So let’s start with my journey to Thailand. I was flying with Qatar Airways via Doha to reach Bangkok. Unfortunately a technical fault meant that we were delayed from leaving Heathrow by just about 2 hours. With a short connection in Doha onto my Bangkok bound flight – I with a good group of others, rocked up in Doha to find we’d missed our connection by about 20 minutes. All credit to the Qatari staff, they had us accommodated for the 11 hour wait until the next flight at the Mercure Grand Hotel – less grand than it sounds but nonetheless quite functional. After a quick dinner and a few beers with Jamie and Richie – two guys I met on the transfer to the hotel, who were in the same position as I – I headed to bed for a 4 hour doze before heading back to the airport and on to Bangkok.

On the way the captain pointed out the view of Dubai that we had and specifically the Palm Islands and the World from the left hand side of the plane – just where I was sat!

On arrival in Bangkok it was a quick plane change then on to Phuket where I travelled to Kata to stay at the Sugar Palm Grand Hillside resort arriving at about midnight. The resort itself is set on a very steep hill overlooking Kata Beach – my room had a sea view. It’s not for the fainthearted though – there are very steep slopes and steps to be navigated up and down as you access different areas of the resort. The rooms were decorated in a mock industrial style – all polished concrete etc. but the shower was warm and the bed comfortable for me to get a good nights sleep.