Holiday week 1

We arrived in Bangkok and sussed out the airport link/sky train to get to the hotel. It was nice and easy, and before we knew it we were opening the door to a suite on the 17th floor of the Dusit Thani hotel. Yes, we had been upgraded, and neither of us had ever stayed in a suite before. We couldn't believe our eyes when we walked in. Our own living room with sofas, a study, dressing room, huge bathroom with a free standing bath, the comfiest beds in the world, and a wonderful view over Lumpini park.
I was so excited to see mum, and knowing she was around somewhere, I quickly hurried Chris along. By great luck, just as we got to the lobby there she was speaking to the receptionist, so I quickly ran up behind her to surprise her. Massive hugs, a few happy tears, and huge smiles, it was so nice to see my mum in the flesh after three months apart.
Having also been upgraded, mum and Ron insisted we went to their room for a drink and catch up. However once we walked in it was nothing compared to our room, so I ushered them up to ours, and could see the shock on their faces when we walked in.
After some much needed catching up, me, mum, and Chris went to the MBK shopping centre for a few hours. Chris managed to fit in getting his haircut, before we all headed out to dinner at Cabbages and Condoms. It was the perfect place for drinks, extremely tasteful Thai food, and a great atmosphere, to welcome mum and Ron to Thailand. Mum wasn't too impressed that a condom was presented with the bill, rather than the usual chocolate or mint! We then finished off the evening with delicious cocktails at Vertigo, one of the best ranking roof top bars in Bangkok. The view was awesome and we could even see the roof top bar from 'The Hangover' movie, which Chris and I visited last time we were in Bangkok.

After a humongous breakfast (due to the sheer amount of choice!) we caught a flight to Phuket. Chris was in his element, making his way around the egg stand, fried breakfast, noodle soup, pastries, and juices.
Another incredible hotel, Cape Sienna, set on the cliff edge overlooking Kamala beach. The pool overlooked the sea and called for us to take a dip, of course with a cocktail in hand. We tucked into some delightful Thai snacks, and not before long it was happy hour...so the cocktails were flowing! As the sun began to set, we moved to the upper sunset roof top bar for another happy hour, more cocktails, and enjoyed watching the beautiful sun set.
For dinner we visited the hotels restaurant, Plum, where our table and chairs were within an enclosed area, surrounded by water. It was like sitting in a swimming pool and eating dinner, without getting wet. We had an extremely delicious dinner, and with our tummies full, called it a night.

Up reasonably early for another large buffet breakfast, sat by the pool, with views out to sea. We caught a mini bus (3 hours) up to Khao Sok National Park, where we stayed in very quaint wooden huts in the jungle at Las Orquideas resort. A very small resort with just five bungalows set on different levels in the jungle. Nothing like where we stayed in the jungle before - no rats, no bugs, a real bathroom, aircon, and even a fridge! A must have when Ron had four litres of Bacardi to keep cool!
We spent the afternoon meandering along the one road in the park, stopping off for lunch at the Thai Herb restaurant, and fruit shakes along the way. It was ridiculously hot walking around, but thankfully our resort had a small swimming pool for us to cool off in.
We joined mum and Ron for Bacardi and Coke and a game of 'Oh hell' before heading down the road for Thai curries.

Mum booked for us to take a day trip to the Chiao Lan reservoir in the national park. It was an hours mini bus journey over to the eastern side of the national park, where we boarded a long tail boat. It was then an hours boat ride across the reservoir. Chiao Lan has been compared with Halong Bay in Vietnam, and I would have to agree. Many islets, pinnacles, beautiful landscape, and breathtaking scenery.
We stopped off at Tone Toey raft house for a delightful swim in the reservoir, and a freshly prepared fish, stir fry, and rice lunch. Tone Toey is made up of several floating bamboo huts, and one large covered raft for the dining area. A very captivating setting.
We were then instructed to leave our belongings, and just wear swimmers and clothes to get wet, trainers, and a bottle of water. A short boat ride around the corner we disembarked the boat and began a three and a half hour round trip to Namtalu cave. The hours trek through the jungle took us through many streams, past a beautiful swarm of butterflies, over some fallen trees, and then suddenly a huge scream! It was mum. And guess what....a cobra slithered right in front of her on the path! Extremely rare to see, especially on trodden paths, and after several groups of tourists taking the same route. Mum nearly had a heart attack, whilst Ron, Chris and myself tried to catch a glimpse of the cobra slithering away. Excitement over, we soon reached a spot where we could leave clothes and our water bottles, as the next stage was the cave...
Our guide gave us all head torches and led the way, carrying a five year old girl who was with our party. We've seen and explored a lot of caves over the past three months, but this was something else. Without the torch you would not be able to see anything, and as we got deeper and deeper into the cave, the water also became deeper and deeper. At some points the water nearly reached my shoulders! No wonder we had to leave our valuables and clothes behind! It was tricky and slippery, and my clumsy mum of course had her fair share of falls. We kept our eyes pealed for animals, and not forgetting to look above us, we saw hundreds of fbats hanging from the cave. We also came across a huge colourful spider.
We passed by another group coming the opposite way, and the guide spoke to myself and Chris, informing us of a snake further ahead. We went along with it thinking he was winding us up, and joking around. Surely the cobra was enough for one day. However, just as we were about to cross the last deep stretch of water, the guides torch highlighted a water snake travelling right at us. There was a huge commotion, as the snake quickly swam its way towards us. A young Swedish girl was in floods of tears, her brother was swearing like crazy, the guides were throwing rocks at the snake, and our guide even got his machete out! Then all of a sudden another water snake, this time quite a large one, also decided to swim right at us. Chris of course was there with the gopro filming the whole thing, whilst I tried to calm down and reassure the young Swedish girl. One more smaller snake decided to join the party, and after about 15 minutes of commotion we all man'd up and hurried through the water. Chris and I managed to spot a large black and green frog on our way out as a final taste of excitement.
I have to say I was glad when we saw day light, but it was an exhilarating experience.
Thankfully the trek back was heart-attack free and we all made it back to the boat in one piece (just a few bruises for mum!).
We had a final cool off in the reservoir before taking the ravishing boat journey back.
Another evening of Bacardi and coke and several games of 'Oh hell' left us all feeling quite tipsy as we saw midnight and sang 'happy birthday' to mum.

