And then we were back to Bangkok briefly and off to Hanoi in Vietnam...

After a rather exhausting journey down from Chiang Mai which involved a 9 hour overnight bus, a flight to Surat Thani, a rather expensive 2 hour taxi to Chumphon and a 2 hour boat journey we finally arrived in Koh Tao. Koh Tao is a tiny island, about 16km long and 2-3km wide, in the Gulf of Thailand. It's main draw is that the seas surrounding it are teeming with coral and all types of fish and therefore the diving here is amazing. We signed up to do our Open Wat...

We survived our first night bus in Asia and made it to Chiang Mai in the early hours and slept by the pool in our new hotel until our room was ready - we're so classy! We wandered around the ancient walled city which is surrounded by a wide moat still filled with water and took in some more Wats and even taking some time at 'Monk Chat' in Wat Chedi Luang where we got to talk to the monks themselves about their lives as monks, when they entered monk life (some as ...

What a culture shock! Coming from sane, uber-organised Japan to frantic, crazy and (it has to be said) dirty Bangkok was quite a change! We went from Japan where everyone waits for the green man before anyone would even think of crossing the road to taking your life in your hands and making a dash across the road whenever you can see an inch of space, and from ultra clean to seeing lots of cockroachs, rats and even elephants walking down the street in the centre ...