Just a quick note-to-self…

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Back from hols and with no work on hand, it takes a little over two days before the code gland starts twitching again and I launch into a personal or learning project.

This time it was Flex4. I’ve been meaning to get my head into the Flex framework for a while now, but working fulltime often drains much of your will to code outside the office and while following the industry is simple enough with Twitter and feeds, actually getting your hands dirty with new tech is more difficult.

Anyway – not long back from my travels, and having just uploaded a ton of photos up to Flickr, I thought I’d rewrite my Flickr Badge in Flex and add a few more features.. Pretty simple really – the only downside I really had was the filesize – which has always been my main contention with Flex.

As for feature upgrades, I added social network sharing links and a google map component so you can see the location where the photo was taken. The map feature relies on you having previously geo-tagged the item in flickr, but fails gracefully should there be no stored geo-data.
Also added a Ken Burns effect because EVERYONE LOVES THE KEN BURNS EFFECT!

..it also refreshes your photos and makes it easy to while away the time looking at pics you’ve seen a hundred times already

As my previous Flickr Badge was a WordPress widget, I did the same for mine, making it configurable via the WordPress admin area.

The plugin should be visible further down this page on the right side bar.

Had heard about this one from the flash community and admittedly only had had the slightest interest… that is until they announced that every developer who gets an app approved and in the Blackberry App Store before the release of the device (US release scheduled for 15th March) gets a free device.

As embarrassingly mercenary as it may sound, I suddenly felt the need to develop an app for the Playbook

It’s just a basic idea that I’ve been knocking around since I saw Ponyo, it’s just a Morse Code translator/practise app, allowing the user to either have typed text translated on-the-fly or just tap the screen in order to practise Morse Code input. For newcomers to Morse Code, I included a help screen, with a Morse Code dictionary to learn from.

Insanely simple for existing flash developers, the most difficult part of the process was the paperwork and signing the application. They’ve even provided an Eclipse plugin for developing and a device simulator for testing. Blackberry seem to have realised the cold hard fact that products like these rely heavily on the software available. Similar to the way game dictate (to a degree) which console is most popular, a touchscreen device is really only the transparent workings behind the software that the user interfaces with. All in all, they’ve put a lot of work into making it easy for the huge community of flash developers get building content for their device all ready for release. If it costs them a few hundred devices, then it’s probably a wise investment.

Well I’ve finally done it.. I’ve gone limited. Kinda threatened to go limited several times in the past, but never it always seemed to be risky as I never knew if I’d stay freelance for any decent length of time.

Now, with 2yrs freelance under my belt and starting to work on independent, mobile applications/games, there’s more call for me to have a business through which I work and release products. It just makes sense now.

The name came from the house my dad had build when he was living in Australia. My parents bought a plot of land (Lot62) in Darlington, Perth, WA and set about making a home there. Seems apt to have a name that represents building something and creating an entity with your own hands…

Well we’re back now, tans have faded and normal daily life has snuck back in.

We stayed on AoNang beach for the last week of our trip, spending our time just milling about in the shops and on the beach, eating, drinking coffee and singing along to the Snake Show truck as it passed again and again.

We took a couple of day trips that week too – one was an island hopper, visiting PhiPhi, Monkey Island, Viking Cave and Bamboo Island, with lots of snorkelling with fishes in the clear, shallow water. The other was elephant trekking, the Emerald pool and the natural hot springs, which was one of the highlights of the whole trip for me.

Emma got bitten by monstrous, beastly things – judging by the bite marks they left and I got sunburned again – this time twice across my chest over two days, one layer of burn over another… I ended up with a kind of prickly heat thing going on for our last night there, meaning I only managed to sleep in short bursts, draped in a cold, wet towel to stop the fiery pins and needles across my chest and shoulders.

Flying to KL straight from Krabi, we met up with Michal again at the gate for the London flight in KL airport and he told us about the Vietnamese girl he’d met, how he’d flown back out there and spent another week with her and how he was going to fly back out in a couple of weeks to see her again as she was definitely the girl he was going to marry…

None of us really wanted to go home. We were travel weary and missing the creature comforts and personal space of home, but also wanted this next flight to take us somewhere new and not be our last.

