Flew from Cardiff via Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Once in KL transferred from KLIA to the Low Cost Carrier terminal for 50 ringitt by taxi to catch our AirAsia flight to Phuket for our land transfer to the Andamania (love the name) hotel on Kuk Kak beach Khao Lak.

We arrived in the dark to this unpretentious three star property directly on the beach. A low rise hotel of two and three storey blocks with attractive gardens leading down to the beach with a pool and sunbathing area directly by the sea. A great place to chill after the long journey. The beach is fairly undeveloped - the nearest hotel being the upscale J.W. Marriott, and just a handful of rustic beach bars. Unfortunatly as Mrs Sunbear had an ankle sprain we could not do much walking up the beach to visit the local restaurants, so mostly used the hotels beach bar eating with our toes in the sand.

We visited Khao Lak town the once to change some money, the usual Thai tourist area (minus the sleaze) with restaurants, shops, tailors - had a nice meal at the Phukhaolak restaurant. Another evening we went to the Hill Tribes restaurant, well reviewed on TA but just had an OK meal. Took a taxi one evening to Ko Kho Khao to visit a Thai lady we'ed made friends with last year. This year her beach restaurant had got electricity so was open in the evenings so we had a grand meal and met some cheerful Danes who were staying at the nearby KIB.

After a week transferred back to Phuket airport for our two hour flight to Chiang Mai and a four night stay at the Lanna Mantra hotel, beautifully sited on the Ping river a mile or two outside the centre of the city. Next morning took the hotel boat to the center of the city and explored on foot. We visited a shortlisted hotel - The Rim - just to check it out - very nice. Then on into the old city to explore. Its not so hot up North in the cool season so its easier to explore on foot than say Bangkok. Visited a couple of temples - Wat Phra Singh and Wat Chedi Luang. In the evening checked out the night market which seemed to have shrunk when compared to our previous visits, walked around ended up having a meal in the Imperial Mae Ping hotel of all places.

Next day we took a trip out to Lamphun and Lampang. Both towns have some spectacular temples and because our guide had been a Bhuddist monk for ten years we gained some insight into what was taking place in the temple when we visited. In the evening we realised that our hotel had a magical location for an evening meal down by the river, so the next two evenings evening meals were taken there.

Our final day in Chiang Mai was spent doing the typical handicraft and factory tour. We visited during the first day of the Umbrella festival in Bor Sang so extra events were taking place. After visiting the usual silk, celadon silver and umbrella outlets we went on to a food market and under the guidance of our taxi drive/guide tried some delicious street food and drink 60 baht well spent.

Leaving Chiang Mai we took a two and three quarter hour AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur. Not Thailand I know but we prefer to use KL given the recent Thai airport troubles, plus KLIA is so much nicer than Suvarnabhumi. Spent two nights at the excellent Royale Chulan hotel visiting Lake Gardens, Chinatown, Bukit Bintang and KLCC