We're now in Chiang Mai enjoying the slightly cooler weather. We've been very cultured visiting lots of beautiful temples, including some Burmese style ones as this part of Thailand used to be part of Burma. Yesterday we went up a nearby mountain called Doi Suthep and visited a royal temple which had nice views of the city through the haze. We also looked round a Jade factory and learnt all about how Jade is mined and polished - and smuggled in from Myanmar!

We had another two days on Ko Samui before flying up to Chiang Mai. We went to see the temple of the Big Buddha which is something like 35ft tall and makes an impressive sight on the sky line from the nearby beach. We had fun practicing snorkelling at Chaweng beach on the Eastern side of the island, until we got out of the water and realised we'd been sunburnt through the clouds. We'll certainly be more careful next time as it caused a lot of pain and Chris was a big girl.

That's it for now. We're off on a trek into the mountains tomorrow which involves elephant trekking and bamboo rafting, so we'll write more after our adventure.

posted by Fiona at 2:50 PM

We're on the island Ko Samui in the Gulf of Thailand. We're saying in a bungalow right on the beach at Hat Mae Nam [N 9.56949deg, E 100.00602deg]. It's supposedly a quiet "romantic" beach on the north of the island. We've had two lovely days of sunshine, walking along the beach and swimming, but today it's raining very heavily so we're catching up with e-mail, etc.

We've had a small change of plan after talking to some fellow travellers. Instead of continuing south towards the border with Malaysia, we've decided to fly up to the north of Thailand, to Chiang Mai for some more culture. We've just booked our flights for Friday.

Perhaps we'll end up writing more soon if it keeps raining. :-)

posted by Chris Glencross at 9:03 AM

We're currently in Hua Hin, a seaside resort town about 4 hours drive south of Bangkok. The weather has been beautiful. We're staying in a guest house on a pier, with air conditioning, and the waves lapping beneath our room, all for 750B (12 pounds) per night. The beach is about one minute away, and we've been swimming in the sea today. Lovely. [If you come looking, it's N 12.57200deg E 99.96013].

Phetchburi was hot. The town itself had a number of temples, and a hill overlooking the town with a museum at the top -- and lots of monkeys. We walked up the hill early in the morning before it got too hot, carrying out breakfast with us. That's when we had our first Monkey Incident. The bag containing our croissants was snatched from Fi's hands, and disappeared into the trees. The second Monkey Incident involved some confusion about whether Fiona's leg was a tree.

We think we're going to stay here a couple more days before perhaps taking an overnight train further south and then a boat to Ko Samui. We'll see what happens.

posted by Chris Glencross at 12:14 PM

Just a quick update to say that we've arrived in Bangkok safely and are amazed by all the sights and smells. We've been sightseeing a couple of days, and are about to head south to Petchaburi and beyond to beaches. The temples have been amazing, the food delicious, but the weather very sticky.

posted by Chris Glencross at 3:26 AM

It's Friday evening and tomorrow we leave on our first flight to Bangkok via Singapore. We just about managed to get everything into our rucksacks and are excited/scared about setting off. We've been living in Bromley (location N 57.407deg E 0.037deg) for the past week as we rented our house out to tenants last weekend.

Our plans for Thailand are seeing the sights in Bangkok and visiting the ancient temple and palace at Ayuthaya, before slowly heading south towards the Malaysian border visiting various beaches on the way.

posted by Fiona at 8:01 PM

Yesterday was our last day at work. We both felt a little down in the evening -- the end of an era.

We did get some fantastic leaving presents though, including a handheld GPS which I used today. I managed to find my way back from the local shops barely getting lost -- quite an achievement.

Here are a handful of photos from our leaving drinks on Thursday night.

posted by Chris Glencross at 4:37 PM