We noticed we hadn't written for a while so here is a quick snapshot of the past few weeks...

We spent a very lazy few days, actually a week, on Koh samet doing not much else but lying on the beach and going to bars, it was supposed to be relaxing but we left feeling more exhausted after a few late nights!

After a break from the city we went back to Bangkok to do a bit more sightseeing. We went to a temple next to the grand palace... It was pretty stunning. It was gold and had shiney mosaics on it which made it sparkle in the sun.

After Bangkok we went to Auyutthaya to see the ruins there. We also saw some domestic elephants that were trained to dance to music, you really got an idea of how intelligent they are!

After 2 days in Auyutthaya we went to Lopburi for 2 days... There were some more ruins there to see but Lopburi is famous as the monkey capital! There are hundreds of Macaque monkeys there that hang out in the ruins. Watching the monkeys was so interesting, some of their expressions are so human like! you can give the monkeys nuts which they take out of your hand but you have to be weary of the cheeky ones that will climb up your body to get the whole bag!

After Lopburi we headed to Khao Yai national park. We stayed at a really nice family run guesthouse through which we did a full and half day tour. We went in to the rainforest for a trek and saw Hornbills. We also saw Gibbons and a green snake!! We visited a cave which was full of bats and insects. The guide told us to put our hands out and would hand us spiders, hoppers and frogs. We also saw millions of bats come out together at sunset.

We went to Kanchanaburi to see the tiger temple. This is where the monks keep tigers. It started off because a monk took in an orphaned tiger and they now have about 10. We got to touch and sit with a tiger, was pretty amazing!!

We continued our journey south from then on and went to Phetchaburi for a day and saw a cave temple. It was full of gold buddas and the light beeming down through the insence smoke made it look really magical!

The next stop was Prachaup Khiri Khan. This was one of our favouite places. It was a sleepy fishing village and there were few tourists. You could sit and have lunch at a stall by the beach with no one on it! We even got up for sunrise (at 5:30am!!! which was spectacular!

This brings us up to date, as we are now in a place called Chumpon to get the night boat at midnight to Ko Tao to start our island hopping adventure. Hopefully the weather will be good and the sea isn't too rough as we will be sleeping on the deck. Ko Tao is supposed to be really good for diving so we hope to do some there.

Hope all is well,

Love Zoe and Rich XXX