Oh, how I love Bangkok. Her smell, her counterfeit goods, her street markets and her crazy tuk-tuk drivers. There is no more wonderful city than Bangkok. She is my home away from home. She is my mistress. And if I keep on this current pace visiting her so frequently, the Thai people might make me a permanent citizen.

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We got into Thailand late last night, grabbed a taxi to Kosan Road (backpackers take-off point). It used to be a rugged street filled with vendors and hawkers. Now it's turned into a suburban strip mall, complete with wide sidewalks and even a McDonalds. Yes, a McDonalds.

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Information travels fast when you’re on the backpacker’s trail. Pick any beach-side watering hole and sit down; within seconds you’ll be able to overhear conversations shooting in every direction. “I heard of this place …This guy from Denmark was telling me … I just got back from …”

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The maximum time any person should spend in Phuket is about 10 hours. Both times I’ve been there I have followed that rule pretty closely. After a nice night watching TV in my hotel room, I set out for Koh Phi Phi early in the morning (7:30 am pick-up). It was a short one and a half hour boat ride to the island, half of which I spent sunning myself on the upper deck. The ride was quite entertaining as the seas were a little rough, tossing the boat around, causing waves to crass all the way onto the second floor upper deck.

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I learned my lesson last time about staying in Bangkok too long, yet it appears that I haven’t learned my lesson about making last-minute travel plans and hoping that they’ll work out. After shopping in Bangkok for two solid says, I wanted to find a quiet place to relax and enjoy the rest of my holiday. Koh Lanta, on Thailand’s southwest coast seemed to be the perfect location. The guidebooks said it was a peaceful island that hadn’t quite reached the saturation point. I had also heard pretty good reviews from fellow travelers and thought I would give it a try.

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Over the past 18 months I've traveled over 150,000 miles. I have visited Singapore, Malaysia (Borneo and mainland), Thailand (3 times), Cambodia, Vietnam, Italy, Hawaii, and Wisconsin (ok, that last one doesn't count). In all of these travels, the one place that stands out head above the rest is Koh Samui, Thailand. This small island in the Gulf of Thailand manages to balance just the right amount of development with a unique personal touch and laid back atmosphere.

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Well, I made it home safely, but not quite soundly. One would think that with all the vaccinations I received prior to our trip, I would have arrived home in perfect health! Not the case. Lucky for Mike, he is still basking in the sun for another two weeks. I think he decided to go to Koh Lanta for now - another idyllic island in the southern part of Thailand, not too far from Krabi and Ao Nang.

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Mike and I spent some time on Koh Samui in April 2002 and absolutely fell in love with the island. It is the perfect size - not too big, not too small. The local people were genuinely friendly, the hotel rates were very reasonable, and the shopping was great. After experiencing the wild Full Moon Party on Koh Pha Ngan, Mike and I decided to return to some familiar ground for my final week of relaxation; I would return to the US on the 26th. It felt good to return to a place we already knew.

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On January 16 we flew From Hanoi to Bangkok, but missed the last flight to Koh Samui by about 20 minutes. Bummer! That meant we had to spend the night in Bangkok, and then catch the flight to Samui the next morning. We hadn’t been on a beach for weeks; our tans had faded, and we were craving some hot weather, white sand and blue sea. We spent the night at the Ebina House Hotel because it was only 10 minutes from the airport, with free shuttle service to and from the airport. The next morning we left our big box of souvenirs from Hanoi at the hotel for safekeeping, and departed for the airport.

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After several days in Bangkok, we were weary of the pollution, noise, traffic and touts. We decided it might be a nice change of pace to leave the big city for a more serene New Year's Eve. We originally wanted to head north to Chiang Mai, but it was too difficult to book hotels at the last minute for New Year's Eve. We opted instead for a nearby town, Kanchanaburi, on the famous River Kwai.

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... will make a hard man humble. Or was it, one sick traveler will cause you to check into a swanky hotel to recover? Wouldn't you know that my earliest memory of Bangkok comes from a pop-song from the eighties? Now, for the life of me, I can't remember if it was Falco or Taco that sang the song referenced above. Taco sang the song "Puttin' on the Ritz," but Susanne thinks that's completely different. (See Note Below)

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Rewind for a moment back to Borneo, where Mike and I practiced our body-surfing skills in the warm South China Sea at Damai Beach. It was one of those days where the waves were great, each set bigger than the last. I’m a pretty good swimmer; I took Red Cross swimming lessons as a young child, and grew up at a lake home where swimming and waterskiing were the main activities.

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Koh Tarutao was a nice place to get away from it all for a few days. It is one of those slow-paced getaways where you see the same people every day, and prices were very reasonable. On Christmas Day, we decided we were ready to move onward to mainland Thailand, so we booked tickets on the daily speedboat from Tarutao to the port of Pak Bara.

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We had a good time on Tarutao. It was rustic, to say the least. The shower was ice cold and I suspect the bed had fleas. And by bed I mean the plywood they gave us to sleep on. It was made off weaved bamboo, but it felt more like cinder blocks. So, with a hard bed, no fan and ice cold water you would expect us to be bitter, right? On the contrary, it might have been the best part of our trip so far.

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We made our way into Thailand to visit Tarutao National Park, the filming location of the hit reality television show Survivor: Thailand. We had visions of Tribal Council, Immunity Challenges and 16 Castaways trying to eek out an existence from whatever they could fish out of the ocean or forage for in the jungle. We imagined there would be good insider information about the show, or remains left behind when the production crew left. This wasn’t the case at all. There was no sign that anything had even been there.

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Thailand is a constitutional monarchy. Approximately 95 percent of the population is Buddhist and ethnically Thai, yet Thailand is a multicultural country. Most Thais in the northeast are closely related to the Lao people both culturally and linguistically, although a few northeastern provinces have substantial Khmer-speaking populations. The majority of people in the far southern provinces are Muslims who speak a dialect of the Malay language, while there are numerous ethnically distinct hilltribes in the north which practice Protestantism and animism. Thailand is a popular travel destination, and tourist facilities and services are available throughout the country.

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