It’s that time of year again, when it gets cold and grim in London, tone to get outta here, off to some serious heat.

Thailand and Cambodia this time.

Arrived here in Bangkok, decent flight, apart from the guy next to me forgot that he’d set his phone alarm and then went straight to sleep, small pain on the ass but I just woke him up.. any ways, here we are, 13th floor of the chatrium riverside, nice hotel, good room with kitchen (?), a view and living room.. seen a lot of Bangkok before, so would think half sightseeing and half pool recovery.

Bit of a tricky nights sleep, jet lag obv, anyway lovely day for messing about on the water. Took the local river boat up stream for about 49 mins, wandering around the back packers district, actually ok, some ok looking cafès.

Who can resist a happy hour

Pre dinner beer on top of our hotel.

Jet lag has its benefits, saw the sunrise on my way to the gym.. ahh

Back on the boat, quick tour of downtown, hot & humid as usual

Spent the rest of the day enjoying the sun by the pool, quick happy hour cocktail before setting off for dinner

Moving day part 1, early start, out of the hotel by 7, still Had time for a tasty Asian breakfast though..we’re off to Cambodia today, Siem reap, to see the temples of Ankor

Where is everyone? Has to be the quietest airport on Asia, not complaining, obv.

Good hotel, boutique style. Decent sized room, has it’s own small garden and pool

About to hit the town, hotel drives you around in these things, called a Remorque, basically a carriage bolted onto a moped, sure it’s really safe, anyway, no one can go more than 25 miles per hour as the roads are manic, definitely no rules, but no one seems to get annoyed, just accepts it as the way it is.

So here we are in the massive Ankor temple complex , all 400 sq miles of it ! Where to start, looking on ypthe map all the temples look like they’re maybe a 10 walk from each other, but then they tell you it’s a 15 min moped ride between them. And there’s 46 of them, where do we start..thankfully for you I’m not gonna name them all, this is Ta Phrom, the one where the trees have taken over, amazing, these 200 year old trees living in the walls.

Tired after a long day temple-bashing.. confused as well, haven’t done much homework on where to go in the evening, hotel 10 mins from the centre but no money in a Tim tuk thing.. wandering around not hungry enough to make a choice, settled on a local restaurant, decent enough, seafood stir fry, garlic greens, and a few other dishes, beers again 40p each, cocktails just over £1, and very good, green peppercorn Martini, yumm.

Day of rest by the pool, not super hot with clear skies, overcast and about 28c.. poor us

Quick beer at our ‘local’, the brothers, never worked out if they were ever there or not, but anyway, Nice little bar, full of both locals and tourists, beers 40p, yes, 40p, and perfectly decent lager (Ankor Beer)in a well chilled glass, very nice.

Hired a tuktuk for the day, decided to go to the one furthest away, read ups sounded lovely, however, an hour and a bit to get there in the back of a tuktuk is hard to take, this first picture was early on !

Had to treat ourselves tonight after all that rain and dodgy travel, so went to a Michelin restaurant in town, 7 course (!) tasting menu.

Wow, WTF, music , well a local for, of what can loosely be classed as music, BLASTING out at 6o’c in the morning, nightmare. Thought was a passing thing, gave it some time, but no, the hotel tell us the neighbors have a wedding, nice I hear you say, \240oh no, Cambodian weddings go on for 2 or 3 days, and start at 5 or 6 in the morning, all day long, until 10 at night, all day long music blaring, to distortion levels...guess it’s an early trip to the temples..

Back in the Remouqe, sun promised all day !

Pizza night, bit knackered, so early pizza, tut shopping in the market and back to the room for a Netflix show

Ate in Pub st, yep, as nice as it sounds ! Actually not too bad, looks much worse with all the Benidorm neon signs, but it’s ok, not stupid shot bars everywhere.

Earplugs worked, horray.. full 8 hours rest, ready for some sun, finished with the temples.

Weather hasn’t let us down. Best day so far, it’s Hot hot hot.. full day by the pool, earplugs by our side..

zero pics though, forgot, soz.

After a relaxing day round the pool, time for some food.

Local restaurant, always busy when we’ve past it, BBQ, do it yourself style, not he place you get dressed up for, smokey, loud, hot.. and good food.

Last night in siem reap, had to have one more in our local, the brothers..

Singapore slinging

So what did we think of Siem Reap, temples were as good as hoped for, not a lot else around really, could have gone to a floating market which probably decent. Cheapest country we’ve been to, unbelievably so at times. It’s trying to shake off its backpacker image, has a few big international hotels, that will upgrade it, overall liked it, as long as you remember it’s still a developing country still.

