Feb 16, 2013 - The world goes mad

Just found The BBC World Service. Shouldn't have bothered really. Riots, demonstrations and bloodshed in Baghdad, Tunis, Madrid, Colombo, Lisbon, on and on. Even militant Buddhist monks waging verbal war and ethnic strife a couple of hundred miles down the coast. So what's on the agenda here at 18:27 as the blood-red sun gives up its heat for the day and sinks into the Andaman sea? Well in exactly 15 minutes all hell will break loose as it does every evening up in the Casuarina trees that fringe the coast here, as right on cue the local...

Dec 11, 2012 - Dec 7th - Dec 11th

Friday Dec 7th - Tuesday Dec 11th We have had a lovely time in Krabi. The Thailand leg of our trip has flown. I can't believe we're a third of the way through already! We made the most of the 5 days in Krabi, lounging by the pool, as we know Oz and NZ are gonna be more sightseeing and on the move.  We were planning on getting a boat to a couple of the Islands, however Roy was struck down with food poisoning for 24 hours and was still a bit fragile on the second day. So we only managed to visit  Ao Nang. It's a bustling town, full of...

Dec 6, 2012 - Phuket & Krabi

Mon Dec 3rd - Wed Dec 5th The last few days have flown in Phuket. Most of the time we have stayed in the resort. The weather has been glorious. And we have enjoyed just relaxing and catching up with sleep.  Henry has finally managed to get over his fear of water flumes and went down a really fast one with me 4 times - he was so proud of himself! He's also getting more confident in the pool and I'm sure he'll be swimming by the time we get home.  We have enjoyed the entertainment in the resort. They have a music and dance show every night....

Nov 27, 2012 - Elephants, Tigers, and Bears...Oh my!

Another long one, take your time. I love feedback! Hanoi An early start to our day began at 5:30 am, in order for us to hop into a cab from our hotel and make our journey over the airport for 7:00 am. Having not left enough time for breakfast, we grabbed an overpriced sandwich at the airport after checking in for our flight into Thailand. We killed an hour or so before boarding our two hour plane ride to take us to our first destination in Thailand, Bangkok We departed the plane and awaited for our turn to get our visas which we passed...

Nov 15, 2012 - Krapi Krabi! - updated!

I got on the Ferry by myself I was feeling really sad, leaving the others and just homesick. I know when I’m tired I get homesick – but I felt like now I just wanted to be at home. I was so tearful all day and when I arrived at my hotel just burst into tears there was nothing really to do in Krabi and although I wanted to be by myself for a bit I just felt really lonely. I suppose the group leaving and Amber staying in Phuket didn’t help. I went and explored the town a bit and found a nice coffee shop where I treated myself to a caramel...

Nov 7, 2012 - Ao Nang

By now everyone to wondering whats going on. I setup a blog and have not posted. To get everyone caught up. I landed in Bangkok after a 24 hour flight. OK I will admit, I may not be surviving the long flights like I did in the old days. The last leg of the flight, from DUBAI to Bangkok was filled with a group Malaysia nuns and they were all coughing and sneezing (not covering their mouth). I just knew I was going to get something from them and sure enough I caught a head cold. So the first night in Bangkok I felt it coming on but I pushed...

Mar 16, 2012 - Krabi

We had a difficult time deciding what to do this morning-- we knew we wanted to get to Krabi today (which involved a 30 minuted hike with our packs to Railay East and then a 14km long-tail boat ride) but we were also tempted by local opportunities, perhaps climbing again or renting sea kayaks. The "penis cave" was just a few beaches away and could have been an entertaining sight-- there are many different carvings and statues there, supposedly bringing fisherman luck. But we ultimately decided just to head to the long-tails, as departure...

Feb 28, 2012 - Retour progressif vers la maison

Avant dernière nouvelle.... Le retour approche à grands pas, alors que nous terminons notre séjour dans le sud de la Thaïlande et que nous partons pour Bangkok demain matin en avion. Les derniers jours nous ont permis de continuer nos visites hebdomadaires à la plage pour lire et prendre de belles marches sur ces plages qui ne finissent plus. Notre première journée de plongée a été reporté au lendemain. La compagnie avec qui on a fait affaire a décidé de nous imposer une sortie en plongée facile afin "de nous connaître". Ayant manqué la...

Feb 17, 2012 - Tra arrampicate, kayak ed elephant trek

Mentre comincio a scrivere fuori impazza un temporale tropicale: lampi, tuoni, una cascata di pioggia. Se penso che fino a 10 minuti fa ero al bazar notturno, con probabilmente tutta Krabi lì a mangiare, fare spese, guardare il Music Contest 2012 (gruppi o solisti di tutte le età abbastanza imbarazzanti) e i mangiatori di fuoco… Poi ho deciso di tornare il hotel a rilassarmi dopo un’altra giornata piena, mancavano solo 300 metri quando di colpo è cominciato tutto. Pensare che era così bello… ora là ci sarà il caos. Nel frattempo mi mangio...

Jan 15, 2012 - January 12-15: Krabi

On Thursday, Roslyn, Ella, Kasey and I took the overnight bus to Krabi. Before getting on the bus we decided to break our “no fruit” diet and get some mango with sticky rice. Not only was it delicious (the fruit was sweeter and much more tender than the mango at home), but it was also only $1. We left Bangkok at 7 pm and arrived in Krabi the next morning at 10 am. The bus was actually really comfortable and we were all able to sleep for a while. Even though it wasn't a restful sleep, I was able to sleep about 6 hours. We arrived in Krabi...

Dec 12, 2011 - Final Day in Krabi

Final Day in Krabi For our last day in Krabi we did a half day jungle tour. We and four other Dutch tourists took off in an open air truck bed/tour vehicle to the National Park about 30 minutes from our hotel. We drove through miles of jungle, passed pineapple, coconut, rubber plantation, and rural farming communities. Eventually we reached the Khao Phanombencha National Forrest. We had 1 hour and 45 minutes to explore its wonders, so we hiked up to the Seven Devas waterfall. The waterfall had seven tiers, each of which had its own pool...

Dec 10, 2011 - Day 1 in Krabi

Day 1 in Krabi In the wee hours of the morning we fled our hotel in Bangkok and took a flight on the lovely Asia Air to Krabi, a province in the middle/southern part of Thailand. We left the tiny Krabi airport and the first thing we saw was a landscape like something from Pandora (the moon that Avatar took place on). If Bangkok’s natural environment is a jungle, Krabi’s could be called a super-jungle. Everywhere you look plants seem to dominate every square inch of land. In the distance giant limestone towers and small mountains rise up...