Thailand

It was quite a quick flight to Bangkok from Darwin, about 6.5 hours not including stop-over time in Singapore. Despite being on 3 separate planes and us coming from the opposite side of the world, Mum & Dad, Dean & Kam and Steve & I all managed to land within an hour of each other so we met up at Bangkok airport! It felt like ages since we’d seen them and it was great to all be together again.

Dean booked an amazing apartment in Bangkok, with a spa on the top floor and an infinity pool on the roof!

The views of Bangkok were fabulous...

They had some gorgeous Christmas decorations up in the city, this is Siam Square...

There were a couple of really nice parks in the city. This massive lizard thing came walking out of one of the lakes and scared the life out of us! They’re obviously common because we saw more of them as we walked around and the locals weren’t taking any notice of them!

Another park had hundreds of turtles swimming around in the lake...

You know you’re in Bangkok when...

...the traffic is like this all the time

... someone balances a step-ladder on a car roof to fix a traffic light

... and the men are prettier than you are!

This was the Calypso Cabaret Show which we originally had front row tickets for, but then thought better of it in case there was any unexpected audience participation. They gave us a box instead!

The show was excellent, really funny (especially when the people in the front row got some attention - phew!) and very well done. We thought this girl was the star of the show!...

After a few nights in Bangkok we flew south to Krabi and stayed at the beach area, Ao Nang...

View from hotel balcony...

Thai good luck balloon which we released into the sky...

We hired a longtail boat for the day and got to see some gorgeous islands...

I think these monkeys thought we were going to feed them!...

The snorkelling was great but some of the fish came right up to the surface anyway!...

There are two islands that are joined by a sandbank under the sea, so you can walk from one to the other (you can see Kam & Dean walking across in the distance of this photo)...

We decided to stay on-land the next day and went on a tour around Krabi. We did a bumpy elephant trek together through a rubber plantation, it was fantastic!

We bought and fed them bananas afterwards and they were a bit cheeky...

Next we went to the Monkey Temple...

We stopped at Emerald Pool on the way back for a much needed cool off...

Also from Krabi, we went on a speed-boat trip to Koh Phi Phi and the surrounding islands:

A warning for us all...

We got an incredibly slow minibus to Koh Lanta because the driver kept getting lost! It was a nightmare of a journey but it was all worth it when we found an amazing place to stay in. They were brand new (we were the first people to ever use them) bungalows surrounding a swimming pool, and we had the whole place completely to ourselves....luxury!

Chilling out in a local beach bar...

One night we caught a songthaew to the other end of the town and had dinner on the beach...

We (the 'kids') booked a cookery course as a surprise anniversary present for mum and dad and it was fantastic!...

Steve showing off his cheffy skills...

Someone, not me I'm sure, decided that it would be fun to get an overnight train back up to Bangkok. We booked a 1st class cabin and had visions of the Orient Express, unfortunately that's not quite what we got!...

The photos don't really show how grim it was! We did still manage to have a laugh though, especially when Steve and Dad jumped off at a stop to get some booze and we thought the train was going to pull away without them. We were all shouting out of the windows telling them to hurry up as they came running back with the goodies!!

Dean found us a lovely hotel to stay in when we got back to Bangkok, this was the gorgeous swimming pool and restaurant area...

We discovered that we could catch a locals' commuter boat from the city centre to our hotel. The water really splashes up at the sides so everyone get drenched if they don't pull the side up quickly enough! Also, they pull the roof down to go under low bridges so you have to remember to duck if you're standing up! We thought it was loads of fun but the locals were giving us strange looks for taking photos!

Dean discovered this really strange Fish Foot Spa in the middle of a shopping centre, Dad was the only one brave enough to try it!...

This 'wai' is the lovely greeting that the Thais use. It's very common but we were quite surprised to see Ronald McDonald doing it!...

While we were away Dean proposed to his gorgeous girlfriend Kam and we all met up to celebrate afterwards...

It was an amazing holiday but it seemed like no time at all before we had to say goodbye again, it never seems to get easier...although the beers did seem to help!

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