Eight more pictures (starting with this one also shown below) can be found in the Thailand Pt.3 album including a photo of our bungalow on Koh Phangan.

Last Tuesday was the night of the Full Moon Party here in Haad Rin. We wandered along late at night to see what this world-famous event was like. I must admit that we both feared it was going to be lots of really dodgy trance music, but we were pleasantly surprised.

People had been arriving on the island in droves for the past couple of days, and more arrived by speedboat from Samui on the night of the party.

The whole of Sunrise beach was packed with thousands of people; many dancing, some just walking about or sitting on the sand talking and taking in the atmosphere. The scene was lit by lights from the bars and the bright light of the full moon.

A number of the bars and bungalow operations were providing the music which varied from the trance we expected through to hip-hop, drum’n’bass and even some rock. Everyone seemed really relaxed and happy and we didn’t see any of the drunken aggression usually associated with large events.

We sat on the beach for a while watching people having fun and did a tour of the beach to check out the music. As we were both knackered we didn’t go dancing but both agreed that if we make it back to KPN at some point we’d like to make more of the party.

The reason that we were so tired was that we’ve been going to the gym; the Jungle Gym to be precise. We started on the 18th and have been everyday apart from two (the first Sunday because we could hardly move for aching muscles, and the day after the Full Moon Party when the gym is closed).

The first session we had instruction from Mel, one of the gym staff, and the shock of doing exercise made me sick. Been fine since then though, and we’re both getting fitter. The gym doesn’t have that horrible competitiveness that you find in a lot of gyms at home; it’s much more friendly and relaxed with a variety of cats and dogs wandering about the equipment. They do Muay Thai (Thai boxing) training there too but we’re happy to watch that rather than participating.

Last Friday, after an early gym session we caught the boat over to Samui for the day. We had some shopping to do and fancied a day away from Koh Phangan. Vic bought herself a French course. We restocked on magazines (found the June edition of MacWorld and spent so much money in Boots that they gave us a free T-shirt!

We had to get the boat back at 6:30 and by then the sky was looking rather ominous with big black clouds heading our way. The boat wasn’t the usual Haad Rin Queen, but another one with, thankfully, a larger covered seating area. Not many people of the boat as we set off with the wind picking up. As we left the cover of Big Buddha beach the boat started to pitch and roll. This became more violent as the journey progressed and several people went outside to be sick. Watching the horizon through the doorway, there were a few times when the boat pitched so alarmingly that the sky disappeared altogether. Vic and I hung on grimly and were very relieved when we reached the safety of Haad Rin pier.

Apart from that it’s the endless tedium of “Get Up, Have Breakfast, Lounge About, Have Swim, Have Snack, Go To Gym, Have Dinner, More Lounging, Go To Bed”. Still, it’s life of a kind :)

I’m testing out WordPress to run my blog and haven’t had time to fix the mess that IE makes of the page formats.

They display fine if you’re using Safari or Firefox.

Managed to import all my old blog postings though…

Still a few bits that don’t work (like comments!), but I’ll work on those.

(The comment page asks you for a code from the image, but there isn’t a code… yet).

Well, we thought we’d be able to find somewhere sensible to stay in Chaweng on Samui, but after a couple of days we decided that we weren’t keen that keen on the town so went to Koh Phangan for a look round.

We found the very nice Sarikantang which has a swimming pool, decent restaurant and did a discount as we’re staying for quite a while.

Uploaded the pictures from Penang and Langkawi in Malaysia , and some from Koh Phangan
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We’re now in Langkawi, having spent a week on Penang.

In Penang we stayed in Georgetown for a few days at the Hotel Malaysia, which was okay, the air-con was on full blast all the time and the hotel seemed to have a mosquito problem, but it was well positioned for the town. Did a bit of software and DVD shopping in the Prangin Mall by the Komtar tower (the 4th floor can provide most recent films on DVD for RM8, just over a quid).

We also visited Fort Cornwallis and a few other local sights as well as enjoying some local food in the many restaurants nearthe hotel.

