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As I sit here at Samui Airport about to leave Thailand for my next and final stop on the trip, I’m going to put some other photos that didn’t make the cut earlier. At least I don’t think they did…

View from my Bangkok hotel. You get a feel for the poor air quality in the city and its surroundings.

A Bangkok klong, or canal. Bangkok was once known as the Venice of the East.

Buddhist shrines at the beginning of the road up to the Don Mueang waterfalls, Samui.

Next, two views from the south end of Chaweng beach.

Later that day I went off and played mini “football golf” – very badly.

I think I missed that putt as well.

To sign-off with, the beginning of yesterday’s boat trip to Ang Thong…

…and the stunning climax, at Songpeenong

Well, all good things have to come to an end and this has certainly been one. But how will the next leg of my journey match up? And where is it?

(Clue, I’ve told some of you already)

Tell you what. Let’s go speedboating!

The Ang Thong archipelago is made up of forty or so tiny islands to the north-west of Koh Samui. Thailand has actually designated it a National Marine Park to preserve the environment around these beautiful limestone-heavy outcrops. That doesn’t stop us lot coming over in our droves; it’s probably Samui’s real must-see attraction.

They’re about 30 miles from the northern jetties of the main island so the day tours go in speedboats and take about an hour to get there. Unfortunately today was rather windy and cloudy so I spent most of the bumpy ride sitting down and sneaking out a photo here and there.

After a short snorkel at our first stop, where even I saw some fish, we sailed on to

That’s a nice piece of longtail boat there, but it’s not what Mae Koh is known for. Mae Koh has a blue lagoon.

There are stairways up to the viewing point but they’re vertiginous and busy, still the views on the way sort of make up for it

If you were a stretch of coral in these parts around 30 million years ago, you were in for a nasty geological shock. The sea floor was uplifted and you and your coral mates were about to be turned into limestone rock over the next countless millennia. Limestone is porous and erodes easily, and the Ang Thong islands were formed as rock walls broke up or collapsed altogether. And in one case we got a lagoon, similar to the lagoons and underground cenotes of the Yucatan in Mexico.

And here it is.

Now all I had to do was get down. Not easy on steep, narrow stairwells where some tourists saw nothing wrong in having their group photos taken in the stairwell itself and had a go at you in Chinese if you dared steadied yourself on the rail close to them.

Ah yes, the crowds. Mae Koh is really a small beach and a couple of steep trails, but masses of tour boats converge on it and there’s nowhere else for everyone to go. The result is organised chaos on the beach which gets quite scary on the stairs. It’s impossible to get the sense of the remoteness and stillness of the place with all the hubbub going on. But I suppose l, tourist, am as much to blame as anyone else, in fact there’s probably another travel blogger having a go at me right now. In Chinese.

I got down and we speeded off to our lunch stop.

Ko Wua Talap and Ko Paluay are the only two inhabited islands in the group. One of them has a population of 500 and their energy is supplied by a windmill. That’s where the group had lunch. Whichever it was, it provided great views across the sea.

On the far horizon, the Thai mainland.

This is not a seaview.

This is.

The sun started to break through as we headed to our final stop, R+R and kayaking Songpeenong beach on Ko Paluay, a microscopic secluded inlet with a real desert island feel.

I fancied the kayaking, but this was open-water kayaking and the sea was by now quite rough. I asked to turn back before we passed the small headland; my skills just weren’t up to it.

So R+R it was then. If you take a look at the photo above, you’re seeing a third of the stalls on the beach. One of them is basically a fridge with no beer.

The view from the toilet.

A nice place to sit down, I thought.

Then I went down to the beach, turned right and waded along for a couple of minutes…

So when you call the travel agent later today, remember it’s Song-pee-nong beach, Ko Paluay, Ang Thong, Koh Samui.

There was no topping that, so it was back on the boat for Samui. The water was by now quite tricky and there were a couple of heavy showers on the way back, but I’d had such a good day I didn’t really mind at all!

Thanks to Insea tours, from whom I receive no commission.

Everyone made it down.

Our next stop was the small Buddhist temple of Wat Khunaram.

One of its most revered monks was Luang Pho Daeng, who after raising a family returned to the monastery in his fifties and remained a monk for thirty years, until his death in 1972.

Buddhists are usually cremated, but Luang Pho Daeng stipulated that his body be kept on display in a seated position after his death (which apparently he also predicted). And lo! and behold, his body has somehow been mummified and has remained un-decomposed in that glass case for going on for half a century.

He didn’t die in sunglasses; they’re there to stop people being perturbed by the empty eye sockets.

After that, time for lunch.

We turn north and ascend into Samui’s central highlands. Afterwards, it’s around the corner to another Buddhist site, Tarnim Magic Garden.

The local who owned the site decided, out of religious duty, to fill it with little pixie-ish Buddhas and weird tiny temples.

Delightful place, Tarnim Magic Garden. Not to be confused with Puff the Magic Dragon…

…which I heard a local Chaweng group give a decent rendition of in a restaurant on Wednesday.

It’s now time to come down from the highlands…

…but that means nearly an hour of driving on steep, twisty track, mostly no tarmac and sometimes deeply rutted, making for one hell of a ride!

On the way we pass a small rubber plantation.

Rubber dries quickly in the tropical heat, so the family that farm here have to do their tapping before the sun rises. In fact they start at 3am, each morning.

Sobering.

On we go now, down and down until we get back on the main roads and onto our final site, the Big Buddha.