We got off the plane in London nearing 5 am and got the thankfully pre-rush hour tube back home, finishing the journey and our trip back home, feeling out of place and knowing the next trip probably won’t be too far away.

The ferry pier in Phuket was crowded when we got there – lots of twenty-somethings, waiting for the boat to Phi-Phi and two weeks of alcohol and sunburn punctuated hangovers. Our taxi driver, who had been worryingly following us through the crowds after having dropped us at the pier, now turned out to be a freelance tour operator and we managed to barter two tickets direct to Railay Bay for 300 baht under the going rate. He left and we immediately hot-footed it to the nearest ticket desk to check the authenticity of the tickets we’d just bought. They were fine and we grabbed a couple of chairs and laxed out for a couple of hours until our boat was ready.

Placid and sunny for our trip over – it took a couple of hours or so to make it to Krabi and we sat with our feet over the side of the boat, watching the occasional long-tail or island go slowly past and just loving the feel of the sun on us and the sense of space around us.

We transferred to a speed boat at Krabi as Railay was only just around the headland – a short trip, but when we got there, it was gorgeous. It was a great, sunny day, so everything looked even better, but as we hopped out into the shallows, there were shoals of tiny fish here and there in the crystal blue water. Groups of long-tail boats were lined up along the beach, coloured cloths and Thai writing on their bows and beyond them, the comparatively pale Europeans bobbing around in the water. The beach at Patong had been pretty nice – smooth sand and clear, warm water – a very welcoming first Thai beach experience for the trip, but in Patong, the beach was crowded to capacity – sun loungers and jet-ski touts, there was even a cordoned off area containing inflatables that you could muck about on for 200 baht. This, however was not oversaturated – there was a fair amount of people, but none of the claustrophobic, package holiday feel. This was a place to relax.

This wasn’t where our hotel was, though.. We transferred yet again to a long-tail, clambering in out of the water, flip-flops and backpacks in hand and headed back out across the bay to the other side.

Not quite a nice landing this time.. the majority of the beach was rocky and muddy, leaving us picking our way to dry land very carefully through sharp rocks and squelchy mud and feeling like when you board a plane and have to walk past all the premium seats before passing that curtain into cattle class and your own, constricting chair. Tired and (personally) with still a little left to recover from the craziness of Phuket, we just clambered into the nearest restaurant and grabbed some food and cold drinks.. The beach there was pure shipwreck style. There was only a handful of businesses along the beach – most featuring a dreadlocked white guy or girl, practising with poi. I took a wander up to find where we were staying and, having checked in ok, ended up on a benched sidecar contraption that was attached to a moped, being driven back towards Emma and our bags. The road back barely qualified as one – pot-holes and rain-worn trenches everywhere. It wove back away from the beach into thick jungle, passing hippie encampments on either side – the sounds of hair braiding, tie-dying and juggling filtering through the palms and ferns, causing shivers to run up and down my spine. Occasionally you could see a dream-catcher strung up through the trees and I could imagine the soap-dodging bastards, prancing like dicks round midnight fires, celebrating their sustained unemployment to a chorus of indian hand drums.

We dumped the bags on the moped-thingy and walked back up the beach.. I simply couldn’t face the return journey through the land that soap forgot, although we did get to ride the contraption again as we got ferried up to our villa on it.. I wouldn’t say the place was terrible, but I didn’t exactly get that reassured, luxury feeling as the guy unlocked the padlock on the sliding doors and led us in to show us the room whilst a large cockroach sat on the floor next to the bathroom door. After he’d gone, we ‘dealt’ with the cockroach, discovered and blocked the gaping hole in the shower room floor where the bugger’d crawled up from and found one of our towels had a huge rip in it. We were paying a fair whack for the room as when you get to the islands there’s limited space and the hotels tend to charge whatever they like, but this was pretty awful. Poor Emma, found a pretty chunky spider on an early morning toilet trip that I had to get up and eliminate – to be honest, I took a peek at the dirty hairy bugger the next day and it would’ve had me hopping around a bit had I come across it sleepily at 3am!

