended up with no other choice but to pay... Welcome to Thailand !
But a few hours later, everything was forgotten when we found ourselves sitting in a street market, enjoying a wonderful Pad thai with a cold beer in our hands.

The following day, we woke up all excited about the idea of lying down on a beautiful white sand beach ! We jumped off bed, grabbed our swim suits, sun screen & beach towels, opened the door and....walked in the rain ! Great, what's to do on a rainy island ?
Fortunately, after 1 hour of rain the sun appeared and we were back on track ! By the end of the day, Andy had recovered his natural beach colour : bright pink, and we stopped at the chemist to buy 3 bottles of after sun !
That same evening, we decided to attend a Thai boxing competition. It's quite a sport. A real Thai institution for which the locals go crazy ! We loved it. It's a beautiful sport to watch. The boxers are agile and very graceful, almost dancing at the sounds of the traditional music and percussions that accompany the match. It can get extremely violent too and 3 out of the 6 matches ended in a knock out. Great entertainment.

After midnight, on the way back to the hotel, some more entertainment awaited us .... we came across what Thailand is unfortunately famous for : prostitution, prostitution and some more prostitution. Half naked beautiful thai girls pole dancing in every bar and attempting to grab Andy at pretty much every street corner (inspite of me walking right at his sides !!!!). You could hardly make out the difference between girls and lady boys, they're that good looking !

On our second full day, we decided to rent some scooters to go round the island, start our temple marathon and attempt to discover some less touristic places where to put down our beach towel. We quickly discovered that in thailand you better develop eyes behind your head if you want to survive the manic traffic, but it was all worth it when end of the afternoon we found a little secluded spot with white sand, crystal blue water, and no other tourist in view !

After 3 days in Koh Samui we flew to Bangkok. Crazy city. It's very hot, humid, polluted and we sweat A LOT !
We walked for hours to visit temple after temple, gold laughing buddha after giant buddhas, and discovered little back streets where some local trades survive. Exhausting !
But we learned : 1. That you shouldn't trust your friendly tuk-tuk driver who compulsively lie about everything and end up kidnapping you : taking you to a back street where his mates are waiting and all of them try then to convince you to go some other place for twice the price because where you want to go is closed (which it is not!)......no thank you, keep driving or I'll get off without paying you a penny ! 2. That to cross a road you have to throw yourselves in the traffic and hope for the best 3. That none of the above actually matters when you can get at the end of the day an hour body and feet massage for only $3 !!!

We spent in total 4 days in Bangkok. We'll come back to it, but for the moment we were keen to start our trip towards the north.
And we started by Ayuthaya, 100km north of Bangkok. It's a really special town. Surrounded by 3 rivers that transform it into an island, the city is classified as a Unesco World heritage site because of all the historical temples scattered through it, dating back from 1300. They're absolutely magnificient. We got the same type of awe in front of them as we felt in front of Macchu Picchu.
To see them, we rented 2 old rusty bicycles and cycled all around for the day. Even though it is a touristic destination, Ayathuya and its population doesn't feel damaged by tourism. The locals here are warm and friendly, trying to chat with us and often laughing at a couple of tourists on rusty old bicycles. All the signs are in thai and most people do not speak English. It makes it more difficult for us to find our way around, but that's all part of the fun !!

We've now arrived in Lopburi, another 50km north. the town's claim to fame : its temples and town centre are besieged by monkeys. You can imagine our excitement today walking around town and seeing monkeys sitting on cars, dangling off electric lines, crossing roads, and sitting on building roofs. Annoying for the locals, highly amusing for us!! That is until the little b*****s decided to jump on our backs, making me shriek more than once !!
We'll try to upload pictures very soon !!
Tomorrow we're off to Sukothai national park to see...guess what....some more temples !!!

We'll give you some more news very soon !
Lots of love to you all
xxxx
Sophie and Andy