I spent the rest of my time in Chiang Mai relaxing and spoiling myself with Thai massage, manicure & pedicure... You can't really go wrong in paying $5 for a massage - it was fantastic!! I also learned a lot from a Thai cooking class so I'll be able to make some of the great local meals when I return home. Sampling them all was teh best part. Today I took a Trek where I could visit the Longneck & Akha tribes & had them leave me in Chiang Rai so I ...

I've now left the beautiful sunny islands where I was just relaxing & vegging to go to the extremely hot, humid weather of Bangkok. Bangkok: I didn't spend much time in the city but it was nice to see the Grand Palace, Wat Po (Reclining Budhha) & just go venturing through the markets of Kho San Road and BMK shopping centre. As I had been expecting, Bangkok was a very hot city with tons of deceitful Tuk Tuk drivers that would hassle you everywhere you wen...

Ko Phagnan: Made my way to the island of Ko Phagnan by bus. This was the longest bus ride ever to get through Malaysia & into Thailand. It was slowed down by the many stops for the highway police & was overloaded by a bunch of extra people sitting on rubbermaid stools in the aisle of this overnight bus. Enough to say, we didn't get much sleep. We finally made it to the island where we had a tough time finding accomodations despite coming 2 days early...