The Border Crossing
From Siem Reap we caught a bus to the Thai border which seemed to take forever but it was generally straight forward enough and we crossed over into Thailand with no problems. It’s quite amazing to see the difference a few hundred metres makes in terms of road condition, for the previous 5 hours we had been thrown around all over the road but when we got over to the Thai side, an air-conditioned bus picked us up and we made it to Bangkok in 4 hours and didn’t go over one bump – much more comfortable!!!

Bangkok
We were determined to see something new in Bangkok as we had been there for a week only a year ago, we didn’t though! We did stay in a new area where all the travellers stay but apart from that we just went back to the places we enjoyed last time we were there, plus we did see most of what Bangkok had to offer last time.

Apart from shopping in various night markets and drinking in Patpong we made it back to two temples, Wat Pho and Wat Suthatthepwararam. Wat Pho has a huge reclining Buddha and Wat Suthatthepwararam has lots of gold Buddhas lined up next to each other, although we did go to both temples last year I wanted to get a few shots with my camera!

One new experience we had was watching ‘Ping Pong’, as there are small children reading this I won’t describe what it is, if you don’t know have a look on the internet or email us and we’ll give you a better description. All I can say is it was definitely an experience and some of it was truly impressive – we even got a souvenir of a bottle cap (gross…), obviously no photos!!!

Kanchanaburi
We went to Kanchanaburi to see the famous ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’ and to see some Thai countryside for a couple of days. We made it to the bridge and rode the tourist train across but there is no way of making it sound interesting as it wasn’t! We did find a small coffee shop that sold possibly the best iced hot chocolate ever created, although it might not have been that amazing but we’ve been away eight months now and that was the first chocolate drink we’ve had since we left the UK!

The best part of Kanchanaburi was going to Erawan National Park to swim in the waterfall pools. As it turned out the pools below the waterfalls were full of fish that liked to suck on your legs so we stuck to shallow pools as it was too freaky in the bigger ones. The waterfalls and pools were beautiful and we had a great day splashing around and watching crazy Thai people hurling themselves off the top of the falls.

Ayuthaya
The only reason to go to Ayuthaya is because it has lots of old temples to wander through, so that’s what we did! Other than the temples there really is nothing there, so we hired a tuk-tuk to take us around and off we went. The weather was absolutely fantastic and we had a day of blue skies, not bad considering it’s the rainy season. The temples were good but it’s quite hard to be truly amazed after seeing Angkor Wat, maybe we should have done Thailand first!

Sukhothai
As far as describing Sukhothai, just re-read the info for Ayuthaya and that pretty much does it! We went, we saw temples, and then we left!

Um Phang
Getting to Um Phang was more interesting than the place itself for us, we drove for about five hours in the back of a truck past some amazing scenery and although it was quite uncomfortable we had fun! As the truck got more and more full we had to stand on the back of it and hold on tight as the drop down over the cliffs was pretty steep, all good fun though!

We stayed in Um Phang for a couple of days and relaxed, took in the scenery (and sunsets) and washed clothes, and then made our way to Chiang Mai – again, the leaving part was quite interesting and Jon got to talk to a monk for a few hours!

Chiang Mai
Our time in Chiang Mai was mainly spent wandering around various Wats, on the first day we went to Wat Suan Dok and Wat Phra Singh which were both quite interesting and for once the good weather seemed to follow us around. We did head down to the Night Bazaar as it is meant to have some really good food but after a long walk we realised that we had gone to the wrong one, oops…

On our second day we went to a couple more Wats; Wat Phra That Doi Suthep and Wat U Mong. The drive out to the first place took us past some great scenery and the place itself was pretty amazing, everything was gold and again we had great weather so the pictures came out quite nice! Wat U Mong was on our way back into Chiang Mai, but unless you find Stupas really interesting it wasn’t the most exciting of places, plus there were loads of huge mosquitos which didn’t help!

As far as daytime activities that’s all we did in Chiang Mai, we did go out for one big night which was really good, Jon managed to get a 73 to win his game of darts which was pretty impressive, unfortunately the drinking increased and we could no longer play games, instead we drunk more and went to a strange Thai nightclub until the wee hours of the morning!

Pai
Our first day in Pai was quite a short one as we didn’t get off the hell bus (no room, people sat on people, heat, dirtiness and general bad standards all the way through – I even had to sit on the floor in between chairs at one point which as you can see from the horrendous picture of me, was not fun!) until about 5pm.

We then found a guesthouse (eventually) and went for ‘Thailands best pizza’, which it wasn’t in case you were wondering! After the pizza we went to a funky bar which played chilled out French drum & bass and we attempted not to fall asleep, which after 10 minutes we found almost impossible so went home to bed!

The next day we just wandered around the town and tried to buy what we need for Laos and then it was time to go back to the bar we were at the previous night, Ting Tong. After a few drinks there we headed off to possibly the strangest bar we have been in since leaving the UK, everyone was crazy, dancing around like there was no tomorrow to a pretty bad live band, hours passed, simple functions became almost impossible and we decided to get ourselves to bed!

The following day was our first day of doing anything of real interest, we had booked a pick-up truck to take us around some local villages and see the ‘Long Neck Tribes’, plus a few other things along the way. We arrived in the villages a little too early and so there was no-one around so we moved on to the next stop, Tham Lot Caves, passing a waterfall on the way. As it turned out two out of the three caves were off limits but the one we went into was amazing; you were taken into the cave on a raft and then guided around with an oil lamp through the various rooms, all of which were huge and filled with strange formations.

Then it was time to head to the Long Neck Village, basically a village where the women from an early age wear metal coils around their necks to compress their ribs, in turn making their necks longer, really quite bizarre. The village itself was more of a market than anything else but we still saw this strange practice as all the women behind the stalls had the coils on.

Another day passed in Pai and we did very little as the Thailand budget was rapidly running out, I did manage to get a Shan Burmese Massage though which was much needed and the guy who gave it to me was taught by Burmese Monks which I thought was a nice quirk! My back must have been bad as I have never heard it crack and crunch so much in all my life, all I’ll say is I wish I had filmed the whole experience to show you the positions he managed to bend me in!

Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Chiang Khong

Our time in Pai had finished and we headed back to Chiang Mai to pick up a few supplies before heading to one of our final destinations before Laos, Chiang Rai. As money was at an all time low we decided to use this to our benefit and simply slept all day in Chiang Rai, obviously we had needed it as we didn’t even stir until 5pm! We did go for a couple of drinks in a really funky bar which put on The Black Album by Metallica for us, only then to change disks half way through and put Avril Lavigne Live on – we left at that point!!

Chiang Khong was next on our list and this place served no other purpose than getting us across the Mekong into Laos.