Banburee Resort and Spa Surat Thani

... immigration official who actually threw my passport back at me. Incidentally, Thailand seems to be a bit retarded with their entry system. It's all very confusing to begin with, and I'd read all sorts of conflicting information in various places, but this fact holds true: arrive by plane and you get a 30-day stay ("visa exemption") without needing to pay for a visa; come in by land, however, and you only get 15 days. This makes no sense, and is really rather silly ...

... waters. Michelle hopped into a kayak and had a paddle around - the pictures can't start to explain how amazing this place is.<br><br>Now, along with the benefits of being in the middle of nowhere in your own little paradise comes a few downsides - <br><br>1. Electricity....none of it, just a small generator to power a few lights<br>2. Running water....OK, we are floating on a huge lake, just jump in to freshen up....but toilet? Ah yes, those huts at the end of the pier on the land ...

... Gérard) et à profiter du soleil. Il y avait plein d'activités possibles (canoe-kayak, leçons de cuisines, excursions) mais on a décidé de se la couler douce pour quelques jours, après tout les vacances c'est fait pour ça aussi! Un matin alors qu'on se brossait les dents sur la terrace, on a vu une bonne dizaines de singes se courir après sur notre terrace. Ce n'est pas quelque chose que l'on voit tous les jours... Apparement dans les ...

... staff and even then only at arranged times during lunch while sleeping on a concrete slab with a block of wood for a pillow. Living for 10 days under these austere conditions gives a unique perspective to life and a deep introspective into oneself, while I was able to deal quite easily with difficult sleeping and early rises, living without talking of any kind apart from chanting in the Pali language is a titanically difficult thing to do.

If you are thinking of getting of one those all inclusive tickets (bus-ferry) from Phuket to Ko Samui and you have a little bit of extra cash - fly. You have been warned!!! So you want to know what happened??? OK. To start with the 'nice guy' who sold us the ticket convinced us to pay 300 baht extra as our hotel was out of town. Sure, we can understand that. But when the van arrives and then heads off north (one road in ...

... generous portions of some dark red juice? all over the place in his wake, not on our feet but nearly so. The station police soon clustered around the largest splotch of this stuff. We looked closer, it was definitely blood. He must've tried robbing someone who was armed with a knife or something, oops. The station's old lady janitor approached and mopped up the blood with a simple mop. No soap. No water. Only in Thailand... This event ...

... very interesting! Meditation training not as specific as Goenka style vipassana retreats - encouraged more to experiment for yourself and the pace is a lot more relaxed. Ended up slipping into vipassana meditation by the end to get into deeper states. Buddhist teaching was wonderfully presented though and had many insights merely from accepting and applying this. Never realised monks were so crazy! British monk (Tan Dhammavidu) with very dry but ...

... et incoherentes, generalement sans raison (notre hotel nous convaincra d'eviter une grotte, jugee trop dangereuse, mais convaincra 2 autres personnes qu'il s'agit de l'endroit le plus interessant du parc). Le plus impressionnant reste de tres loin le lac, qui regroupe les paysages les plus beaux de notre voyage jusque la. 2 jours a Chieow Laan Lake On accede au lac via travers notre guesthouse. Avec Mr B., un guide plutot rigolo, bien que ...

... the right one. Had we grouped up with other Israelis, we probably wouldn't have gotten any of the experiences we did get, experiences that taught us about how Thailand really is, not how their tourist front looks. One thing worth mentioning about the tour was that we did get to a wonderful view point (and this wasn't on the map, it was something we just happened to see). [picture] [picture]