Lamai Inn Phuket Patong

... stop was Phi Phi Don Island a much bigger island first– this one was badly affected by the Tsunami in 2004. We hopped & off & went to a restaurant where lunch was provided. We had 6 dishes on each table – fried onion rings, fish, sweet & sour fish, stir fried chicken & cashews, spag bog & followed by fruit. After lunch I walked through to the other side of the island – all ...

... plant their feet, especially in water where they feel out the bottom with their trunk. Russ sat on the elephant's back on the way back which was very funny. It was wobbly enough sitting on the platform seat! Had a nice group lunch at a private restaurant then joined the kayaks, which were inflatable boats with a guide perched on the back with a paddle. We walked ...

... days it became my world. And so if anybody came within metres of my peripheral vision I'd tense up rigidly and tell them to back off - a hopeless and pitiful situation to be in. Little wonder my blood pressure was high. So what's happening now? - Right now I'm in the middle of a physio program. Every day I've been going back and forth to the hospital for a medley of heat treatment, electric pulses, ultrasounds and a vigorous ...

... Thailand I had no interest in boarding such a beast - never was keen on the idea of using animals to entertain. Fortunately, this wasn't an elephant camp where they do tricks with balls and balance their forefeet on each other's backs. The elephants were used yes, for tourism, but are still used by the villagers to carry lumber to build homes in the mountains. After we finished lunch, we boarded a rickety boat attached by a ...

... my flight to bangkok as my lovely friend Mandy from lollipop was coming to Thailand with her friend on holiday as she was going to be in bangkok for two days!! So I said my goodbyes to the others and I was on my own again, which was a bit strange as so far haven't been on my own that much at all on this trip! Bangkok here I come............ this time I'm ready for you!!!!

... Robinson's Department Store which he declares is "rubbish". We walk down to Carrefours which is a huge supermarket and me, Mum and Dad all get excited when we see their Fresh Food Hall. Loads of fresh fruits including durian being hygenically cut open and packaged for takeaway. Rambutan, mangosteen, mangoes, longans, lychees, pomelo, jackfruit everything. Lots of Thai sweets and weird sausage/ Thai finger foods and cakes and all sorts of yummy stuff ...

... to wave and all the little kids want to practice what little english they have with you!!! It is so completely different to Phuket and even Bangkok. It is really refreshing! Today we took kayaks out to a little island that we could see from our beach. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the current was so strong it took us ages to actually get there and then we had to face coming back!!!! But it was beautiful to see this little deserted ...

... we hand her the 30baht. We go out for a wander and stumble across a bar with live music. A bit of Eric Clapton in broken English sung by a portly Thai bloke with a guitar. Fantastic. We find ourselves drinking with the bar's manager, Sonja. Her and Dave (and a couple of bottles of Chang) persuade me to get up and have a go as well. We head home to find a motorbike parked in the kitchen, and head off to bed.

In Patong Beach now which is another town on Phuket... We've been everywhere it feels like. Did more kayaking yesterday around Phi Phi Le which I think I mentioned before as being the smaller of the Phi Phi Islands (Phi Phi Don is the one that was hit with the most damage in this area and has been completely closed). Joy and her husband had lived on Phi Phi Don. They had a dive shop there which was completely destroyed along with their home. Thankfully, Joy told me, her children are at ...