We spent a few days at Ali’s Guesthouse on Batu Ferringhi. Not very impressed with Batu F., full of high-rise hotels, thin strip of beach, poor shopping etc. Stayed at the Hotel Continental (next door to the Malaysia) on the way back to Georgetown before heading for Langkawi.

We came to Langkawi by ferry (2.5 hours, RM40 each) last Thursday and we’re staying at Melati Tenjung, in a simple hut with air-con (RM75/night).

We’ve been up to Kuah, the main town on the island, and yesterday visited the cable car (RM15 each) and Underwater World (RM38 each) (pictures to follow).

I’ve been trying to keep up with things in the tech world. Apple have announced they’re switching to Intel CPUs over the next two years. A bit annoying given that I just bought a new Powerbook, but I suspect they’ll be supporting the old CPUs for a while yet. What did surprise me a little was how ready they are for the switch, having already released developer tools which produce dual binaries, PowerPC-emulation software for Intel, and OS X 10.4.1 and iApps ready to run.

Some people probably hoped they’d be able to run OS X on their own PC hardware but Apple seem to think that won’t be happening:-

‘However, [Apple Senior Vice President Phil] Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers’ hardware. “We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac.” ‘

I’d guess that means that the new Intel-based Macs will be OpenBoot firmware rather than PC BIOS. Maybe Microsoft will develope Windows for Intel Mac? Not likely though… they didn’t sustain Windows for non-Intel architecture CPUs for very long.

New Xcode to download to develop software for the Mac… 760MB. In an internet cafe… oh joy!

Tomorrow we’re getting a ferry and bus (and another ferry) and going back to Samui where we’re thinking of holing up for a month. Tickets already booked for flights from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching in Sarawak (Borneo), and KL to Bali.

After spending a nice day cycling round the ruins at Sukhothai we flew down to Bangkok on Monday 9th May.

We stayed at the rather good Samran Place hotel for $21/night (booked through asiarooms.com The hotel is close to a Skytrain station and only a few minutes from the central Siam Square shopping area in Bangkok.

We spent the next few days indulging in a bit of city-shopping, including me purchasing a new Apple Powerbook G4 12 inch I also went down to Panthip Plaza, an IT shopping mall where virtually any software or DVD can be had for very low price. We also found that genuine non-copied DVDs are available for under 200 Baht (70 Bant to the pound) so picked up Farenheit 9/11, Monster, Eternal Sunshine… and Elf (less than 10 quid for the lot!).

After almost two weeks in the city we headed off by bus to Kanchanaburi, to visit the famous River Kwai bridge and the Death Railway.

The hotel we stayed in at Kanchanaburi was supposed to be the best in the actual town, but wasn’t too hot. The breakfast area was crawling with tiny ants, food from room service (a treat!) turned up cold and the hotel was miles from any of the attractions or even decent alternative restaurants. In hindsight we would have been better off staying at one of the backpacker guesthouses closer to the river.

The first day we were there it rained pretty much non-stop, but on Saturday it had cleared up and we visited the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre which had a very interesting and moving display exhibition telling the story of the construction of the Death Railway. More than 16,000 prisoners of war, and in excess of 100,000 Burmese and Malay workers died during the construction of the railway, 38 PoWs for every kilometer of track.

The centre overlooks one of the main war cemeteries in the area, where more than 6,000 PoWs are buried.

After that, we went down to the River Kwai to see the famous bridge. The bridge doesn’t look very impressive but imagining the heat and terrible conditions that the construction workers suffered does give you an impression of what an achievement the bridge and Death Railway were. The bridge and Kanchanaburi generally have become a tourist attraction and the river hosts several loud disco boats which ferry Thais up and down the river under the bridge. What ex-PoW survivors or their relatives make of this I wouldn’t like to think.

On the Sunday we took a train along the railway to Nam Tok. The trip was a bit of a tourist rip-off, with a tour company owning 3 carriages on the train and charging 300 Baht each way for a seat with a thin pad cushion and some “snacks” compared to the standard seat fare of 100 Baht. The non-tourist trains cost only 25 Baht by comparison.