Still, we decided to just get on with it and that first night, we wandered down to the beach, grabbed a meal and then headed over to drink a couple of beers up on a platform in front of the sea. The whole place was lit up, with small paraffin burners on low tables and made for a nice, chilled end to a hectic day.

Tonsai coming up very short compared with Railay, we headed out to catch a long-tail over the other side of the bay – the nice side. Unfortunately, though, the long-tail pilots only wanted to go with a minimum number of passengers, so we had to wait until more people turned up, wanting to get to Railay. Seemingly, not a place many people wanted to get to, so after waiting for a while, we asked some people about the possibility of a path round the headland to Railay and set off down the beach toward it.

Turns out there was a bit of a climb involved and although our flip-flops weren’t exactly idea footwear, we clambered up and over the thing, sweating away and taking it step by step in parts, but finally making it and emerging onto the ‘nice’ beach feeling as though we’d snuck into a restricted area and were going to be found out at any minute.

The beach at Railay is thousands of times better than Tonsai. The people too – we sat for our hotel’s thrown together buffet breakfast on Tonsai and were galled to see two girls – well women really – at the table next to ours, industriously weaving friendship bracelets. This is the behaviour of eighteen-yr-olds, not grown adults! It was like a their own little Glastonbury in the middle of Thailand. Dirty hippie bastards…

We spent the day on Railay just wandering about and looking for better hotels than what we were suffering on Tonsai. The first place we walked into threw a £700 per night rate at us and we kinda just ran away, clutching our wallets. We ended up booking into a reasonably expensive place for a couple of nights, but by that time I think we just deserved a bit of comfort to even things out a little.
In the afternoon, we’d just about managed a quick swim when the heavens opened and the sky took an almighty piss on us, forcing us back to the hotel we’d made the booking in for shelter and honestly one of the best steak sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. We sat and dried out, waiting for the rain to stop before heading back to Tonsai. The tide was low this time, so we could avoid the hairy climbing route and instead picked our way across the sharp rocks, avoiding the scuttling crabs that zipped around between them.

Back in the room I wasn’t feeling right and ended up with a bit of a fever that night – yet another symptom of my hippie allergy most likely.. We checked ourselves out early and got ourselves over to Railey – this time making damned sure we waited for a long-tail as neither of us had the energy or enthusiasm for the previous day’s route. We got to our hotel and were shown to our room. This time we were welcomed with a nice glass of chilled juice and we noticed my name on the ‘welcome new guests’ board – what a difference! The room/villa was nice and cosy but spacious – a huge four poster ben and an outside shower. Thank fuck for that!

It rained once more in the afternoon of the next day – again interrupting our beach and swim time, but it was great to be able to duck back into the villa quickly instead of being marooned, sopping, away from a hot shower and dry clothes. Also, as we were in the nice resort for a bit, we took full advantage of the facilities and got massages and a steam sesson in the hotel’s spa – well worth it as my shoulder had been really playing up and giving me grief. A little pampering never hurt anyone..

Just to undo all the good work of the massage, I popped out in the morning to go investigate the lagoon climb. Emma had tried it a little on her last visit and not made it up the first bit as it was slippery and steep as hell and she’d been wearing flip-flops – not ideal for climbing really. We’d walked past it on our way to the beach and I couldn’t resist having a crack at it

