Bandara Resort Surat Thani

... this retreat taught me to be more dilligent with it; i am determined to continue the practice as much as possible now. One of my favorite parts of the retreat was the chanting. Teachings of the Buddha are chanted in Pali language (the language that Buddha spoke). The messages are so beautiful and the sound of them being chanted is very powerful. <br><br>The natural setting of the retreat is a perfect setting for meditation. No vehicles ripping by, no city lights, no internet, no phones ...

... back and forth in<br>perfect formation along rocks and branches. Dean decided to remove<br>the very sweaty T-shirt, boots and....strange large brown wormy thing<br>attached to the outside of his walking socks, inside his boot. As<br>soon as he pulled it, he realised it had it's teeth sunk into his<br>ankle, damn leech! As soon as it came off, the ankle just kept<br>bleeding and bleeding. Dave had one the other day after our other<br>jungle walk, so Dean knew it would be ...

... chiens qui trainent de partout, le traffic, la pollution, les bruits, les odeurs, les enfants en bas age qui s'endorment n'importe ou dans la rue, etc. Il est vrai qu'aucune ville en Europe n'est comparable à Bangkok. En fin d'après-midi, nous partons en direction de la gare, nous prendrons le train toute la nuit en direction de Surat Thani, puis nous embarquerons dans un bateau qui nous déposera sur l'ile de Ko Samui. Le traffic en plein coeur de ...

... trip out to the vast man-made lake at Cheow Lan to stay on a floating rafthouse surrounded by rainforest, with gibbons, hornbill, lemurs and long-tailed macaques calling from the trees, and giant toad, fireflies, ground squirrel, chameleon etc. rooting around. To be able to wake up in the morning and just go for a swim in the lake or kayak round the shoreline ...

... all this, I had finally arrived in Bangkok with most of what I had started with and in one piece. By writing this, I don't mean to make Thailand sound bad in any way. Aside from this trip, my experience here has been amazing and I'm really disappointed I only have a few more days to enjoy the food, the land, and the people. Next time I am here, I will just take more seriously the advice to avoid the overnight buses, and everything should be fine.

... several buckets of Vodka and Red Bull and headed down to Soi Green Mango which is a street full of busy bars with a huge outdoor nightclub club at the end. It was fab and the night was topped off as we headed back to try and hail a cab at about 2am and we saw a guy sat outside a 7/11 store surrounded by tourists and with a novel twist to traditional begging. For some unknown reason he had covered himself in Talcum Powder, was wearing a ...

... icily, elicits her favorite line of the trip" " I am hanging on by a thread so don't f*ck with me. In fact, you may want to get out of the bathroom all together because there's going to be a lot of water and a lot of screaming." Then Steve puts to shower nozzle to his shoulder and grimaces. Julie is in uncontrollable hysterics laughing and finally Steve manages to laugh. It's been a long day and we're off to bed.

... this particularly well by spotting a python sleeping, coiled up in the branches of a tree around 8m up, which was pretty cool, until he decides we need a closer look... So he shakes the tree until this snake falls off into the river, then dives in and chases after it, catches it by the tail and brings it back to show us! It wasn't huge, a bit over 1m, but big enough. He managed to get hold off its head by pining it down with the blade of his machete and ...

... aftern ot being able to change clothes or shower for 2 days and 3 hrs before the boat departed for the island. At 8am we boarded a cramped boat with 100s of other travellers, after 4hrs on the boat we eventually arrived at the island of Koh Samui, an idealic island with lush blue seas and golden sands. Anyway we better go, we are off to the 'Green Mango' a travllers pub for a few beers, take it easy everyone (Charlie)

... to pass so they could cross. At a level crossing, hoards of motorcyclists swarmed around the boom gates which began to raise while the train was still crossing. The train made many mysterious stops - sometimes for quite long periods of time. Never was a train station called out upon approaching which made me worried that we would miss our stop at Surat Thani which was supposed to be at 5:19am. At 7pm the attendant came around to make the beds ready. As we were at the ...