On Monday 23rd May we caught the bus back to Bangkok, and that’s where we are as I write this. We fly to Penang on Thursday evening with Air Asia

The latest photos from Sukhothai, Bangkok and Kanchanaburi have been uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

After a week in Luang Prabang, including a trip to a waterfall and a river trip down the Mekong to the Pak Ou caves, we were scheduled to fly out at 11:10am on Friday.

Arriving at the airport in plenty of time, we found that the flight was delayed and was now scheduled to leave at 6:10pm, so we had seven hours to kill. Only problem was we had spent down to our last dollar and had no money left on us. We went to L’Elephant for lunch as they took credit cards. Great food too. We then went back to Ban Pack Luck, the guesthouse we had moved to on the Monday and they were kind enough to allow us to use our room for the afternoon.

At 4pm we caught the very crowded minivan back to the airport and waited for the plane. It finally landed at Luang Prabang at 6:30pm, and took off with us on board 20 minutes later.

In Chiang Mai, we stayed at the Chiang Mai Gate Hotel, which was very good value ($18/night for aircon, TV, pool etc inc breakfast). We spent a lot of time there looking round shops and the night market, and did a bit of Wat-spotting (temple visiting).

Chiang Mai was really nice, quite busy but not as mad a Bangkok and there were some great shops and market stalls. As in Luang Prabang, the food was pretty good, even at Fatty’s, the market stallwhere we ate on the Sunday night.

We’re now in Sukhothai, further south, having flown in yesterday from Chiang Mai. Only 3 people got off the plane at Sukhothai and we were two of them.

We had a quick look round some of the Old City today and will venture back there again tomorrow, possibly with bicycles to get a better look. It’s very quiet at the Old City, hardly anyone about at all, completely different to Angkor.

I’ve uploaded the best of our pictures to date of Cambodia and Laos

Here’s one I took earlier today at the caves of Pak Ou.

Luang Prabang – it always makes me want to say, “Size of an elephant!” (from the Arabian Knights cartoon shown as part of the Banana Splits Show).

We’re in Laos now, and it’s great!

Last few days at Siem Reap:
We bought a book about the Khmer Rouge from Top Vanna and had a nice meal at The Red Piano
On Friday we visited the Cambodia Landmine Museum which was a suitably moving and interesting experience. They have a huge collection of old de-activated mines and explanations of how they worked and the work involved in clearing them. They also have a mock-up of a minefield demonstrating how the mines were deployed. Several children who have been injured by mines live atthe museum where they are taught English by volunteers and go to the local school. The Museum has planning permission for a new site closer to the airport which will make it more accessible. It’s currently at the end of a very rough, rutted road. They’ve also just opened a gallery in the centre of Siem Reap by the Old Market which will continue the work started at the museum.

At lunchtime we went to one of the Artisans d’Angkor sites (website not working at time of writing). After a tour round the workshops where they carve wood, and stone and laquer various carvings, we entered the treasure room that is their shop. Filled with absolutely beautiful objects, and at prices much lower than we had expected. We were severely tempted, and gave in to some temptations, purchasing some stone sculptures and silverwork which we then had to find room for in our baggage.

Another evening meal at The Red Piano (we ate at the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant on our first night in Siem Reap, very good Indian food), and a couple of Tiger Beers. The local Cambodian beer is Angkor Beer, brewed at Shinoukville, and that isn’t bad either.

Saturday saw us getting an early start to get to the airport. Flight to Bangkok, dash around getting some more cash in the departure area there, andthen a flight on to Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is really nice. Quiet, gentle and beautiful. The streets are a mixture of old French colonial buildings and Buddhist temples, with few of the ugly modern building that you encounter in many places in South East Asia.

There are loads of places to get excellent food (the French influence) and there’s a great night market with loads of local crafts for sale.

We’re staying at Bounthieng Guesthouse, by the side of the Mekong River. Nice location but the rooms are looking a bit “tired” and could do with a lick of paint and a good scrub. Very friendly place though.\

My MP3 player is now considered an antique and possibly collectable!