Khaosan Road, Bangkok - the cacophony of noise and colour assaults the senses of the new, open mouthed arrivals, weighed down with their oversized backpacks, undersized credit card limits, and daring dreams of Thai adventures. This place has a long held notorious and infamous reputation as the backpacking melting pot of Asia. Its notoriety was further enhanced by the book and movie "The Beach". We spent time here during our 2005 trip and absolutely loved it....

 Getting back to Bangkok was another adventurous 15 hours of travel. First a trip in a crowded minibus over muddy barely formed roads.It was 6 hours to the border with 4 river ferry crossings to make, and our packs, on the minibus roof, were completely coated with mud. After the border there was 2 more buses, first a minibus to Trat then a more conventional bus for the final leg into Bangkok.Back in our Khao San Road Hotel and the luxury of hot showers to clea...

India said goodbye to Heather with a vengeance, by giving her a severe dose of "Delhi Belly" on the day we flew out to Bangkok. Not a pleasant experience being sick on a plane! Fortunately we had decided to book our accommodation ahead so we were able to grab a "limo cab" on arrival at the airport and go straight to our hotel room in comfort and without much delay, where Heather could begin the process of getting better again.We stayed in Khaosan Road where all ...

We had really enjoyed our Tioman Island trip and our taste of Thailand on the cruise so when we were thinking of a trip to take in Heather's birthday  these were high considerations. Then having both recently read 'The Beach'  it seemed that Ko Samui filled the bill comfortably. An island in the South China Sea, a part of Thailand, and the setting for a high adventure book, perfect. The movie 'the beach' was filmed mostly at Phi Phi islan...

The Ship sailed on through the night but when we climbed out of bed the next morning the storm had abated. We were greeted with a true cruise ship day which we set about enjoying, taking in a spa or two and some sun, then we remembered we had a substantial bar tab, so made a fairly early start on reducing same. There were some two for one style bargains so of course we had to take advantage. Some time that afternoon we reached Phuket and docked at the very empty ...