Pain in the neck moving day, 4oc in the afternoon flight back to Bangkok, fly into one airport but fly out of the other at 9oc in the morning! Booked into a hotel near the take off airport , all nice modern and clean, forgot that a hotel near an airport will probably have a lot of noise from the aircraft, however not really a problem, don’t what the whining is all about from those that live under the Heathrow flightpath ! Err.

Bar the rooftop of the hotel, not 40p a beer though.

Longish trip today, from BKK airport to Koh Samui, then by boat to Koh Phangan to hopefully be picked up by the yoga resort.. feel ready for some exercise, been 8 days or so of walking and stuff, bit of sweat will do us some good. The resort of vegetarian and booze free, sure we can find some normal outside! If we’re allowed, ha.

Ferry your typical catamaran fast boat type, stuffy, smells of fuel.. mixed bunch of passengers, plenty of European backpacks, a hoard of older/ruder Chinese and what looks like later life 5 star travelers..

Yoga place, Wonderland healing centre !, ok, hard to judge fairly as is chucking it down..

Had an hour and a half Yin yoga session, good way to start, holding the poses for longer, not one of those fitness sessions, those are to come. The dude taking the class was playing some small steel drum type instrument, looked like it was gonna be proper naff, but was good.. I’m getting too into this..

Outside our crib, we’re in the penthouse, well, 1st floor, they’re ok, urban industrial chic crossed with traditional Thai wood..

8oc start for and 1 1/2 hour hatha session, quite sedate, not bad buffet breakfast, all vegan of course, did make Marion’s coffee taste a bit odd, need to find the right ‘milk’. Then my 1st ever Pilates class, I like, good exercise.. Hired a moped to Mrs M’s delight, hehe.. didn’t have long to look about, but struggled to find the beaches ¿ more the access to the beaches, sure we’ll work it out, anyway found one, not ‘the’ one, but a start.. back here for an inversion yoga class, basically, upside down, was ok, teacher a bit of a jerk.

2 more hour and a half yoga sessions this morning, suns out, time to hit the beach, went North to Malibu Beach, 15 mins on the ped

Flipped beaches later on, sun going behind us, moved access the bay to haad khom beach, stunning again, not many people, had cottages on the beach which looked basic but very nice way to spend a week or so..

Finally worked out how to slip the guards of the wonderland healing center.. snuck out under cover of darkness, managed to find a cab and we hat the town, dropped off at a shitty tourist market but found a decent bar to have a cold one or two..we’ve moved on to Leo beer, same as all the other Asian beers, lovely when ice cold..

Rocker chick.

Hey.. early yoga session, in a outdoor shala, decent workout but marred by a few bits, not sure is ant or flying thing.

Left Marion to go to the second session on her own, I got a bike and went for an few hill climbs for an hour or so.

Day out today, starting at the Khao waterfalls, quietly impressive, didn’t expect much at all but should have guessed judging by the size of the mountain we had to climb, we probably got half way up but had more than enough exercise already today.

New beach for us on the south coast, got a bit lost, island a lot bigger than I’d thought beforehand.. used a nice resort’s facilities, sun beds on the beach, it’s getting very hot now, especially in the afternoons, no wind, probably mid 35 c, don’t feel to bad for us though, we’re coping.

2 yoga sessions first thing, quick dash to the beach, want to get back for the 4.30 sesh, making it 4 and a half hours today..

Our schedule for the next few days.. repeat after me, OMmmmmm, OMmmmmm.

Can’t wait for rebirthing on Tuesday night..

A few pics of the place

Wow wow wow.. bestest beach so far.. Koh-ma beach, north west tip of Koh Phangan island, horseshoe bay with a sand bar splitting the sea leading to a jungle covered island..

Hehehehehe

Moving day again, cab driver tried to explain why the trip was the price it was, only a 10 mile journey but... up and down a few mountains, tricky roads, 40 mins late....

Here’s our room at the Santhiya hotel, well more little villa really, nice little pool as well..

Sunset happy hour, just up the beach from our hotel, great view, cold Singa’s, Bon.

Here’s our room, nice, not too far up the very steep hill, very jungle-y, a few mossies up here, but not too bad..

Out to the ‘town’ walk along the beach first..

We’re just over half the way through the holiday already, gone quickly but seen loads, and feeling good..

