Sitting in Starbucks, sipping a cappuccino and updating these blogs, I seem to have developed an affliction I shall refer to as "Starbucks arse" - this is what happens when, after spending a couple of hours sitting at an exotic branch of this particular coffee chain, writing up all your travel notes and rearranging them into an order which makes some sort of sense, you decide finally to get up and discover that the air conditioning hasn't worked and that you have...

I got out of bed this morning and opened the door to discover that somebody had hung a sign on the handle which read: "Please, No Molest". It's always nice to know that somebody is looking out for me when I'm away from home, although, to be fair, I think I would be in far more danger of being molested on the streets of Pattaya South Beach than I am ever likely to be in my own hotel room. Although I'm pretty sure you could find somebody out there willing to provid...

Pattaya Beach has managed in recent years to earn itself the unfortunate nickname "Patpong by the sea", due to the really quite unlikely number of Go-Go bars and strip joints that have suddenly sprung up at the southern end of the strip. This is actually a bit unfair, since you could almost certainly say the same thing about any number of other destinations around the world which people regularly call home for weeks of the year. It depends where you go, and what ...

As you may have partly worked out by now, Phranang translates as "Holy Princess" - and of course, there are numerous stories and legends to go with the name. The so called Princess Story centres around Tham Phranang - the Princess Cave - and comes in several forms, depending on who you speak to. The staff at the Rayavadee will understandably avoid going into details regarding the most popular of these as some of the locals believe the resort to be responsible for...

As I may have mentioned previously, my arrangements for our trip to Krabi had been made in secret so that Eloise didn't know exactly where we were going. Naturally, she knew we were going somewhere special - it's impossible to arrange any sort of trip without the person you're travelling with wanting to know where you're going - but I'd had to tell her only that there would be a surprise in store and insist that she didn't push me for more information. Krabi is ...