Railay Beach, Thailand

Practically an island, the only way to reach Railay beach on the peninsular near Krabie is by boat. It has 4 very small beaches and tons of huge limestone rocks jutting out of the sea soaring to maybe 200m. It boasts the 3rd best rock climbing in the world - I'm beginning to sound like a travel brochure now!! Sorry.

Anyway this is my favourite sport next to motorbiking so I was in heaven. I did a 3 day advanced course to learn a lot of new techniques such as lead climbing, rappelling ( lowering myself down) and multi-pitch climbing, lots of complicated knots and equipment involved, quite scary when you are 60m up, leaning out of the cliff and untying knots and tying others etc, bit dangerous if you untie the wrong one by mistake! But the views from the top were spectatular and the hardest climb I managed was a 6B (equivalent to an E6, UK) And I did about 30 climbs in 3 days! Muscles everywhere now even in my little fingers....that should be quite useful???!!!

Thai massages every evening to ease the pain. :-)

Am planning to go back in a month or so to do more, but on my own, although I will need to find a climbing partner and the way to do this is to advertise so i have made up my own advert and stuck it up in few places around the 'island'.....

TOTAL STUNNER 34C,23,34 LOOKING FOR
"EXPERIENCED" CLIMBING PARTNER.
MUST HAVE GSOH
AND BE EASY ON THE EYE.
MINGERS NEED NOT APPLY.
I LOOK FORWARD TO MEETING YOU MR MUSCLE.

Think that should do it.

The limestone rock also has some amazing caves, so I went off exploring, cos I'm not the kind of girl that can sit still on a beach for very long on my day off, beautiful as it was! Shouldn't really have gone on my own as they were pitch dark and quite dangerous....but i had my torch and i walked and climbed barefoot for better grip. Inside they were spectacular with huge stalagtites and stalagmites and crystal clear pools. I would just go right in, switch off my torch and just sit there and meditate for an hour or so, listening to the dripping water and being at one with the beautiful energy of the rock.

The wild monkeys nthe 'island' were vicious little things too. They would jump down off the trees start hissing and then snatch food right out of your hands. Still love them though.

And still haven't managed to find any Thai food that I actually like though - very disappointed. Tom yam is ok but thats about it and the fresh pineapple and coconut fruit shakes (my own concoction) yummy.

Koh PhaNgan, Thailand

Finally made it to an island in the south of Thailand. I was living in my own lovely wooden en-suite beach bungalow for 2 pounds a night, and rented a motorbike for the week for 2 pounds a day. This was fun...motorbiking and off-roading around the islands terrible roads and muddy, hilly, potholed steep, twisting jungle tracks - loved it!!! :-)

Unfortunately I got there in rainy season...but then again I have been following the rainy season around the world right from Poland and will continue to follow it right down into Malaysia and Borneo!!! And I left UK to get away from the damn rain...but at least it's not cold here. Anyway it rained nearly 20 hours a day every single day except the last 2, and thats not drizzle rain....but downpour rain, so I couldn't enjoy the beach and sea very much, well never mind, I just lay in my hammock on my veranda, watching the coconuts growing and the rain on the clear blue sea and the crabs on the golden sand, listening to my music, reading my books and drinking fresh tropical fruit shakes....Paradise!

Found a nice bar too, lots of psychedelic music, stoned chilled out Brits lounging on cushions on the wooden verandas under the stars drinking delicious mushroom milkshakes. Ended up going back with some crazy bloke from Leicester, Ron, to his house there, because he let his 16 year old stoned out of his head son drive us all back in his jeep, so I slept out in the hammock under the stars, was fun.

Found the most amazing thai massage place...will be going back for more of that.

But the most incredible thing was the free horn concert every evening by the local buffalo - an amazing sound, thay make beautiful music and the crickets always join in too for a bit of percussion. And I seemed to have adopted a stray dog, a beautiful black labrador who followed me everywhere and protected me from all the other dogs, even slept on my veranda at night, very loyal.

There were some amazing shells on the beach too....huge conches and other shells which I thought you would only find on Mombasa beach in Africa!

Anyway when the weather cleared up, Ron took me snorkling, the tropical fish and beautiful coral....really lovely and the sea cucumber - scared the life out of me! So to thank him afterwards, I sat on a swing on the beach and immediately proceeded to fall off backwards, nicely kicking him in the bollocks in the process.....ended up on my back with a sore head, legs in the air and in hysterics for the next 10 mins. This was the 3rd time this week I had been in this position! The other two times were when I fell out of hammocks!

Found some nice local bars where all the ladyboys hung out, and made some good friends there, they really are the loveliest people.

Well off to Krabie on the west coast of southern Thailand for some more hot springs and real good rock climbing.

Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok the city where anything and everything goes...a bit like Brighton I'd say......but anyway it's a really beautiful and modern city with many Buddhist temples and enormous statues of Buddha towering the city. I also managed to find a couple of Hindu temples, one a south Indian and one a north indian temple, and also a very beautiful Sikh temple. So many Indians here and the nicest Indian restaurants, makes a change after that Thai food where I really couldn't find anything that I liked.

Khaosan Road, the centre of the universe, a hippy haven for travelers, was like a mini town of its own, many didn't like it here, but I stayed over a week and became a shopoholic, really, I was going crazy with all the Thai silk handbags you could buy, bought 4 and I never even use the things!! It really is a nice place when you start making friends there with all the Nepalese tailors and the honey man.....and the CD shop owners...bought more CDs here than I have at home.....less than a pound each!! So had to get a portable CD player too and speakers and a new camera etc etc it just becomes addictive...was rather dangerous for me to stay there too long...I was beginning to get the shakes everytime i saw any more handbags and knew that i shouldn't buy them. And clothes clothes clothes.....bought loads and had a tailored orange Thai silk suit made too....got a good discount as I was Indian!! And then there was Boots...in Bangkok.....stocked up on everything! It was a good job I had virtually emptied my rucksack out in Cambodia when I had been ill......it was overflowing again now.

Apart from the shopping the thing that made Bangkok was Patpong....you cannot go to Bangkok and not go there....this was the best entertainment i had had for a long time. Women doing the most amazing tricks with their nether regions.....I was totally impressed.

I made friends with the most lovely rabbit, think it must be missing me now. And the zoo in Bangkok was quite impressive...better than a lot of Asian zoos, a huge collection of really beautiful snakes and the monkeys, really lovely.....it makes me feel sad though that they are not free in a jungle somewhere, well will soon be in Borneo to see the urang-utans in their natural habitat.

It was certainly hard to drag me away from Bangkok but when I got to the island of Koh PhaNgan I didn't even look back.