It was muddy and everything was covered by this red, clay-type mud. There were tree roots and branches all over the place, so no real problems with hand and foot holds and they’d even attached a load of thick, knotted ropes around the place to make things even easier. The roots and ropes were also covered in the clay stuff, so as soon as you got a sweat up things started getting slippery in your hands as well as under your feet. Still – always easier going up than down and I nipped up the first section reasonably easily.
Once at the top, it turned into thick forest, with a couple of paths heading off. I chose one and ended up at the viewpoint. Now usually in Europe, when you get any where public that’s high and even remotely perilous, you’ll get cordoned off areas, barriers and sometimes even attendants. Not in fucking Thailand, believe me! The trail ended through a couple of bushes and plunged straight down the cliff face a good 200ft. No ropes, no barriers – not even a bloody sign to warn you. I’m honestly surprised there’s not a steady stream of lemming-style deaths up there.
After realising that I was pouring sweat in a thick foresty area with no deet on, I got moving again and headed towards the lagoon. There was another trail heading away from the viewpoint that I tried first, but it ended in a vertical climb up sharp rocks to God knows where, so I opted to leave that for the pros. The route to the lagoon wasn’t terribly different, though.. The sharp rocks were replaced with rounded, slippery ones, so it was all much of a muchness I suppose..
The way, a gentle but greased slope to start, degraded into vertical faces and free hanging ropes – all similarly slicked. Between the humidity and sweat there were a couple of times where I nearly lost grip and I got to a point where you had to climb through a hole in the rock and down another free hanging rope. At the bottom of that, there was another sheer drop and nothing but a sweaty, clay pasted rope that I could see to use to stop yourself falling. I could see the lagoon from where I was and, as lovely and cool and refreshing as it looked, I could also see a slip, a short drop and a broken bone in my future so I sacked it off in the name of good sense and headed back.

I’m sure that if I’d had Mike with me we’d have got the job done. A second pair of eyes and a little competitiveness were definitely the missing ingredients.

Weary from changing accommodation every second or third day, we booked a place just round the bay in AoNang that looked nice and wasn’t too expensive and we opted to dig in there for the remainder of our trip. Less than a week to go before we needed to be back in KL for the dreaded flight back to London and I really couldn’t decide whether I wanted to go back or not.. The promise of familiar personal space, the ability to make food or a cuppa whenever you like and the prospect of wearing a different fucking t-shirt was definitely something to look forward to, but we’d have to lose the warmth, the friendly service and the prices..

Australia is definitely on the cards…

We’d originally booked an AirAsia flight up to Langkawi from KL during our stay at the Shangri-la, the idea being that we start there and then use the ferries to head up through the Thai islands. A good plan, but one that didn’t take into consideration Mr Jobs’ super buggy iPhone alarms and the farting around that it takes to get from KL Sentral to the airport..
We slept peacefully until about 10:30, our preset iPhone alarms right there next to us, silently denying all involvement in the business. When we woke, having missed breakfast again, we got our shit together and headed down to check out.. I suppose we could’ve packed a little faster or just got a taxi straight to the airport, but we opted for a taxi to KL Sentral and then the train/bus to LCCT. Pretty much doomed to miss the bugger from the start, we even got off at the wrong stop on the train and, finally making it to the bus leg of the trip, the coach itself nearly rolled on a pothole strewn track that we were driving down for God knows what reason…

By the time we reached the airport, the flight was taking off and we’d already decided to ditch the Langkawi idea and head straight for Phuket and make our way from there round the islands. No flights to Phuket until the evening, so we pottered around the airport, hopping from free wi-fi to free wi-fi. We cancelled our hotel reservation in Langkawi and desperately tried to find somewhere in Phuket to stay that night. Finally got it done with only a small amount of stress and panic, checked in and caught the evening flight into Phuket.

Phuket wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined – to be fair we never really saw Phuket Town itself as we got ourselves into Patong beach, but I’ll assume it’s not too dissimilar. The fat old European with young lithe Thai girl count wasn’t as high as expected, but horrifically present at the same time. There was, however, a hell of a lot of younger guys paired up with Thai girls (and ladyboys) wandering about – the holiday romance almost a career choice for many Thai girls. We found our hotel – my pre-cached google maps proving more up to date than the driver’s local knowledge and checked in. Comfortably sized, quiet, clean and not a terrible distance from the beach – we sighed relief and went out for dinner.

