When, at breakfast-time, I was having a beer in the sunshine on the front of a speedboat bound for the Phi Phi islands, I had a feeling it was going to be a good day... and it certainly was! The weather was fantastic and the scenery was beautiful - the water was bright turquoise and dotted with limestone karsts. The boat stopped in a couple of places where we could go snorkelling over the coral reef; the water was warm and there were so many fish in different siz...

Our accommodation on the edge of Khao Sok National Park was very funky - a series of bungalows meticulously decorated with a jungle feel, all surrounded by beautiful trees and flowers, and the main building was a restaurant/bar constructed from wood and teeming with decorations, mostly made from plants and trees, and at night it was lit up with a collection of lots of different lamps in a various colours. Plus the food there was great and everything was beautiful...

Back in Bangkok, top of my to-do list was going to see the new Batman film (The Dark Knight) at the IMAX cinema so I bought the Bangkok Post to check the listings and ordered taxis with five of the other guys in my group (on a slight tangent, I love the brightly coloured taxis here - fuschia pink, orange, purple, turquoise...). However, the man at the hotel that arranged our taxis had sent us to the wrong cinema and the only thing showing in English was The Mummy...

We spent a couple of days on a slow boat travelling along the Mekong River from Luang Prabang in Laos to Huay Xai on the border with Thailand. The first night we stayed in the village of Pakbeng, where we were followed by local drug dealers trying to sell us stuff! The next night in Huay Xai we found a nice little bar with a darts board to hang out in. There was some pretty scenery along the way during the daytime. When we went to make the final river crossing at...

I had a quick stopover in Bangkok (I'm going back to spend a few days there in mid-August). On the way into town from the airport I was surprised by how big, built-up and clean the city was.... and then I arrived in the Old Town, which was the dirty and poky side of Bangkok that I had imagined. I wasn't massively impressed with it, (apart from the fact that eveything is super-cheap), possibly because I didn't have time to see any sights - I just strolled around t...