After an uncomfortable 12 hour bus journey we arrived in Phuket Town, we had a whole day to kill until we were meeting Pete's parents Avril and Michael, they were meeting us for a two week holiday. Phuket Town isn't really a nice place, it's a bit grotty, theres nothing there to attract people to it. Pete was hoping the rest of the island was as he remembered it when he came 6 years ago, beautiful. We spent the morning catching up on downloading photos etc. At ab...

The bus from Mae Hong Son to Bangkok was full when we tried to book so we had to take a minibus to Chiang Mai, stop for McDonalds and then get a big bus to Bangkok. We arrived in Bangkok at 7 in the morning and got a taxi to the Kao San Road area and found a hotel with air con on a quieter side street. It's the hottest time of year in Thailand, Bangkok is pushing 40 degrees C in the middle of the day so air con was a must. We caught up on some sleep and headed ...

We got another local bus to Mae Hong Song and arrived surprisingly quickly. It's a small town and was our last stop on the Mae Hong Son loop. It's a fair sized town overlooked by stupas and temples on the hills. We were surprised how quiet it was, there really weren't many people around. We found a small guest house by the lake and headed to the best restaurant we could find on trip advisor, there weren't many but this one had great bacon and real cheese so we de...

Another local bus and we were still surprised that it was an hour late, it was a fight to get on and Pete ended up having to sit on the floor. We had booked into Cave Lodge in Soppong, once we got off the bus we both jumped on some motorbike taxis to the lodge. The lodge was amazing, they had various different kinds of huts to stay in, we picked the cheapest and opted for the smallest one as it had a lovely view over the river. The room had a double bed that to...

From Chiang Mai we headed to Pai, it was only a 3 and a half hour journey up the mountains. We arrived and instantly loved the feel of the place. Ok, it was a tourist town but it was nice an chilled, exactly what we wanted. We had found somewhere we wanted to stay online so we headed straight there. It was a bit out of town, about 20 minute walk but it was well worth it. We had a bungalow which was probably the best we have stayed in, it even had an attached bath...