Set the clock so I could be at the Grand Palace for 9:00 AM. Bought an all day ferry pass which allows you to get on an off the ferry system until 9:30 PM. It was 150 BHT (less than $5 Cdn). Unfortunately, I didn't realize the Tourist Ferry doesn't even start running until 9:00 AM so by the time I got to the Palace it was around 9:30 and there were already thousands and thousands of people wandering around as it opened at 8:30 AM and closes at 3:30. Entrance f...

When you buy a ticket on Bangkok Airways to Koh Chang the airline provides a shuttle van to pick you up at your guest house and delivers you the airport in Trat (which involves a 30 minute ferry ride). There are three flights a day out of Trat and Bangkok Airways built the airport specifically to get people to the surrounding islands. The ferry was jam-packed and it was standing room only. I'd never ridden a ferry where so many people were standing. It kinda ...

It's been a few weeks since I updated my blog and I still want to write about my last 3 days in Japan. My memory is already getting foggy and I need to get the details down for posterity. After breakfast, we get our overnight bags ready to leave on a road trip. We're leaving around noon and it's about a 3.5 hour drive on the other side of Tokyo. I have no idea where we are going except that we're going into the mountains to a hot spring. I mentioned to Tsu ...

January 5 proved to be a lay-on-the-beach kinda day. I got a lot of reading done of Nelson Mandela's autobiography. Am really trying to finish this monolith of a book so that I don't have to carry the weight back home. Getting close, only another 200 pages to go. I walk into town for dinner and decide on a place that had chickens roasting on a spit. I order 1/2 a chicken and stir fried vegetables. Seven Russians come in for dinner. They bring their own bo...

I guess it's been 4 days now since I was at the other end of the Island around the Bai Lan Bay Area. New Year's Eve was quite a raucous affair in the area and fireworks were being let off starting around 9:0 PM carrying on until 2014 came into being. My guest house, Lazy Republique got into the party spirit and I was awakened before midnight by Madonna's "Holiday". The music continued loudly until 1:30 AM... it was all good as the owner's musical tastes were r...