Ko Phi Phi was our next stop and we were looking forward to seeing this beautiful island, but again it was so busy that the island itself is pretty much covered in bars and shops and scuba diving places. It's surprising to think that the entire island was overwhelmed by the tsunami and seeing evacuation route signs everywhere is slightly concerning! We were staying in a real hole in Phi Phi, and I was personally worried I'd put my foor through the floor at any mo...

So the minibus to Bangkok actually went off without incident, tired but not too rough and I'd managed to dash to the bakery in the morning to pick up a Swiss brioche - heaven! We had a bit of a wait between the two immigration points and had to sit on the back of an open wagon to be moved to the bus stop but apart from that everything was as normal! We were overjoyed upon our landing in Bangkok to find that we were only a 2 minute walk from our hostel - joy! T...

Sawadee Ka! So I have just finished a week playing with the elephants and it was an absolute blinder, an amazing way to start off the whole year. It was a relatively early start on Monday, getting to the Elephant Nature Park (ENP) office in Chiang Mai for 8am. There were muffins and free t-shirts though so not all bad! We piled into minibuses for the 60km or so trip up into the mountains to the ENP. Our guide was Chay, C, H, A, Y, as he reminded us everytime he ...

Well we finally arrived in Bangkok after an 11 hour flight. We flew on the biggest plane I have ever seen - it had two floors and everything, but unfortunately our budget meant we were in peasant class on the bottom standard floor! It wasn't all bad though, I managed to watch Bridesmaids (hilarious), Hanna (OK, bit weird) and 4 episodes of Angry Boys (preparing myself for Oz). Bangkok airport isn't what I was expecting - it was pretty new with flowers EVERYWHERE!...