Thailand!!!

Having been twice previously, it is safe to say that Thailand is my favourite country in the world. It has the big commercial city, the Jungle, the commercial party towns and best of all, the islands.

The first stop took me back 8 years to the first place I stopped at in Thailand; a coastal town in the province of Krabi called Ao Nang. Although a long time had past, the place was still recognisable, with the main differences being the introduction of a Starbucks and McDonalds to lower the standard. I'd booked 3 nights here which gave enough time to relax and - after three weeks - finally be able to enjoy the beach again!! The southwestern islands of Thailand have some of the best beaches in the whole of Asia; with fine white sand and the most turquoise blue water that you'll ever see. The small mixture of beach and commerciality was a good starting point in Thailand and gave me the opportunity to ease into the life of not having to do anything strenuous for the foreseeable future.

A quick overview of the 3 days included a few nice long walks along the beach, sampling the most amazing Thai curries (one particular Massuman curry nearly melted my face... I'm assuming that when I asked for not very spicy, she decided to completely ignore the word 'not') and spend a good evening haggling with the local traders over the price of a few t-shirts.

Ao Nang is on face-value a fairly family orientated town, with lots of restaurants and bars catering for a more friendly atmosphere; however there is also the - shall we say - non-family area. With the lovely time difference of 7 hours ahead of the UK, being able to watch the football can be pretty tricky as most games kick-off at around 2am. So after having a late dinner and a quick wander around I promptly discovered that the only places open at 2am are those of a less desirable nature. There is one dead-end street which is lined with about 10 bars on each side that were still blasting out music and coincidently showing the Spurs game. Walking along trying to find a pretty quiet one, I was immediately hounded by several Thai women trying to get me into their bar to play pool with them and asking me to buy them drinks. Not falling for that one sweetheart!! Buying a drink pretty much means engagement and although the cooking and cleaning might be great, there's no room for the whole family! Finally at the end of all of the seedy bars there was the Reggae bar in all it's glory; showing the football, no Thai hookers outside and 5 blonde Norwegian girls lined at the bar necking shots. It would have been rude to turn down their offer to join them, so after about 5 minutes, 5 flaming 'Reggae shots' and a bottle of Chang... I'd caught up and ready to see where the rest of the night went. Ups and Downs. Spurs lost 1-0; however at closing time the barman sold us a few more bottles of Chang and we eased to the beach.

The next day, we all hired a long-tail boat and travelled to Paradise...

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