No Sleep

Yo, i'm in New Zealand at last. In the last 14 hours I have been in 35 degree heat in bangkok, 20 degree heat in Sydney(lucky for us we missed the dust by a day) and now in lovely ol NZ where it is 4 bloody degrees!!!!!!! And that was at 4 this afternoon. And to top the lot we may get the OZ dust here- no ones sure.
So have spent long long time on a plane, but it did have legroom, with no sleep.
so as were only 11 hours ahead here i feel a little ashamed but i'm off to bed. 9pm- i'm soooo old.
P.S have found a cool hotel- will post pics soon and then am getting the van on saturday, woop no more public transport for a while. YEH

PPS they are forcasting snow and some of the roads are shut already. And I bought new birks in bangkok- what a lot of use they're going to be!!!!

Dreams, night night. IM COLD

Final thoughts

So leaving Thailand in about 6 hours. decided that I would come back cus its quite an amazing place and really cheap. Have spent the last couple of days doing nothing- its excellent. Chilled by the pool, had a wander in the night market and drank lots of beer with Shel and Marco. Ben's happy as he has been given a PSP by Shel and has found that he can buy games here for 50B or a pound each. So the first game he buys is role gay- BOOO.
I'm happy as I've just bought some cool cheap birkenstocks (genuine fakes) for 4 quid, rock on!
Quite looking forward to NZ, will have to remember that I can't just drink beer when I want as I have to drive as Ben STILL has no driving licence. It's going to be cold there, maybe I'll have to buy a hotwater bottle?

Just had our last thai meal, yum yummy yum. Pad Thai with chicken..... mmmmmm......
Got to go and sit in a boring airport now can't wait. See you later. XXXXX

Back in Bangkok.

Yep have escaped the dreaded Samui- but the kayaking was good around a marine park. Got back to bangkok at 4 thins morning and am now in a daze with little sleep in a tinterweb cafe. To bright and need sleep. What the hell are you ment to do at 4 in the morning? NO ANSWERS PLEASE!
Was going to charge my mp3 player and add photos but the muppets are using windows 7 and it keeps crashing and wont register anything. So I'll give you a nicked photo of the marine park- toodle pip peeps

Ok lets SLATE SAMUI

So we have been travelling around thailand for about 3 weeks now and have spent lots of timne travelling, be it bus, train and planes. We decided to go to Ko Samui for a couple of days before leaving. Samui being the second biggest island, renound for its diving and clear water. Just consider that we have been to Koh Samet at the beginnging of this trip and apart from the lack of snorkling it was a near paradise beach.
So after 17 hours on a bus and a boat (it only cost 7 pounds each to get there) we get to Samui and find decent accomadation for only bout 13 pounds a night including a really good swimming pool, things sesm to be going well.

Righ,(take a deep breath)if I wanted to go to a cheap holiday resort I could have gone to spain. It is no different to anywhere else in the world, and it is really pricy.
There are fish in the sea around samui but you have to go to a national marine park to actually see some good ones (im going tomorrow and I actually think that it will be really good!!!).
Food is extortionate and there is little chance of actually gettign thai food- try burgers and pizza.

So apart from tommorrow when we go diving in the national park and kayaking which WILL be good, LET ME BACK TO BANGKOK where it is fun, not to touristy and there is good food!!

P.S - If any of you out there fancy thailand I suggest Bangkok, Sukhothai and Koh Samet.

BYE

photoies

On to Chiang Mai

So we've visited the ruins of Sukhothai which were pretty impressive- huge historical sight, miles of it and with thousands of huge dragon flys. Then we moved on to Chiang Mai- the 'capital of the north' which is ment to be like Bangkok but isn't.
Found a couple of really good markets, local and touristy, lots of slabs of meat on the streets and fish in baskets. The only problem we have found here so far is that the people- tuk tuk drivers- are a lot pushier and annoying.
Train drive was good, we actually found some hills. Most of Thailand from Bangkok is flat and covered in paddy fields- take away the huts and bananna trees and it looks a lot like home. However from phitsanulok up there have been hills, yes HILLS and jungley looking places and the train had to inch slowly through them. We were on the express train (7 and a half hours of inching) - god knows how slow the normal one goes.
There is NO evil monkeys up here, no throwing of poo...
We have found lots of tiny lizzards like you get in your back garden but then today we saw a gecko a good size one.
Going to go on an elephant ride soon- theres tigers too but the reviews online said they're not treated well so not off there.
Bye

Oh - not looked for marmite yet Phil, have found all the massive food chains that you can imagine- it's not backwards Sam.

Beware of monkeys throwing poo!!!

So we have just spent a few days chilling on the island of Koh Samet- very nice, clean, warm water and the whitest sand I've ever seen. It was wonderful weather- only one thunderstorm and a good old down pour. Got there on the saturday night and got conned on the price of a room- it was shit there, there's no other way of putting it. It rained and we got rained on; yes inside. Anyway moved on to a nicer place and stayed a couple of nights. The sea food there was excellent.

After that little stop off we headed back to smelly ol Bankok for a night and stayed in the travellers paradise!??? of the Khao San Rd.

Now to the monkeys. Were currently in a place north of Bangkok called Lopburi, an ancient capitalw with lots of Khemr ruins- there is quite a lot to look round when its not too hot. The monkeys live around one temple and the start wandering in the evening. One jumped Ben cus he had a cake and didn't run away- no cake for ben!

Then whilst walking down the street one of the buggers threw poo at me, missed though.

Today we're heading up to Phitsanulok another ancient capital and a historical park near by. Trying to slowly make our way north to Chiang Mai, trying being the word- tried to get a train at 8 this morning and their all booked having to wait till 12... Booo.

Bangkok

Hot, smell, mad, busy, chaotic, dirty, wet, humid, awful- hot, impressive, great, interesting, huge.
So I'm not sure hwether I love it or hate it at the minute. It is like any huge city on the surface. There are the usual designer shopping centres, the inbetween ones with NEXT and the body shop and then there is the MBK centre which is huge with about 7 floors but which is set out like market stalls. Bangkok is mostly high rise but is sprinkled with Wats which are extreamly decorative temples whcih are amazing. The road we initially stayed on was a typical main road but with a sky train running through which hid the sunlight and held in the pollution it makes the whole area seem dirty and dodgy. We stayed just of the Sukhumvit road area which is near the sex tourist bit. It's like amsterdam but more open an ellicit.
The food in Bankok is excellent, we have been eating from street vendors which are extreamly cheap and tasty- lots of noodles and rice. They seem to have a local obsession with condensed milk though.
We have walked quite a distance in BK but it gets really hot and sticky. Have taken a tuk tuk a few times which is like risking your life for no reason and taxi's which are really cheap.
What has made me laugh is the lack of variety in shops- like I said earlier there is next and body shop and I can put up with these but then I saw a HUGE - bigger than the one a home- HUGE TESCO's .,..........Bye