It's great to be back in Khao Lak, it's as stunning as we remember it to be and it's nice to revisit some of our favourite spots. Last time we were here it was as part of a kind of "help the aged" project where families will pay half your holiday costs if you would "please...please for the love of god take these old gits with you"

Three days in we felt we should have held out for the full cost of the holiday.......after a week we wanted our mortgage paid off as well... Still it wasn't all bad news despite feeling as if we'd spent two weeks with Hinge and Bracket, my sister is an ideal "Drugs Mule".

Weighing in at around 3 stone soaking wet she looks a bit like Katherine Hepburn in "On Golden Pond" and she can witter on about purple sprouting brocoli in such a way that the most viscious border guard will lapse into a coma half way through snapping on the old surgical gloves...

"It's purple John, But, it's brocoli, isn't it Pete? It sprouts purple but, it's still brocoli,....do you see? so it's like a brocoli, only purple.....when it sprouts, ........or is it always purple? even when it's not sprouting? Is it always purple Pete? or just when it's sprouting, or is it always brocoli" When it's not sprouting Pete, is it still brocoli? or is it sprouting? Anyway it's called sprouting brocoli.............Purple".

Nothing but nothing could have prepared us for the Songkran festivities. We'd had a read about it and so knew water was involved but bloody hell! It was utter mayhem. A truck load of us have signed up to be ferried into town, waiting in reception the typicaly shy Thai girls on the staff approach with the usual prayer like gesture, hands clenched as if in prayer, a tiny courtesy, "sawasdi Ka"...."Happy songkran"...giggling, they tip the tiniest bit of water down the kneck of your shirt....

We all bundle into a open sided flat bed 3 tonner "Happy songkran" as another, tiny dribble, of water goes down the back,....... to a chorus of giggles.

The truck pulls forward maybe 3 metres, stops, two gardeners spend the next 4 minutes playing a hose over us all!!

Khao Lak is so wonderful we've dropped anchor here for a full week. Up at 7am we're swimming in mirror flat tepid ocean on a desrted beach before wandering in for brekky. The temperature is routinely in the mid 30s and around 7:30 we get a cloud burst that sends streams of water through the ram shackle rooves of most of the restaurants here. Mostly family run places the food is uniformly excellent and you can still get a good meal for both of us with a couple of beers for less than 8 quid. Along the pathway which is lined with fir trees and palms the undergrowth at night is full of fire flys, the sea is lit by the obligatory squid fishing fleet, we're both lit by Singha beers ........

Our faithful motor has seen us through thick and thin, today we've packed up bags for a trip to another local beach for a spot of lunch. Car won't start. In fairness a repair guy is here in 20 minutes, he starts the car with jump leads gets back in his car and is about to drive off.....

"Hang on!! what about tomorrow"

It's clearly a concept he can't cope with and we spend the next two hours with 5 of the staff on reception, two car mechanics and the driver of the hotel truck trying to establish why the f*ck no one brought a new car battery with them and what we do when later today or tomorrow morning the car doesn't start again! I can't begin to explain how complex this gets as we use up to 5 phones to try to get someone to understand what we need to happen.

Turns out they claim the entire kingdom of Siam can't rustle up a battery and tomorrow we'll get a new car.

I'm killing time writing the blog up to date. Kim is checking our onward travel. She has found............ A Queen bed in "The Aquarius Gay Guest House and Sauna" 34 quid for two nights inc breakfast!! What could go wrong??

Ten years ago Kim and I travelled across India by trains. We were in Goa for a little R&R following a couple of 36 hour train journeys which we had shared with a few million cockroaches and an insufficient number of mice to catch and eat them. (The cockroaches) The hotel had a nice pool which looked cool and inviting in the remorseless heat and humidity of Goa. There was one bloke in the pool slowly sculling up and down so we approached the edge preparing to dive in and doubtless knock ourselves unconscious on the pool bottom.

"oh look" says Kim pointing into the water.

There is a beautiful bright green tree frog in the water.

"oh look says kim there's a frog in the pool" The occupant of the pool stands up

"Oh yes you In-glish are zo Vare-vare foon-ay........ zer is a frog in the pool, you are making zee joke on me eh?"

And so we came to meet and fall in love with Frenchie. He was travelling around India trying to get Indian hotels to sell fine wines, preferably the fine wines that Frenchie produced from his vineyard in France. We spent a couple of days and evenings tuk-tuking up and down that part of te Goa coast while Frenchie took his samples into the local hotels and then help him celebrate or commiserate over some tiger beers and a curry.

Frenchie was a keen photographer and Frenchies light comes along about 5 minutes after the sunsets and lasts for 10-15 minutes. In places like India and here in S.E. Asia or I guess anywhere the sun is particularly strong (We've seen it in Spain and Greece) the air virtually turns a warm pink/red colour which lights anything and anybody beautifully.