The royal palace and temple Buildings Bangkok.

A bonsai gardener.

Some uniformed visitors.

And their shoes.

Resting some weary feet.

Moving on from Koh Tao island.

We picked up some maybe risky food from a local market when we landed back on the mainland in Chumphon. Because of complicated bottle deposit laws, most people prefer to have their soda poured into a plastic bag with a straw. A street dog gladly finished off our bones.

The market.

We arrived early in the morning at Kao San road market. But got a room okay.

Our neighbourhood in Bangkok.

A great backstreet noodle place.

The usual Thai condiments.

Meanwhile back in Thailand...

Let us get caught up on some of the old photos.

This was our first hotel room, at the Tropicana Beach resort on Koh Tao island. Lovely views from the balconies on both sides.

A very entertaining pancake making guy. Lots of banging and juggling

The view from the room.

Somebody is very happy to have her Pad Thai.

The hotel garden. We had a nice massage out here one evening.

A small shrine in the hotel garden. These can be found all over the place in Thailand.

Food poisoning and earthquakes.

We are in Kamakura, Japan now. Just survived a 5.5 earthquake. The biggest one that Kiyomi and her Mom have ever experienced.

Michael is still recovering from the food poisoning he got, presumably from the Airline food on the flight from Delhi to Tokyo. Well, it had a hair in it, should have been a warning. Apart from that, it was probably the worst airline food either of us have ever had. There was a rather interesting first course that seemed to be made of dried rice and wood.

But we are both fine, and safe.

Sleeping tonight on the living room floor, as another quake has been warned...

Safely arrived in Nepal.

The discount Indian airline was quite okay, despite the filthy fork provided for the in-flight meal. Fortunately we spotted it before we put it in our mouths.

Nepal is a lovely friendly place, very kind gentle people.

We ate Momos last night, very delicious little pasta dumplings with Buffalo meat inside. It's Tibetan food. Very nice Tibetan people.

It's normal in Nepal to have 16 hour power-cuts. So we had a nice romantic evening in our hotel by candle-light. We fell asleep early and slept for 12 hours, we didn't sleep so much in India, it was long overdue.

We are suffering a little bit because of the bad air quality in north India, but we are feeling quite proud that we made it through the country without any intestinal problems. Better than last time for Michael.

Off to Durbar Square this afternoon. An amazing complex of temples and markets.

Where the laws of nature no longer apply. Varanasi part 2.

Just a short note about something quite interesting we saw on our last evening in Varanasi.

We were returning to our wonderful colourful guest house after sunset, along the Ganges river, having observed the funeral burnings on the ghats when we looked down and thought, 'ooh that doggy is enjoying a lovely big bone'.

Upon closer inspection, we noticed that the big bone was the bandaged ankle and foot of a human.

It's that kind of place, Varanasi.

Little bit shocked.....

Greetings from the bottom of the sea.

Just checking out the new waterproof camera bag. Seems to be working fine.

Snorkels seem to be fitting fine. Don't we look cute?

We had a whole day, boating around Koh Tao island, stopping off at various dive sites for a bit of snorkelling. Michael spotted a small shark, which fortunately was more frightened than he was. Sorry, no photo of that one.

We stopped off at this private island, and hiked up to a hill top. The water was a beautiful clear blue.

This was in a dive spot called Japanese Garden.

Amazing flower...... or animal....

Koh Tao island.