Chris and I were up early to decorate the breakfast table with banners, balloons, confetti, presents, cards, a pancake cake with candles, Buck's Fizz (well as close as I could get), and even birthday music, all in honour of mum reaching the big 60!
Her reaction was as expected - embarrassed, thankful, and oblivious! She didn't even notice the 60 banner and balloons until she looked back at photos.
We hired some mopeds, a very manly shiny pink bike for Chris to ride, and we set off for the day.
Our first stop was to Monkey Temple, and that's exactly what it was, a temple submerged by monkeys. Not a huge fan of monkeys, since my past experience has not ended so well, I kept my distance. But there was a lot of them, and a few people were happy to feed and have them climb all over their shoulders.
We carried on about 10km down the road to find the Hot Springs, but since it was the mid day sun we didn't fancy jumping into hot sulphur water, so moved swiftly on.
Having spotted some road side local restaurants we decided it would be a nice place to stop to eat. The owner did not speak a word of English, and with us only knowing the basic simple welcomes in Thai, and with no menu, the only option was to point at a dish on her sign outside the restaurant. Chris and I chose the same dish, Pad Kaprau, a minced pork cooked in basil and chilli. But wow, she went real Thai style on the chilli! It was HOT! She even bought over some additional boiled rice as she could see I was struggling. Mum and Ron went for a less offensive seafood fried rice.
Back on the bikes, we stopped by a waterfall, which unfortunately had a very small flow due to it being the dry season, and then onto a view point overlooking the national park. We carried on riding along the clear, windy roads, and reached another national park, Khlong Phanom. Chris and I climbed to a view point while mum and Ron went in search of ice cream! Our final stop of the day was at Fish Cave, where the river runs by a cave and funnily enough there are a lot of fish!
A cool off in the pool, followed by a few beers and snacks back at the lodge, was the perfect end to the day out. We went back to the Thai Herb for dinner as we knew the food was good, then ended the night at a Rasta bar drinking a few too many cocktails.

The few too many cocktails was because we had decided to wake up at 6am, jump on the bikes at 6.30am and ride to the view point to see the morning mist in the national park. Our driver had mentioned this to us when we arrived at Khao Sok, and said it was beautiful, so we had to see it for ourselves. Not only was the mist extremely magical, but we just about caught the sunrise, and the colours and lighting were spectacular. It was definitely worth waking up for.
We made the 3 hour mini bus journey back to Cape Sienna in Phuket for one more night.
Arriving around midday, and our rooms not ready to check into, we caught a taxi along the coast to Patong Bay. We had read that this was the best beach for snorkelling on Phuket, but what we didn't know is that Patong is basically Thailand's very own Blackpool. Not our ideal place to spend an afternoon, but hey ho. We grabbed some food along the sea front then walked to the end of the beach, towards the rocks. The snorkelling was actually quite good, and great experience for me. We saw a decent amount of fish, from the common Sergeant Major, to an unknown large mysterious fish...!
Not wanting to hang around, we got a tuk tuk back to the hotel for a swim and of course happy hour. We lazed on the sun beds, ended up falling asleep, and woke when the sun had set.
Knowing the food was good at the hotel, we had dinner at the pool side restaurant, and Chris and I ended the evening with a few games of pool.

A final delicious buffet breakfast by the pool, with a sea view, before making the journey to Koh Lanta....