My mouth is on fire and I have no beer

It doesn't matter how good the Thai food is, you have to switch to club sandwiches and burgers every week or so, if only to let your lips have a break. No tummy troubles either. Still, we've had remarkably good food here on Koh Samui. The three flavours shrimp dish (sweet, sour and spicy) and the chicken with cashews are favourites but we've tried a dozen or more dishes, usually two shared per meal with rice and beer. Most meals have been on the beach or overlooking it. One lunch was on a boat when we did a tour to Angthong Marine National Park. Oddly, we went to the marine park to go hiking. While other people were kayaking (too hard on Bob's back) or snorkelling (Karen can't swim) we were climbing nasty slippery rock trails to great heights for the spectacular views. As usual, the photos will have to wait until we bring the wire connectors with us. Sorry. Our stay on Koh Samui stretched a week longer than we anticipated because of a bit of a miss-step - Bob left his ATM card in our Bangkok hotel's internet room, we think. The bank was quick to cancel it and send out a replacement, but the rush emergency delivery took nine days. Actually, the replacement card didn't work today but Karen's card worked so the cash-flow is fine. It was interesting to stay long-term in a short-term place as we made a lot of friends and soon saw them off. There was Rich and Bec from Brighton going to a wedding in New Zealand; Ian and Colleen from the Okanagan in B.C. who kindly used their rental car to haul us all over the island scouting out yoga studios and to see a mummified monk; and Simon and Jacqueline moving back to Australia from England and their friend Peter who seems to be able to meet them anywhere in the world if there's beer available. Hi to all of them. Hope you see this and leave a comment (Rich and Bec did already, keeners). Other than that our news is a little weak because all we've been doing is reading, playing pool and getting massages (every second day). Tomorrow we take a ferry to the island of Koh Phangan where most tourists will be hurting themselves at the Full Moon Party. We're going deep off-piste to a beach with no roads to it and no pier. We have to jump off the boat into the shallows. Guess we'll be packing our hiking boots and wearing our flipflops. This also means there may be no internet. This part of the world is developing rapidly so that may no longer be true. If you don't hear from us before March, don't worry, we've found an even cheaper beach paradise with no internet.

Now this feels like a travel adventure again

Strange delay getting to Bangkok. Our flight from Sydney was 18 hours late taking off because of the bad weather in London, where the plane originated. Not a big deal, though, because the airline put us up in an airport hotel and chitted us for dinner and breakfast. It's not like we were in a hurry. Probably saved a few bucks on the dining. Prices are brilliant here in Bangkok, and this is the expensive part of the country. We bought airline tickets to Ko Samui and fly on Wednesday. Cost about 5,200 baht which, let me think, works out to $150 one-way for both of us. See. Cheap. Can't wait to hit a beach cause we are badly in need of an ocean breeze. God it's humid here. It's 10 p.m. and we're still sweating. Can't complain though, it's not as crappy as Europe or North America. We're sending heat vibes to all our friends and family in our thoughts. We are definitely leaning towards the "lucky us, pinch me, I'm really in Bangkok" end of the "how's it going" scale. No question. We felt a little homesick in Australia because things kept reminding us of home. That's gone now. Nothing here reminds us of home, especially not the tall cockroaches. Not only are the cockroaches long, but they are TALL too. Yikes. We spent this afternoon (about 35 C) wandering around the Grand Palace, which is really a walled area of the city, sort of like Beijing's Forbidden City, but with many huge domes plated in gold. Many photos later and we were suffering from dehydration so for a late lunch we ordered two huge bottles of water and two huge bottles of beer, just to get started. Total bill for the meal and drinks was 461 baht or, let me think, $14. And that was the most touristy part of town. Our local street food, half a block from our hotel, is better food and cheaper. Yesterday we had hour-long foot massages for 250 baht a person or about $7. Equal parts relaxing and painful, and Bob had to go straight to bed afterwards. We might try it again tomorrow after we visit a few more Buddhas - standing, reclining and marble.

Keep those cards and letters coming

First off, we wanted to let everyone know how much your comments and greetings meant to us as we tried to get through the holiday social season without our friends and family. We kind of knew it would be hard. It was.

Back to the bloggy bit. We wrapped up Australia with a week in Sydney, mostly because we had to hit the Thai embassy, but also because we wanted to see the New Year's Eve fireworks at the Harbour Bridge. That was fun, if a bit weird. Sort of like one of those big all-day rock concerts - without the music. For us it was 12 hours of waiting around, drinking expensive beer and chatting with lots of other foreigners. I think most locals decided been-there-done-that and the crowd was tourists, just like us. All that waiting and spending $120 on beer seemed like a lot for 15 minutes of fireworks, but it was quite a spectacle. Our favourite bit was the hundreds of little rectangles of blue light underlining the splashy lightshow on the bridge as nearly everybody filmed it with a cellphone or camera. Us too. We'll post a photo if we hit a better internet cafe. Other than that big night out, a twisted ankle has forced us to take it a little easy in Sydney. However, we did manage a bit of sightseeing and ended up at the oldest pub in the city, Lord Nelson's Brewery Pub, where we tried many of their made-on-premises pints and got a little looped. We shared a table with a really nice bunch of Aussies - hi Steve, Steve, Steve*, Stephanie*, Sequel and their friends whose names we drank from our memory. (Actually, Karen might remember a few more names, but, unusually, Bob is writing this post alone while Karen rests her sore ankle.) When some of the Aussie gang first sat down half of them were named Steve so we just called them all Steve. Double-clinks to Steve and Steve. All in all, we're a bit down on big-city Australia (except for our drinking pals) because it's so much like big-city Canada. Bangkok will certainly be a change. Wish us luck.