Famous for tropical islands, spicy lemongrass curries and smiling faces - Thailand was our home for 6 weeks.

From the capital Bangkok we ventured south, keen to hit the beaches of the islands and live a nomadic life, hopping from island to island. During this time we were lucky to have some friendly faces from home to travel with us, and Natalie, Rob and Mark were our travelling buddies for 3 weeks.

We spent a huge amount of time milling around the beaches, sampling the local food and enjoying the traveller's drink of 'buckets' - literally a bucket full of spirit and mixer, each one is lethal! With Rob and Mark we went on a Thai cooking course for the day, cooking all dishes from scratch and enjoying some of the best food we'd had in Thailand so far - and all of it cooked by us!

'The Beach' was filmed on an island near where we stayed on Koh Phi Phi, so we took a day trip there, firstly James and I when the place was deserted as the rain poured. The second visit was not so idyllic, with at least 2000 people squished onto the sands and more than 200 boats in the water, it was hard to see even one square meter of spare sand!

The 10th April is Thailand's new year festival, known as Songkram. This year they celebrated the year 2553, effectively living in the future! The day is crazy, with young and old donning water pistols, buckets, hosepipes, anything that can transport water, and dousing friends, family, neighbours and strangers with hot and freezing cold water, from sunrise to sunset. We got into the spirit of things on Koh Phangan island with Mark and some of his friends, soaked to the skin and with a few buckets (1 for water and 1 for rum & coke) we had an amazing time, although sustained a few nasty injuries!

Our final island was Koh Tao, famous for diving in the pristine coral reefs. We decided to complete our Advanced Diving course here, so spent 2 days studying and diving, reaching depths of 30 metres and braving a night dive, both incredibly different and memorable experiences - facing 10 metre walls of fish, going out of our comfort zone in the pitch black and seeing the underwater world in a different light - a unique sensory experience, relying more on sound than sight.

The sad thing about the islands to the south of Thailand is that they are inundated with tourists, and with them the McDonalds, Starbucks and thoughtless construction and infrastructure Thailand has put in place to service everything. The tropical paradise we anticipated was to be found on few of the islands we visited, mainly Koh Lanta, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao but we can only wonder how long it will take before these places change dramatically. You can't help but feel that they're happy to destroy the beauty of an island for the tourist $ then just move on to another place and repeat the same formula, hardly sustainable tourism.

After a month we decided time was up for the islands, our friends had left for home and it was time to move on. We took a boat, 2 trains and a bus to the north of the country via Chiang Mai, to a town called Pai. Nestled in the hills of the north, this is a quaint sleepy town, still with an abundance of tourists which by now we'd realised is pretty hard to escape. A highlight of our stay here was a visit to the Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary for rescued elephants, saved from working in the logging industry, from performing on the streets of major cities or from elephant trekking, where they suffer some horrendous abuse. The day was very humbling, feeding and bathing these gentle giants, it's difficult to comprehend how anyone could want to harm them.

For 3 days we hired a moped and scooted around the countryside, searching out hidden waterfalls, exploring small hamlets and feeling the freedom of the open road. We finished our time in Thailand with a trek in the mountains and a night with a local hilltribe family. Here in the north we witnessed the 'real' Thailand, friendly, hospitable people willing to illustrate what everyday living means for them and with a welcoming smile to warm your heart. We left feeling that we'd experienced something that is becoming more and more rare in this country, a genuine smile for the tourist.