Lake Inn Hotel Songkhla

... but it's not over yet, when we get to the guest house this lovely Dutch lady runs out, tells me she is closed but says she can recommended another hotel for me to stay in. She tells the tuk-tuk driver in Thai where to take me and waves goodbye! Then two minutes later we arrive at the Narai Hotel. The Thai lady who runs the hotel showed me to a table, said sit, then she ran off and came back with a fresh coconut, with the top cut off and a straw! She said "drink ...

... we got out and went through deportation. Then, the van drove a little further, and we took all our bags out and walked them passport control and customs. Then, we were back on the bus and on our way. Mini bus travel is pretty flexible here. Since it is smaller, the driver can basically take you where you want to go. One guy got off on the side of the road just past the border. Another girl got off at a shopping area. The rest, us included, traveled on to ...

... of two islands in the South China Sea. It had been recommended to us by one of our friends in NZ. Anyway we had to take a boat over which took about an hour and it was quite scary because of the choppy water. Still, we made it in one piece. After we got off we were at Coral Bay which is one of the beaches but we wanted to go to another so we had to do a 15 minute walk through the jungle with our packs on. Funnnnn. Okay it wasn't so bad. Anyway we got ...

... Tang Kuan Hill. This is where the monkeys are...but this time we made it in time to do the lift to the top. The 170km lift takes aproix. 3 minutes to get to the top. There is a 'Temple" of sort at the top and the most amazing views of Songkhla you will find. There are many 'whorship' ritual and shrines. You walk around and ring the many bells for good fortune. There are 'wish ...

... very serene and peaceful! (especially nice since I'm with my Charmaine!) Songkhla...if you google search it and go to images...most likely the mermaid comes up. It is the 'landmark' and jugging by the number of tourist taking it's picture..it's very popular ...

Ahhh Langkawi- I just left there and I must say I had the best 10 or 11 days of my trip. Stayed with Mike, Andy & Claus the entire week and we balled out. 1 of the days we rented motorbikes and took them all around the island- Our first stop of the airshow airfield. If I didnt mention it before, Langkawi hosted an international airshow from Dec 4- 8. So occasionally while sitting on the beach there would be a huge boom from a jetplane or a streaming of colors as they ...

... mines left in Thailand, he knows how to find them." "Why is the Had Yai market so popular if most of the gems have been picked over?" "Reputation. Wholesalers from Bangkok have been coming here for 50 years. Plus a lot of foreign buyers are discovering that you can cut out the Bangkok middleman by coming here first." By the end of the afternoon Mr. Qu has sold off the rough stones for 4,500 baht -- a profit of almost $80 for the day. "A good man from Bangkok wanted ...

... sweet, we were all allowed to get back on the train to contiue the rest of our journey...except for poor fabio as the thai immigration officials didnt recognise san marino as a country.....so had to get off the train!!! never known anybody being rejected at immigration before When we got to Hat Yai it was absolutely crazy with touts trying to get us on there coaches....eventually we got a 'taxi' to the bus station and then spent another 6 hours on a coach to Krabi!!!!

... find that we were just about the only Western tourists there. This part of Thailand has a very different feel to Bangkok and the islands and there are increasingly Islamic influences the closer we get to Malaysia. It was nice to get off the tourist trail for a short while and we enjoyed wandering around the old streets in the port area of the town and sampling the local food.

... de havde overbooket bussen! Saa stod vi der mens de proevede at finde ud af noget! Vi blev saa smidt paa en anden bus som de sagde gik til Butterworth kl 24... og der ville vi saa blive sat paa en ny bus til Had Yai med det samme saa vi ikke ville blive forsinkede! Bussen gik saa foerst kl 1 og gik IKKE til Butterworth!! Nej den gik til Penang som er en oe ud for Butterworth - 45 min koersel derfra! Kl. ca 6 i morges blev vi bedt om at staa af paa en ...