The breakfast restaurant has a great view

Nice touches

Another day another pool, this one up the hill, by the ‘cheap’ rooms...

Sunbathing day round the pool, grabbed a coconut for lunch at the next beach

Just one happy hour beer, it’s so nice, can hear the crashing waves, temp still nearly 30c, what’s not to like

Pool baby, sun baby, not a lot of pics though..

Pre dinner Cocktails

Morning by the pool, but booked a boat for this afternoon, to take us to a nearby beach for some snorkelling and swim the sea.. took us hear, Haad Khoi beach, it’s a \240beauty...

Moving day.. what a shame, had a fantastic time here in Ko Pha-ngan, beautiful island, had excellent weather as well, couldn’t recommend it enough, go North though, south too touristy.. as mentioned before, would happily stay in some of the beach huts, the new ones are modern and very nice.

Chose to get the hotel speedboat direct to our koh samui hotel, much more civilised.

It’s stopped p’ing down..so let’s go explore, we’re off to fisherman’s Village, rest, cool shops, a few bars, 15 min walk away..

Hotel front

Grr. More rain today.. cleared up a bit by lunchtime, went for a wander, nothing interesting to report.. coffee in a nice cafe next to a broken pier, like Brighton but on a smaller scale.

Let’s explore, hired a car from a lovely thai lady in the local shop, let’s see some of the island

First things first, Marion’s not wearing the same dress 2 days in a row, I needed a pic of the car for the last blog posting, so used on from today, honest.

More looking around, went to big Buddha, it’s not that big. But a few nice views..

Cool coffee bar on the way home, had these trampoline type beds supported over the beach, lovely views

Last night in Samui, and it’s the big food market night near our hotel.. live music, lots of food stalls..

Made it to the airport, off to ChiangMai in northern Thailand..

Arriving somewhere hungover is not good for for judgment.. wanted to check straight out of the hotel, a lot further from the town centre than I had thought, felt angry with my choice, actually, writing this a day later, it’s actually ok, bed good, breakfast nice, easy to in and out of town using Grab (Asian Uber) for a couple of quid..

Saturday night market tonight, it’s massive, goes on forever, Chiangmai doesn’t feel like the rest of Thailand, more laid back, the stuff on sale is hand crafted, not the tourist crap you usually get... I like..

Temple bashing.. temperature here deceptive, dryer but still hot, easy to underestimate the strength of the sun. Thought we’d do some Wat viewing (temple): this one’s Pan Aon, love a bit of gold does this one.

Lots of photos today. Thailand has lots of elephant parks, most you ride them and they’re not brilliantly looked after, this place rescues some of those elephants, also ones from circuses and logging companies (now banned in Thailand but still used in Burma). They currently have 8 , we walked with 6.. amazing how free it was, just following them, patting the, and seeing what they do in a natural environment.

Rested after the elephants, off to a trendy part of Chiang mai, an area called Nimman, let’s see.

Quick pic at our hotel

Quiete day, spent the morning enjoying the blue skies, gonna \240soon be finished for us.

Then a bit more, gentle, temple bashing, started back at the silver one.

Not long left now, so a day in the sun before finding a posh restaurant for an early dinner.

Hired a little car to bum around, went up to Doi Suthep temple, up in the hills.. very nice.

Beautiful day again.

Followed up by a trip to the local fresh food market, the place where the restaurants and food stalls get this produce, reassuringly good, amazing variety of fresh fruit and veg.

Lemon grass, turmeric, galangal...

Happy new year everyone xx

Last night in Chiang mai, so stayed around the pool during the day then into the old town for dinner.. went local, nice, if touristy, Thai restaurant, with good local dishes, in a old Thai style building.. which chillis would you like ? Top are spicy and in a type of vinegar.. next are fire hot in Thai fish sauce, and bottom your run of the mill chilli flakes..I’ll take all 3 please

Moving day, overnight train from Chiang mai to Bangkok, 13 hours..

Shame, the air conditioning on the train was soo cold, kept waking up during the night, otherwise would highly recommend it, good adventure.

Arrived at 7oc in the morning in Bangkok, staying at the banyan tree, tried to check in very early, and they were great, gave us a room straight away, but was a smoking rooom, so asked them to change, didn’t have a like for like room , so upgraded to a suite, very posh..

Last day today, been a great time, flight’s not until midnight, so have some time to relax and get ready..

Mid morning walk through Lumphini park, bit of green in the middle of the madness of Bangkok. Obviously met a 5 foot lizard walking through the park... nice picture with our hotel in the background.