Bonjour Monsieur Scaramanga

  
  
  
 

"He has a poweful weapon. He charges a million a shot.
If you want to get rid of someone - the man with the golden gun!"

The song has been running though my head all week in anticipation... Ko Tapu, James Bond Island.  Cool!!!

The iconic island was hardly ours to explore alone though - access is through a full day's tour including kayaking through the karst caves to "secret" lakes in the middle of islands, a "cultural visit" to a village built on stilts (check out the floating soccer pitch!), and a cave temple overrun with monkeys.  Actually enjoyed the whole day, though I was initially suspicious of the heavily commercialised tour.

Mega cool pokey up rocks! Plus the James Bond theme tune is epic. Unfortunately the film doesn't live up to its location or the tune. 
The two of us had a mini canoe trip around the karst rocks and through narrow low entrances into caves which was fun. 

Similan Islands

  
  
  
  
  

The pictures say it all....

The hermits of Khao Lak beach

  
They don't call them hermit crabs for nothing.  The red one really didn't like any invasion of his privacy.  Sorry dude.

Bangkok

  
Milling about in the backpacker ghetto of Khao San Road seems like kind of a touchstone for both of us – it’s not exactly a nice place, but it’s a mutually understood quantity that we've both dealt with plenty of times before.  It’s chaotic, but it’s a familiar and easy chaos with top people-watching.  And it never seems to change. At all. For better or for worse...

One day we visited Terminal 21 in Sukhumvit, a large airport themed mall. Ty absolutely loathes anything to do with shopping (he is shopping phobic), but to his credit he spent the whole day in the mall and enjoyed it! Each floor is based on a different city and has themed bathrooms; London is designed as a tube station and on the London floor we got to see a Beatles tribute band.  How many people can say they had a day’s entertainment checking out themed lavs on each floor!