Our second night there, we headed out for a couple of drinkies in a nice, chilled bar, got a couple of coronas in and watched the steady stream of tourists flow past. The nice, chilled evening wandered slightly off course as it progressed thanks to the subtle application of Jaegermeister shots here and there and we found ourselves in the Rock City bar up the street, where a Metallica covers band was rocking out onstage, accompanied at the side of the stage by a couple of the most uncoordinated dancers I’ve ever seen. Flailing arms and the worst horn throwing known to man, I just hope they weren’t part of some ‘Make a Wish Foundation’ excursion as we ripped the piss out of them both lengthily and heartlessly

One of the strangest things for us was the fact that smoking was allowed inside restaurants and bars. In the UK we’ve had a good few years to get used to the whole no smoking in public places idea and having a night out and having the reek and remnants of cigarettes on your clothes, mouth and lungs in the morning is (thankfully) a thing of the past. Not so in Thailand.. With packets stacked high on tables next to us, we suffered a steady fog of smoke all night – pretty much to the point that we stopped noticing it..

The next day was pretty rough for me.. Emma wasn’t too bad, but both of us kinda felt as though we’d had a solid night of headbutting things, licking armpits and snorting coal dust. The day had pretty much escaped us, dragging ourselves back into consciousness around 3pm – we’d got in around 5am and probably passed out not long after.. Bacon sarnie, coffee and the saltiest lemon juice ever had us feeling a little more human, so we made the usual ‘never again’ vow and pottered down by the beach for a little while and made plans for where to head next.

We got the phone call from my brother as we were picking up our bags on arrival and he was waiting outside for us in the toasty Melbourne sun. Third time lucky it seems for Melbourne as I finally got to see the place in summer, having been there twice in winter previously..

Geelong is smaller than I’d expected – just a few main streets, surrounded by the typical sprawling Australian suburbia. My brother’s house was better than the pictures – a standard Australian bungalow deal, but comfortably spacious with a large garden and a decked verandah to sit on and sip iced drinks whilst waiting for the steaks to barbecue…

Lots of our parents’ furniture was dotted around the house – wooden tables, dressers and writing desks that added an instant homeliness for me. The spare room/Marnie’s home office where we stayed was carpeted, with a large, comfy bed and was the best thing I could’ve wished for after the sorry beds KL, Vietnam and Bangkok had offered. The best thing also for Emma, who was still feeling ropey from her tonsillitis and general travel weariness.

Xmas week was great – a chance to recharge and recuperate, my brother and Marnie were fantastic at looking after us and meeting Isobel was so nice – she’s a lovely child, happy and outgoing, with a gorgeous smile and always singing (even though the words rarely make sense).

The evenings were still definitely jumper temperature and, after a cloudy start to our first morning, we sat in the garden with my brother just after midday, relaxing in the sun while waiting to head out for the afternoon. 20 minutes later, we ducked in, out of the sun and hopped in the car.

That afternoon we went to a cool little koala rescue centre. Emma loved it – touching koalas, seeing wombats sleeping nose-to-balls and getting her hair munched by galahs. It was only when we got back to the house that we realised exactly how burned we’d got that morning!
Watch, bracelet and clothing marks on our wrists, now traced lines through reddened forearms, chests and knees, marking out invisible clothes on us, letting us know exactly where we were in the world and how we should NOT fuck with the Australian sun!

Xmas eve and we nipped off on our own to check out Geelong Gold Class. Suited ushers, taking drinks and food orders, plush reclining chairs with integrated footrests, a personal table (just the right size for a couple of double southern comforts) and definitely NO shitkickers, talking in cuntmouth accents, ringing mobile phones or general annoying behaviour.

I love gold class.

