7th - 9th June 2009 Arriving in Pai was like a breath of fresh air (despite the motion sickness from the curvy bus ride up). We quickly made some friends who showed us a great and cheap (200 baht) place to stay (Villa De Pai). Our bungalow included everything we needed plus cable internet so it was a great deal. We were very excited, especially Sammy, at the prospect of some dirt bike riding as it looked like a good opportunity to do it. After settling in we h...

1st - 6th June 2009 At about 7am we arrived at our hostel, 'Nice Place 2', in Chang Mai. We'd pre arranged the accommodation in Bangkok as a part of a deal with the bus tickets and a three day trek. We had one day wandering around Chiang Mai and arranged to go to see a Muay Thai match for only 350 Baht (It can often cost over 1000 Baht). The Muay Thai event was great even though most of the matches were between kids. There was a female match though which was g...

29th and 30th May 2009 We arrived in Bangkok around 4:30am after a fairly successful night bus from Ranong in which we both got a bit of sleep. We were surprisingly able to easily find a public bus to take us to Kho San road where we would stay for our couple of nights in the big smoke. Arriving in Kho San road in the early hours of the morning could have been a scary experience but it was actually rather nice and not too seedy at all. A few prostitutes/lady b...

27th May 2009 After Phi Phi we needed to head to Ranong to renew our visas. We caught the ferry to Phuket first and stayed at the Patong backpackers which we really liked as it was cheap, had air con and floor to ceiling windows onto the street from our room. It was fairly new inside as they rebuilt it after the tsunami devastated the area. After a great sleep we caught a bus to Ranong to do the Visa run to Burma as leaving Thailand even for twenty minutes give...

23rd - 25th May 2009 Coming into Phi Phi island on the ferry was breathtaking. It's such a beautiful landscape and looked absolutely amazing from afar. Getting closer you couldn't help but notice the sheer number of boats crowded around the jetty - there were hundreds, you could tell this was a popular destination. As soon as we stepped foot onto the jetty we were overwhelmed with touts offering us accommodation. It was very surprising to find the amount of chea...