Phuket also has its Big Buddha, so maybe it’s a thing on big tourist destination islands here. But Samui’s big statue seems to have been built in a temple with a grave site dedicated to the remains of small children.

It may be a sad way to end what was a really fun day out, but I like to think that this shiny Buddha is there to cheer the poor little blighters up.

As I hope this blog is doing for you.

Organised by Mr Ung’s Magical Safari Tours, for which I receive no commission.

Today we get off the beach for a day and join a 4×4 off-road tour of most of Samui’s attractions. Some will be delightful, some mysterious, and – be warned! – things get a little graphic from time to time.

So hold on tight!

Heading south out of Chaweng, there’s a chance to grab a view of the beach we looked at yesterday…

Our first stop are the so-called Grandfather and Grandmother rocks. The story is that many years ago an old couple sailed away to sort out the betrothal of their son. Their boat unfortunately got into trouble, they tried to swim to shore, but the sea was too much for them.

As they died, they became rocks, to make it absolutely clear to all what their intentions were when making the journey. A rather moving and charming story, you may think. Here’s Grandfather Rock.

Lovely.

The old man’s still got it.

I didn’t quite get all the, err, way, to see the other one but there were some other rocks around that were actually more picturesque.

When I got to Grandmother rock, basically a long cleft running along a flat rock…

…I wasn’t able to get into position to snap the hole where the cleft narrows…you get the picture.

From there, we headed inland and towards the hills, and fetched up at Na Mueang waterfall.

The second one is a way above the first one and you shouldn’t be stupid in how you try to get to it.

Avoid rock climbing by using the official path…

At the end of all that, ahem, rock climbing is a small but pleasant enough mountain waterfall.

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A view back down the valley…

…but will I get back down it! Back down the rocks safely? Where does our adventure lead us? Second post coming up soon – and there is a dead body!

Well I didn’t make to Wat Arun for the sunrise on Wednesday. Never mind. But what else did you expect…

Later that day I flew down to Ko Samui for six nights, and now we find ourselves on Chaweng beach, its biggest town and hottest nightspot, round the corner from the airport. The narrow high street is crammed with bars, restaurants, beach clubs, more bars, more beach clubs, and every now and then through it goes a convoy of pickups advertising the latest club event or the upcoming Thai boxing night – not just any Muay Thai night but The BEST of The BEST!

But you don’t want to hear about any of that do you. You’re just here for the beach pics, right? Here they are.

Leaving so soon guys?

The tiny islet of Ko Mat Lang.

There’s more to Samui than Chaweng, and even more islands to pop over. Tomorrow we’ll see more of Samui, but now it’s happy hour! Cheers!

Bangkok is a huge, pulsating megalopolis bursting with traffic, fumes, people, energy. Any opportunity to shut out the noise for a while should be taken and cherished.

Lumphini Park, in the southwest of the city centre, was created by King Rama VI of (then called) Siam in the 1920s.

That’s him there.

It’s not very big, but like all such parks you don’t have to go too far before the sound of the roads subsided and…everything…just…chills…

I for one was grateful. These were taken on the Tuesday after the Monday night before.

Time to head back into the city…

…and its frantic mix of South-East Asian tradition, and the very now.

Monday, after Wat Arun, further up along the Thonburi bank.

Bangkok’s elevated BTS Skytrain metro is a world-class public transport system that rivals anything we have in Britain.

The normal overground railway, isn’t.

This is Thonburi station, Bangkok’s second terminus. I think it’s rather more charming than the BTS.

One of the great attractions of Bangkok is seeing its breakneck modernisation sit next door to the ramshackle older world – sprawling clumps of achingly hip skyscrapers (there are lots of clumps) towering over faded shopfronts, Dickensian-dark workshops and corrugated shacks.

In the distance, not really a Bangkok-style clump, more of a freckle.

Ok.

So here’s my new blog, and we’re going to be covering my return trip to South East Asia.

I was hoping to push something out yesterday (Monday) but got a little delayed. More later.

Anyway…

So here we are in Bangkok, hot, smoggy, stunning Bangkok, and we’re on the best place to be on a steamy, sticky day – the river.

Where are we going? To one of Bangkok’s essential sights, the Grand Palace, and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

Sounds exotic. However half the world thinks so as well, and I got there to find the place rammed with visitors. Not the best place to be standing around when it’s hot. (As we’ll see, my plans are subject to revision and even cancellation). So, it was over the river to something you may recognise…

Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn, used to house the Emerald Buddha (which we’re not seeing of course) before the capital was moved to the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya river in the 18th century.

In the 19th century the king had the spires done up with porcelain and coloured glass inlays. Last time I came they were under scaffold, but the renovators have been and gone and a splendid job they made of it.

Temple of the Dawn? The panels are highly reflective and the whole thing turns golden in the light of sunrise, and at sunset. They don’t look too shabby at midday either.

I’m hoping to come again tomorrow morning.

This western bank of the river is actually the Thonburi side. I hadn’t been here before and I fancied a look so got on the tourist boat and headed upstream to the train station – pictures later.

So that was that, and it was back down the river to my hotel.

Which isn’t one of these.

Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand, is 70 km away and its fabulous ruins and streets are a must-see. It was one of the reasons I came back to Bangkok and I’d lined it up for today, Tuesday.

However I hooked up with some other travellers around the famous Khan San Road last night – and got to bed at five. I’m writing this blog post at ten to two in the afternoon, still in bed. This is my last day in Bangkok. Ayutthaya will have to wait.

So I’m going to have to come back again!