We currently get so little free time these days that I’ve begun planning our only day of leisure to make sure we are still getting some fresh air, some exercise , doing something new and meeting friends.

Carey has returned to stay with us this week and after an early morning swim we headed to Chatuchak weekend market to explore the artwork and puppies there.

After a couple of hours we then headed to Suan Rot Fai Park and met up with my Thai couchsurfing friend Pom and her friend for a bike ride. The park is large and seems especially designed for cycling. Hiring bikes costs only 20-30 baht for the entire day and, although the brakes were a little unresponsive I can’t really complain for the nominal price we paid.

We cycled for about an hour then stopped by one of the lakes in the park to do some painting which was a nice novelty and in the evening we returned to a great Japanese cafe we found recently in our area.

This is the kind of Sunday I love having when we stay in Bangkok and I plan to return to Suan Rot Fai more often to run.

The full photo set is here.

Most people we known prefer now to stay in the road behind Khao Sarn which is called ‘Thannon Rambutree’. Rambutree has similar amenities for backpackers such as guesthouses, cheap cafes, travel agents and bookstores but it’s a lot quieter than Khao sarn and we much prefer it.

We had no real aim for the day but I really do love eating at ‘Oh My Cod’ restaurant as their large cooked breakfast is a real treat.

We spent a lot of the day just walking round the area, enjoying the fresher air than we get in central Bangkok. We were really looking for a nice park where we could sit and do some reading. Tik had coursebooks to get through and it’s been a long time that I’ve had much opportunity to get into a book myself.

We found a small park which attracted a group of dancers and performance artists so whilst we read our books we could keep an eye on some local entertainment too.

We enjoyed walking round Pra-A-tid Road which has a very European feel to it and some lovely looking cafes and shops.

After that we returned back to Khao Sarn road to eat some Israeli food at a large guesthouse at the end of the road and return home in the evening.

I’d seen videos of this park online and looked forward to how close we could get to the giraffes. The park itself was great value; 300 baht for westerners, 130 for Thais.

Outside the park we had the opportunity to play with an excitable lion cub and have a group photo with a pretty lethargic tiger.

The park itself was as I’d imagined it, animals so used to tourists that they stuck their heads right into the car.

I found the zebras a little aggressive. They constantly snarled and jumped at the giraffes in a bid to get into our windows.

Tik didn’t appreciate me shoving a carrot down her pants as the giraffes tongue invaded the car but I think the giraffe probably enjoyed himself.

A few seconds after this photo was taken mr camel decided he’d take a bite at my entire arm. Thankfully Tik had a medi-kit in the car to clean me up.

We have many more photos of the weekend here.

We chose a bank holiday weekend so a few guesthouses were booked up but we were lucky enough to find Sams Rafthouse which is along the river Kwai and not far from the infamous (and infamously dull) railway.

Although we were planning on only modest accommodation Tik was excited to be offered the VIP rafthouse with fully fitted bathroom. At 800 baht for the night this was very reasonable and the room was clean and well-maintained. We were looking forward to sitting outside on the floating patio and getting to know our new friends.

We sat outside on the porch, discussing life until late.

Tik and I went to see Gomorra at RCA’s House Cinema.

I’ve been craving a good Italian mafia movie since reading ‘The Godfather’ a few weeks ago.

I found Gomorra quite a hard movie to sit through. Cinematically it was great but it’s didn’t hold my interest as much as I thought it would have done and my attention wandered towards the end.

We are currently hosting Eddie, a lecturer from California and Teague from England. We were also joined by Patrick and Simone.

I’m a few hours away from being able to juggle but even after an hour with Eddie I’ve made a lot of progress. Tomorrow I’ll go out and buy my own balls to practice with.

The market is about 30 minutes away from our apartment, across the suspension bridge which goes outside of Bangkok. The market has quadrupled in size in the last year but luckily it’s still off the tourist map.

I am reluctant to call this a floating market because it’s really a market by a canal. Only a few vendors actually use boats.

Here’s a selection of photos taken during our two most recent visits.

More photos can be found here.

Stefan and Aileen are a similar age to us and we had a lot in common. Sadly, although they have been living in Bangkok for many years, we met them just a week before they relocated to the Philippines.

We were also jonied by their friends Arare and her partner (forgotten his name already, sorry). We began the night at the stylish ‘Face Bar’ in Sukumvit which is styled very much like a spa resort. They offer Japanese, Indian and Thai food.

After that we next went to Gazebo on Sukumvit Soi 1. Gazebo is a spacious rooftop bar with excellent live music.

Both places are reasonably expensive but come highly recommended.

Ayutthaya is a historic city that once operated as the capital of the country. It hosts a lot of temples and, having not been there for over 5 years I felt it was about time we revisited.

On the way we stopped at a local tourist village and park which had an aviary, aquarium, park and local handicrafts.

We found a very cheap room to stay in the heart of the city. The room was big enough for the three of us so we split the cost. That evening we visited a few temples at sunset and tried the local foods.

We returned to Bangkok on the Sunday, visiting a traditional handicraft market on our way back.