Unfortunate we only had Harry Potter to watch.. Last gold class five years ago, was harry potter – bit of a better film last time, but there’s not many films that could’ve really ruined the awesomeness of gold class

Xmas day was a case of hiding from the sun and eating. Mark had organised the food – a sizeable whole red snapper, marinated and poached in the oven, BBQ’d chicken legs, lamb chops and beef steaks – all accompanied by salads, veggies, wine and beers. Fantastic!
Presents were opened, with Isobel the clear winner in terms of both quality and quantity. We also got to meet some of Marnie’s relatives – her mum and dad being great characters – warm and welcoming – proper Australian hospitality

Boxing day was mostly sleeping – tummies a little to heavy to drag out of bed perhaps… In the afternoon we took a drive to the first bit of the Great Ocean Road. I’d never done it before and it was great to go see all the beautiful Coastal towns like Lorne and chill out in the afternoon sun (well covered of course..).

Mark and family were off after our visit for a holiday in Adelaide and kangaroo island, but the day before, we went to Ballarat, the mining town just outside Melbourne. Little bit of a tacky tourist attraction, but fun to wander around and wonder what life was like for people back then.. We took the tour down into the mines, accompanied by the loudest tour guide ever.. We stayed near the back of the group, protecting our ears from the information that was bellowed at us.

I would’ve been a shame to have Emma come all the way to Australia to see only my bro’s place and the surrounds, so we kinda felt that we needed an extra day in Melbourne to see some more of the city and do some touristy stuffs

We had lunch in lanes, chilled out in St Kilda, stopping at a gorgeous little coffee shop for a break. It was so nice and relaxed down there – we stayed until the evening, watched the sun set amidst the screaming birds, grabbed some fish and chips and finished off with a super-chilled pint of bulmers cider each..

Our last full day in Australia, we jumped on a tour up to Puffing Billy and healesville, with a lunch stop at a winery for a glass of their produce and a full-on roast. Healesville was another chance to see koalas and other Australian wildlife. We missed the lyrebird unfortunately, but got lots more wombat and koala snaps. We also stopped at the bird car park place.. It’s basically a cafe a car park where loads of cockatoos, galahs and other parroty-type-things fly down and eat from your hand, head or anywhere else they think you’ve got food. Regular shrieks from people as they were landed upon

..and that was Australia for this time.. Promises to return (as per usual) and the sincere hope that we keep them soon..

Another horrendously early morning, but worth it as we got up to meet for the 2 day Halong Bay tour.

A couple of hours on the mini bus and we arrived at the pier, chatted with the other tour members and, after a short wait, boarded our junk. The weather in HaNoi had been more than cool – proper jumper weather – and in HaLong it was no warmer, so as we headed out into the bay, we cowered inside the boat, trying to keep out of the cold air.

One thing about that tour is that we were definitely well fed.. Although the dishes came out in random order, with no indication of how many more there were to come, it was good, tasty stuff and plenty of it.

We stopped at the ‘surprising cave’ in the early afternoon. Many of the limestone islands have caves inside them and this particular one contained a little surprise.. I can only imagine that the word ‘surprising’ must have a slightly different meaning in Vietnam.. I would personally have chosen ‘badly named’ or just ‘tacky tourist trap’ as prefixes in this case. There was no surprise. Just a lot of rock formations that kinda looked a tiny bit like stuff. We finally got back on the boat and were lucky enough to catch a couple of ‘surprising’ clouds in the sky.. Maybe I’m just too cynical for these things..

Later on we stopped at a floating village to go kayaking – assuring me the water itself was was warm still didn’t tempt me into it, so I kept warm while everyone else went off exploring the surrounding islands in their kayaks. Just didn’t fancy getting any colder really.

Once everyone was back on board, we headed to where we were going to moor for the night and we had the chance to go for a swim.. Considering I’d missed out on the kayaking, I figured it was worth a go if only to be able to say I’d done it. We got to jump in off the boat’s top deck and although I fucking froze when I got out, the water was reasonably warm and we farted around for a few mins before racing to the cabin for a hot shower to stave off the hypothermia!

I really didn’t expect to be cold on any part of this trip – my fleece was packed into the bottom of my bag and although I intended for it to bloody stay there, it was used and appreciated several times..

