Stars in their eyes

As usual the pictures are out of order.
Firstly, a massive thank you to Paul Nicholson of Arco for the IT support. We had what we thought was a major problem with the laptop. A quick phone call to Paul and he was able to sort it for us, even with Garry operating the key board - thanks Paul. (Can you tell us how to get the pictures in order?).
The story so far is we travelled from Chaing Mai on a day trip to the far North of Thailand, then back to Bangkok for a couple of days. After recuperating there, we took an overnight train (managed to get off at the right stop this time) and boat to Ko Samui.
We have no photographs but on the train we met a lovely french couple who enjoyed a drink and wouldn't stop talking and we all stayed up far too late for the 5.30 am wake up the following day.

This is the marble temple built by a famous Thai artist (we cannot remember his name). So far he has spent 200 million baht of his own money on the temple and wants to continue development.
This was on the way to the North (the Golden Triangle). Very hot (and smelly) springs.
Whilst at the Golden triangle (ie where Thailand, Laos and Burma meet), we nipped across the Maekong river to Laos and sampled snake whisky. Garry is drinking it in a oner, but needed a beer to recover.

This is Alison sampling the snake whisky. Looks like she's enjoying it! Believe it or not, it really didn't taste that bad!
If you can zoom in on this picture, you'll see snakes, scorpions and tiger privates inside the whisky bottles. This is the stuff we sampled! (if you want to know how to zoom in, ask Carolyn as she has done it before. Carolyn maybe you could put on a comment explaining how to do it?!)
This is the Golden Triangle. Thailand is in the foreground, the building with the red roof is a casino in Burma and on the right hand shore is Laos. It is called the "golden" triangle as you can pan for gold on the Laos side of the river. The Maekong flows from China into Cambodia and doesn't enter Thailand but forms a natural border.
This is a golden temple at the marble temple (see notes above!)

Again if you can zoom in, check out the size of this prawn. There is lots of lovely looking seafood here, but we haven't tried it yet.

This is our lovely landlady at our favourite digs so far. She is a champion connect 4 player and plays travellers for money!
This is the border entrance to Burma - you can just make out Union of Myonmar. The flags in the foreground are Thai and the red ones are Burmese - these were at half mast for obvious reasons.
This is at the Laos border.
This is a dog bear or at least that is what the locals call it. Cuddly or what?
In Ko Samui, there are quite a few shows and we just popped in to see what was happening. It was hilarious. A good show, really entertaing and we had a good laugh.

Here is Madonna. All the stars were there - Ricky Martin, Diana Ross, Three Degrees, Whitney Houston and Kylie. By the way - yes they are all men.

Zoom in on Kylie!
Whilst re charging our batteries in Bangkok, we visited a tourist attraction called Jim Thomson's House. Teak houses from the turn of the century which were the origins of his famous silk company. During his military career he worked for the secret service and there is some mystery about his unexplained disappearance . He went for a walk whilst on holiday in Malaysia and has not been seen since. The interesting thing is that he was aged 61 when he disappeared and Thai astrologists had warned him to be careful during his 61st year. The warning was based on some calculation based on his date and time of birth.
Back in Bangkok, this guy has a jewellery stall. He makes all the stuff himself and the money goes to an Aids charity. He is famous in Bangkok for his Johnny Depp impressions and makes regular TV appearances.
This was Alison's birthday night. Ovenight train from Chaing Mai to Bangkok with a bottle of Australian wine and a block of cheddar cheese - absolute heaven!
We cannot sign off without a note about Hull City. We were in Bangkok and could not find any TV coverage, but a kindly bar manager kept us up to date with the score from the Internet. Brilliant result and a bit of a fairy tale with Dean Windass scoring the goal that puts Hull City through to the Premier League.

We went back to the same bar the following night and watched the Monaco Grand Prix - another great result!