Day’s 18-22 were spent in Chiang Mai (CM) and near Chiang Dao.  Overall CM is a lot cooler and greener than Bangkok, although in CM city this is not the case.  In fact a lot of Asian people choose to take their holidays here to escape the heat and get out of the city.  On our second day here we were picked up by our local guide, Tan, and taken by open air truck about an hour out of the city to our trek starting point. Along the way we stopped...

On Day 15 of our trip we arrived in Bangkok after a 14 hour overnight train journey.  During which we were awoken by women selling all kinds of spicy foods for breakfast at 5am – the second time in less than a week. For the last night of our Colours of Asia tour we stayed near Khao San Road in the west of the city – a haven for backpackers and famous for it’s hippy market.  Day 1 in Bangkok, saw us taking a long tail boat down the mudd...

At Koh Samui we stayed at Sandy Resort, a very nice hotel backing onto our own private area of beach (at Bophut beach). The 3 nights here were our ‘holiday break’ part of the tour, as we were spoilt with lovely rooms, good restaurant, bar, Internet, a swimming pool and massages alongside the beach. We spent plenty of time here just chilling by the pool and the beach and we thought it would only be right to get a massage too. It was a nice mixture of a...

A ferry from Penang to the mainland, a 2 hour minibus ride to the Thai border and Customs, an hour to Hat Yai and then a 3 and a half hour standard bus trip to Nakhon meant for a busy day. During the latter bus journey we made several stops of which at some, women would come onto the bus selling fruit, drinks, chicken etc. The fruit women would walk up and down the bus shouting what sounded like mo-wah, mo-wah, mo-wah and almost placing the fruits in your lap des...