So, into the last few days now - currently staying on Railay which is a peninsular not too far from Krabi and Phuket. You can only get here by boat as there are no roads (the cliffs make it impossible to build a road) and therefore it feels a bit like an island. The scenery is much the same as elsewhere in this part of the world but the absence of cars and bikes makes for a really good change. Its all chill out bars, bob marley and rave music in the evenings plus...

well phuket was fantastic, although a bit touristy - still the food was excellent, everyone spoke english, the apartment we stayed in was really nice, the beach was cool and of course the company was brilliant (ahhh) (and v welcome after 2 1/2 months). Managed to do very little - eating, sleeping, going to the beach, it's all there is to do anyway. The day we did try and do something (visit the gibbon rehab centre) we hired a bike, it took ages with my dodgy ...

Back in in bangkok again after three day trip to kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the river kwai. Really interesting stuff, loads of history about how the prisoners of war were treated by the japanese and made to suffer terrible conditions in order to construct a railway between singapore and the burmese coast. Of the western soldiers kept there (australian, american, dutch and british) it was the british who lost most men to the conditions (disease and starva...

Made it across the border and back into thailand yesterday. Its incredible the difference - proper roads, people, traffic - it really is stepping back in time going to Laos. Only spent one night in Chaing Mai, its mainly a hill-trekking place and I seem to have done loads of that - got a flight down to bangkok this morning. Its nice to be in the city again if only for the food (Thai food is definitely my favourite), the convenience/availabilty of everything (inc...

Awoke for the third day running to a CNN special about Steve Irwin (we'll get to the travel thing in a minute - I'm short of people to grump to..where are you Piers?) They kept going on about how it was such an irony that a man who made a living putting his head in crocodiles' mouths died wrestling with a kipper in 3 feet of water or something - I couldn't help but think of a double irony here - the one being that even though he's dead, I'm still marching across ...