Koh phi phi for a day...

...we went by boat to koh phi phi today and saw e.g maya bay, the viking cave, monkey beach, phi phi don village and ton sai beach. The two islands that are called koh phi phi are very full of tourists nowadays but I can imagine what a paradise this was before it was exploited fully. The mix of white beaches and huge mountains with rain forest like vegetation is truly amazing.

Maya bay and maya beach...

...the place where they shot 'the beach', unfortunately too overcrowded by people nowadays.

New warning signs added after the tsunami with clear evacuation path

Viewpoint over phi phi harbour

Spongebob squarepants dvds are extremely cheap here :-)

Sara and a tuk-tuk (mc taxi) driver last night

We went on a one day trip to the national park koh rok yesterday...

...it included 3 stops. 2 different snorkelling stops with beautiful fishes and we could recall some of them from 'finding nemo', and 1 long stop at a paradise beach. See below for more pics from koh rok.

Long tail boat

Sawat-dii. Sabai dii reu?

Suddenly when we had lunch a little hungry buddy showed up

Caught a glimpse of paradise

Morning view on Long Beach...

...waiting for the boat to koh rok where we will do some snorkeling today.

Thai massage

We just had thai massage for one our on the beach. Very interesting experience. Very different from traditional swedish massage. Anyway a very nice start of the evening. Now we are starving so we will go for dinner somewhere on the beach.

Sara in the sunset

Japaner japaner

We saw two crazy japs today taking pictures of everything (and then i mean everything) including all the bungalows us and a german couple. They carried 3 different cameras and one big tripod. They didnt seem to bother much about the sea though, no swimming suits even though they were on a beach.

Fried rice with shrimps at Long Beach

We have arrived in koh lanta...

...and got our bungalow (on the pic) that we will keep for 3 nights. We just took our first swim in the ocean and a short walk on the long beach watching the sunset, which was very nice after the long trip with train, bus and boat to come here.

On the boat to koh lanta

Still on the train...

...now the beds have been pulled down and we are enjoying the bumpy trip in horizontal mode. In every station we stop at there are about 5 salesmen and women going through the train selling food. So far we havent bought anything.

On the southern line from bangkok towards suratthani / trang...

...still in our seats. But we havent decided yet which station to go off at. Anyway we have a 11-16 hours ride in front of us depending on where we go off.

True monarky...

...there is a tradition accepted by everyone that at 6 pm every day everyone must stand up and the national anthem is played to honor the king of thailand, king Bhumibol. This picture is from the train station just before we left bangkok. You can see the picture of the king on the wall.

Tuk-tuk...

...a dangerous, fast and cheap way to get to one place to another. Usually the tuk-tuk drivers try to offer round trips around the town to famous places really cheap but in between the places you want to go they take you to shops where they get promotion. However this tuk-tuk driver drove us to the hotel as we wanted, quickly but not that safely. Anyway it was pretty funny :-)

Lumphini park...

...taking a rest from the hot city in a big park close to our hotel.

Sara didnt like the starbucks coffee in MBK shopping centre

Bangkok view from the sky train

"The sleeping buddah" and the sleepy buddy next to it!

At the entrance to the grand palace (wat phra kaew)...

...I had to borrow filthy long and WARM pants to get into the palace since my shorts were to short. Saras shorts were long enough. I was pretty tired of them after 5 minutes but kept them on for 2 hours :-(. Below you can see some more pics from the palace. The place was overstaffed - in a small museum i think we saw 10-15 museum guards hanging around chatting to each other (not to tourists). In sweden there would be one guard for the same job, if any...

A golden statue and nicely decorated houses

More nice buildings in the grand palace

Sara in the shade...

...close to wat Intharawihan and "the smiling buddah". This was like an oasis in the middle of all traffic and noise.

"The smiling buddah"

Thewet market...

...we took the river boats to a food and flower market in thewet where they sold all sorts of things (see below)

Nice colorful flowers for sale

Eels anyone?

Living eels for sale in the market.

Market salesman taking i nap :-)

Pineapple 10 baht = 2 sek

Everything is so cheap.

Wat arun by the riverside...

...today we discovered the expressboats on the river chao phraya. We went back and forth to different places within bangkok using those boats. It is really cheap, 30-40 baht which is 6-8 sek for us both for going from one part of the city to another. On the river the air feels fresher than in the rest of the town.

Sara taking a walk in the city centre of bangkok...

...neon signs everywhere. The air is pretty crappy and the traffic is heavy. High humidity and 25 degrees in the evening. The total opposite to the swedish winter that we left behind. But the city is great so far. I just had a very strong beef green curry dish. Flames from my mouth now ;-) we are heading back to the hotel to plan for tomm.

The flight to bangkok...

...we suprisingly got an upgrade to business class and travelled in luxury :-)

New years eve in malmö