Happy 2009.

Since the end of 2008, I have begun a series of adventures that make me the envy of everyone I left behind in London…;)

Christmas was spent with the Seventy3 Chalets crew in Les Arcs, France, with good quality snow and a fantastic atmosphere for the whole week.
Amongst the other guests at the chalet were Justin Smith and his family. Justin runs www.orbital.co.uk and www.reefoto.com, based out of Bournemouth. As soon as we both saw our respective iPhones, the peace was ruined with cries of “but i cant get the hex-password to work”…

Les Arcs

Following Christmas, New Year was spent relaxing up north in Beadnell for a week before heading back to London to fly to Singapore. We collected a rabble of straglers and convoyed up the A1 for a week of beaches, booze and laziness. Ideal.

Beadnell Bay

On January 7th, it was off to Heathrow bags in-tow and tickets not-in-hand.

We arrived in Singapore a mere 10 hours later, greeted by Pete. Having been there only twenty minutes, he told us that his work there had come to an end and that we was heading back to the UK with his wife very soon. 4 days after we left him, he was back in Somerset. Thanks for hosting us guys ! and sorry your adventure was so short-lived.

Pete, Laura and the original Singapore Sling...

From Singapore we left to Bangkok on January 10th. This is where the fun really starts, no-one meeting us at the airport, a foreign country albeit a well-trodden route.

Bangkok is an assault on the senses, furiously busy, horrendously polluted and eye-catching from the second you arrive.
We decided to spend one night in town before catching a flight to the east coast islands the next day.
Now, many of you many know that I have a penchant for Thai Green Curry, thus the evening immediately became all about food, especially since the city was in enforced prohibition for the next two days due to the upcoming national elections.

Tuc tuc through Bangkok from swinhoe on Vimeo.

We walked about for a bit, catching the sights before riding across town to an night bazzar where we could cruise the shops, eat curry and have our feet massaged by lady-boys.

We followed the massages with an evening of Thai kick-boxing, before heading off into the night once again three-wheels away from a grimey-tarmac-based-death.

The islands lay ahead…  more to follow.