After leaving Mae Hong Son back in 2002, Eloise and I headed straight for the gulf of Thailand. Our final destination in the country was to be a small island resort near the coast of Krabi, a place Eloise knew very little about at the time as I had been keeping it a closely guarded secret. On the way, however, we had a few days to spare and had decided to spend them relaxing in Phuket so that I could show her the beauty of Phi Phi and the islands of the Andaman s...

Koh Phi Phi comprises a small group of islands in the Andaman sea between the provinces of Phuket and Krabi, of which Phi Phi Leh and Phi Phi Don manage to hog the limelight for much of the time. Both of these islands, in keeping with everything else jutting out of the water in this part of the world, are ridiculously spectacular in a way you can't quite picture until you're standing on a boat staring at them in disbelief, and it is to their eternal merit that th...

One thing you certainly don't have to worry about over here is money, because unless you're staying in the Ritz and dining out at Chez Posh on caviar every night, Thailand probably isn't going to break the bank. Before setting off tomorrow on an exploration of the many beautiful islands which make up the province, I decided this morning to splash out on an introductory tour of Phuket island, expecting it to cost me, as it would anywhere else, a small fortune. Get...

I already had a fairly good idea what I wanted to do in Phuket before I set foot outside my front door back in England, mainly due to the number of people who suddenly appeared out of the woodwork to gush about the place when they discovered where I was going. My travel agent also spent a good two hours waving brochures at me, each filled with pictures of crystal clear seas and perfect white sandy beaches, unaware that I usually go on holiday looking for culture ...

When you spend your life travelling around the world and soaking up exotic cultures - by which I mean experiencing the traditions of other countries rather than cultivating strange foreign diseases - you tend to find yourself scratching your head in confusion for much of the time. This is because the things we take for granted back home are often as alien to people on the other side of the world as a 42 inch plasma wide screen television might be to a leopard, an...