The bus driver eventually told us that we had arrived in Khao Lak, the jumping off town for the Similan Islands, which are supposed to have some of the best diving in the world. After wondering town the street in the direction of the beach, we decided to ask in one of the many other dive shops where the one we had booked with was. It turned out that Khao Lak town was actually 3km further down the road! We decided to stay where we were (Bang Niang) for the night a...

After crossing the Mekong River from Laos into Thailand we caught a local bus to Chiang Rai and then to Chiang Mai. Since we had booked a liveaboard dive trip for December 1st we didn't have much time to spare! Chiang Mai is famous for trekking in the mountains and elephant safaris but seeing as we had done a fair amount of both already we opted for something different. On our first day we visited a couple of pandas who were on loan from China at the zoo. They we...

We checked into a nice cheap hotel for the night, and then went to a Ping Pong show! A definite eye opener! Those who have been will know what I mean, if not... probs best not to ask! Spent the next day in Bangkok recovering in the nice air conditioned shopping malls, failing to find the replacement sunnies we wanted and stealing samples of cake from lots of different bakeries, to pass the time before our sleeper train left for Nong Khai, the Thai border town for...

We left Bangkok early on our Floating Market trip. We were surprised to hear that the first stop would be an Elelphant Village where we would have to pay to either take an elephant ride or watch a monkey show! We didn't want to spend any more money and it didn't sound very much like a market! The rest of the group agreed so fairly soon we were back on the road to the actual markets. We were all quickly bustled into a longtail boat which sped around the narrow can...

We had planned to fly from Siem Reap to Vientiane in Laos but after finding out the flight was $142 we though up a plan B! A bus to Bangkok and then a train from Bangkok up to Vientiane. Whilst this trip is taking longer it is only costing $30 - nice! The bus to the Thai border was not quite as nice as hoped! Legroom was defiantly Asian sized and the air conditioning involved opening all the windows and the door! It all improved when we got ba...