The bay itself is amazing. Picturesque and impressive, mulling slowly around the tall islands was so peaceful and relaxing. The trip would’ve been ten times better had the weather been on side, but even so, it was well worth it and would be great to do again one day (in summer).

The second day was mainly about heading back to port. A quick stop at Cat Ba island to drop a couple of people off and another huge lunch broke up the journey, but the sun finally showed up and i had a good chill out up on the top deck for a bit, just watching the small fishing boats and islands go by, snapping a fee shots here and there.

Great.

Some minor panicking and stress at HaNoi airport when Michal was rejected at check-in for not having an onward journey ticket out of Thailand. A complete twat of an Air Asia employee, who we’d found in a back office, insisted Michal buy a ticket from Bangkok to KL to satisfy the conditions and Phuket to Langkawi simply wasn’t valid.. Anyway, with minutes to go before the flight and after a timely power cut in the office, severing the Internet connection, we found some wifi in a cafe upstairs and he bought himself a quick ticket…

Not a long flight, but getting off into the warmth of Bangkok after the chill of northern Vietnam was sheer bliss. We got the train and a bus down to the Khao San road and found a place to stay where Emma had been on her last visit, then headed back out to explore this latest new place.

It’s about 5 years since I’d been on the Khao San road and it had changed loads! Forged document sellers, fruit vendors and t-shirt stalls still lined the street, but the amount of neon, electronic music and lady boys had gone crazy.. Maybe my outlook has changed a bit too – I think I noticed the ageing hippies a bit more than last time, marvelling at the lifers that couldn’t make it in the real world and had retreated into a simpler lifestyle of dreadlocks, tattoos, reiki and other twattery.

Still – maybe shouldn’t judge, eh Don’t agree with it, but live and let live and all that…(?)

Anyway – having brow-beaten Michal into doing a day tour with me the next day (minimum of two people and it was only us..), we set early alarms once again and got up, bundled into the minibus (after waiting for the fat one for a good fifteen minutes and apologising to the driver who was waiting so patiently) and got on our way.

Last time I was in Bangkok, I’d visited the Erewan waterfalls with the tour I’d been on and I’d been determined to revisit them on this trip even though I really only had one day free. The tour I found for us this time included the falls and also the Tiger Temple, where Thai monks hand reared tigers and you could get in and have pics taken with the tigers.

The falls were just as amazing as I’d remembered and having missed out on seeing all seven levels of it on my last visit due to time constraints, we made a beeline to the top. Unfortunately I hadn’t accounted for some dodgy Khao San pad Thai that wreaked it’s savage vengeance on my bowels somewhere around level five.. I think I’d just caught a peek of level six when there was an urgent knock at the back door and I (wisely) turned tail, engaged full rear clench and trotted rapidly back down to the third level toilets.

Disaster avoided, I headed back to level five, where I met up with Michal again and got straight into the gorgeous, cool, blue waters. The fish in there nibble away at you if you stay still for long enough, making getting in and out of the water extra perilous as balancing on awkward rocks isn’t the easiest when your ankles and toes are being gnawed upon by sizeable fish unseen in the water around you!

The tiger temple wasn’t as good.. The tigers themselves were beautiful and impressive. Huge things, dozy from the sun (or tranquillisers), they lazed around while we, the tourists, were led from one to another, posing for photos by each one in turn. In my case, posing rather awkwardly out of healthy respect for both the tiger and my skin. There was an opportunity to be caged up while the tigers were fed around us, but it all started to feel a little showy and exploitative, so we toddled off back to the minibus and headed back to Bangkok.

As we’d left the tigers a little early, we stopped off at the river Kwai bridge on the way back. I’d been there before and knew what to expect – a bridge and lots of shops, selling touristy crap… Still though, it was a good excuse to jump out for a few minutes and grab some fruit and wander around a bit..

Back in Bangkok that night, we nipped out and grabbed some local food and chilled out with a beer. Lovely to be back in the warmth, better to be leaving Khao San hippie central, but best to be off on my way back to meet my lady