Thailand

Ah...beautiful Koh Lanta To pick up where Sharm left off, we planned to stay a couple of nights on this island off the west coast of Thailand but then we got a bit stuck...and stayed for nearly a week! With monsoon season supposedly in full flow it's considered off season in most of SE Asia - what this translated to for us was beautiful sunny days with the occasional hour long rain storm, and half price accommodation We ended up getting about 15 pounds a night off the price of a sea front hut-on-stilts-with-obligatory-hammock-on-deck in a resort with about 6 other people staying there, a French chef who cooked up amazing, dirt cheap food and a practically abandoned, white sand covered private beach...I think you can see why we stayed!

When we finally managed to leave we headed to Krabi where we spent a night before the long trip up to Bangkok. That trip, it has to be said, left us with a bit of a bad taste in our mouth and a rather poor opinion of the Thais and their attitude towards tourists. We paid for an air conditioned bus to take us from Krabi to Surat Thani, which is where the train to Bangkok goes from. The first observation upon getting on the bus, was that I've felt stronger, colder air on my face from passing butterflies than was being achieved by the so called air conditioning. Hmm...it was clearly going to be a warm trip. As we sat waiting for the off, the driver started bringing luggage on to the bus - it seems the luggage hold could only take about 4 cases, and any surpluss was to spend the journey in the aisle of the bus, piled up 2 cases high and from back to front. Heaven help anyone who might need to exit the bus at any point! As we were sitting towards the back we were starting to feel a little hemmed in, but at the one toilet break we were afforded (10 baht to wee in a hole in the ground - happy days) I managed to run the gauntlet of luggage, and even exacted some accidental revenge by breaking one of the arm rests...oops!

We finally stopped in what we assumed to be Surat Thani. Where we actually stopped was down some random back street outside the driver's mate's restaurant, where they proceeded to not know what was going on for long enough for everyone to buy food and drinks, at which point they started sorting out who was going where. Four of us had paid to go to the train station, but the chap who appeared to be in charge told us that only two people had paid to go, and that there would be a charge for the other two. Our polite pointing out that the 4 of us had all paid the same only lead to him saying "ok, you have paid, they have to pay" to the people who argued the loudest at any given time. Luckily the four of us clubbed together and shared the additional cost, but by the time we had been put on a public bus (think 50 people per square metre with windows open in a thunder storm travelling at an average speed of 8 miles per hour) and finally made it to the station our tempers were more than a little freyed! Add to that the joy that as it's off season they don't bother putting sleeper carriages onto the overnight trains and by the time we rocked into Bangkok sleepless and achey we were quite the picture to behold!

Putting that behind us, we found ourselves a hotel in an area called Sukumvit, which is nice and central, but some of which houses one of the red light districts. It was fascinating to watch, it has to be said - all the bars had beautiful Thai women hanging out in packs catering to the mostly overweight, mostly aging, entirely white male population of the area. At one point I was on the phone to my Mum and when asked what the area I was staying in was like, I was able to describe the scene as "well, there's an elephant walking down the road, and a Thai midget dressed as a Leprauchaun standing outside the (omnipresent!) Finnegan's Irish bar across from my phonebox" Bangkok is not for the faint hearted!

We had a fun couple of days checking out markets and designer malls, and taking in a more-expensive-for-two-drinks-than-our-night's-accommodation beverage at the Moon Bar - 61 floors up and completely open air bar and restaurant...again, not for the faint hearted but the views are stunning!

From Bangkok we flew to Laos. Our original plan had been to land travel, but the amount of time it would take would limit what we could see on arrival so we got ourselves some cheap flights to Luang Prabang. The bus journey from terminal to plane quickly showed us why it as so cheap. "Oh look," I said to Sharm "There's a funny little twin propeller plane over there!"...moments later it became worryingly clear we were aiming for it! Us and the other few white folk on the plane all began to look terrified...the plane was so small, it only had about 5 steps up to it, and two rows of two seats inside. The seatbelts looked like they may have come down the mountain with Moses, and in the absence of those new fandangled "lifejackets" one was encouraged, in the event of a landing on water, to pick up the base of one's seat and hold on to it. Reassuring!

Amazingly, we made it in one piece, and are now in beautiful, relaxing, friendly Luang Prabang. A former French colony, there is still a strong Gallic influence with baguettes for breakfast, some stunning architecture and coffee that is marginally more bearable than in the rest of Asia. Ooh, and you can get a decent drop of wine here too. The Laos people are incredibly friendly (to give you an example - there is free internet at the hotel we are staying at, and when I gave up my terminal for someone they hurridly ushered me over to the computer behind reception so that I could continue this post!) and a welcome antidote to our disappointment with some of the Thais. We have mostly been relaxing and exploring, but today went on a day long cookery course which was so much fun - genuine Laos food is on us when we get back! This evening we had an amazing thunderstorm and powercut (Candlelit Luang Prabang is even prettier!) and tomorrow we're off on an elephant trek and swimming in waterfalls. And did I mention that a 640ml bottle of Beer Lao is about 50p? Can't complain!

Right, that's quite enough from me, apoloies for the length of the post!

Love to one and all,
Sue xx