The view is to die for. James and Laura's villa overlooks a shallow bay where fishermen and fisher birds take their fill as the tide goes out. Inland there are large ponds which are probably fish farms. Directly opposite there are a few more modern villas and some local houses set in palm trees and natural woodland.Out to sea the karats of Phi Phi National Park rise steeply out of the turquoise Andaman Sea. The villa is set on a hillside giving a fabulous view...

It was the worst of times - it was the best of times. Our hill tribes experience was to challenge and reward us to a much greater extent than we had expected. We bounced along in the back of a truck with stops to visit a waterfall and for lunch with two other couples, a lovely young couple called Asheley and Lucy from Norwich and a middle aged French couple. The French couple were obviously in a new relationship because they couldn't keep their hands off each ot...

Hi We have been off the air for a while as our Mac Book has finally died. We have bought an iPad to get going again but are having problems uploading pictures to the blog. We don't have 'flash'. Any suggestions gratefully received. We have had a fantastic time in Phuket. We have mostly been lazy around the pool but more of our adventures soon. Back to Bangkok tomorrow then off on our big tour. We will be in touch again soon.

Low and behold when we returned from our jungle adventures our computer is working again. This despite the best Apple brains in Bangkok being of the opinion that the mother board was the problem. This restoration of our good luck may be a consequence of our recent conversion to Buddhism in Chang Mai. More of these adventures later. We really liked Bangkok much more than we thought we would. Sure it's big, noisy, dirty in places and everyone is trying to rip you ...

I really wasn't looking forward to this sleeper train journey to Bangkok. I have never had a decent nights sleep on a train and sharing facilities with 40 other people probably wouldn't have improved the experience. But it turned out to be really comfortable and although one or two of our traveling companions snored quite loudly I actually managed a good sleep. In the picture Susan is sitting on a seat which together with my seat turned into the lower bunk. The ...