Lots more photos can be found here

There were about 50 people there and although we met some great people it wasn’t as friendly as our new years eve party.

I was really delighted to have reunited with May – an old colleague of mine from my teaching days.

We decided to take a lot of food with us and, you’ll see from the photos, as I spread the word about the virtues of Marmite on bread, Tik was ready with her camera to snap the consequent faces-of-discomfort.

View the rest of the photos here

It’s been getting gradually hotter here but today was the first day I actually noticed the heat becoming uncomfortable. Thank god we’ll be in Japan during the hottest part of the season.

When we get the chance we like to go for a bit of extra luxury and book premium seating. This time we didn’t have much choice as the premium theater hosted the next showing anyway.

It’s rare that we are able to take photos in the cinema but we got there early when there we no other people seated.

This is the premium seating at Central World Plaza’s cinema. Seats cost 700 baht each and you get to relax before the movie in their VIP lounge and (has we not completely stuffed ourselves at the buffet) we could have enjoyed complimentary snacks and drinks.

I don’t think this is the best cinema seating in Bangkok. At Siam Paragon I think the premium seats have massagers built into them, however it was nice to have these large, fully-reclining seats (with blankets) to endure probably the most boring over-hyped movie I’ve ever sat through.

We returned to Centara Grand on Sunday morning for their incredible brunch set and met up again with our friends Patrick and Simone.

We were there for 3 hours so, as you might imagine, by 3pm we were both struggling to breath.

This was our second huge buffet this weekend so I’m going to be hitting the running machines pretty hard this week.

Tik and I are big fans of the movie ‘Chicago’ so were really excited to learn that it was on in Bangkok at the Esplanade Theater.

As a Valentine’s day treat, we booked the best tickets available for the 2pm matinee showing.

We were joined by Patrick and his girlfriend Simone who’s only been in Bangkok a few weeks.

The show itself was fantastic and I remember there were scenes that literally had me in tears of laughter. The music, staging and casting was without fault and I’m sorely tempted to book to see it again before it ends on the 22nd.

We’ve not seen Patrick since December so it was also really great to catch up and we went for dinner and a coffee after the meal to catch up.

To end the perfect day Tik and I booked into the Sofitel hotel nearby as one of her credit-card promotions entitled us to a free night.

Amelia and Phillipe, our current Couchsurfing guests, treated us to an excellent brunch set at one of my favorite French restaurants – Crepes and Co.

Great company, great food, great atmosphere and the first of many activities we’d planned for Valentine’s weekend.

- Philippe and Amelia, a really lovely couple from Switzerland who’re traveling the world and are on their way to India.

- Alex, the guy we met in Kanchenaburi last week who’s on his way to the Philippines.

- Toon, Tik’s sister who came to Bangkok for a meeting.

We had a few other friends in Bangkok as well so took the opportunity to invite everybody over for dinner and drinks.

We ate at a great restaurant down the road called Fah Sai which serves Thai food.

Phillipe and Amelia has spent time with an American called Steve who joined us along with Jen and Matt, a couple who’ve stayed with us twice already but unfortunately third time around we didn’t have room to accommodate them.

Coincidentally it was also our friend Stella’s birthday. Stella is the mum of David – the friend I play tennis with every morning. David and his family live upstairs from us. They were unable to join us for dinner but came to our room afterwards with all the family – including Jessica, their 2-year old daughter, who – after a lot of coaxing finally managed to play my harmonica.

In all there were about 12 of us who sat talking and relaxing until just after midnight. It was a great start to another fun-packed weekend.

All photos are here.

Tik won us a holiday this weekend.

The competition was organized by Wave FM, An English-language radio station for Bangkok (88 FM if you’re interested) and was called “Sailing to Freedom“.

The competition was partly sponsored by KTC bank and Twinnings Tea. Although 34 places were awarded to Wave FM listeners, Tik actually won our prize through KTC World Community instead.

She was shortlisted after answering some questions and, just before the new year, received a call from KTC to ask her some questions related to the kind of travel she likes. KTC confirmed the following morning that we’d won.

Our prize was 2 days in Pattaya where we’d charter a yacht, learn how to sail it and stay at the Hard Rock Hotel. Neither Tik nor I have ever sailed before so we’d been looking forward to the holiday for the past few weeks – without really knowing any more details.

We met the organizers and fellow winners outside Big C shopping mall in Ekkamai at 7:30 Saturday morning and got the coach directly to Ocean Marina Yacht Club in Jontiem – the town adjacent Pattaya, arriving in time for a buffet lunch.

After lunch we were introduced to our instructors. These were friends of Gary Baguley of Blue Wave. Gary was responsible for the teaching and safety of our group.

There were four people to a yacht with one instructor. Our instructor was Nick, an English guy who runs a management training company in Bangkok but sails as a hobby. I’m not sure if he was impressed when the Thai MC broke from her introduction, muttered something in Thai, then turned to him to explain she was joking to the audience about the size of his nose.

After lunch we walked to our yachts.

I’d seriously misjudged what kind of yacht we’d be sailing on. We walked past a handful of luxury yachts at the harbor and I’d kind of assumed that we’d be enjoying a leisure cruise on one of those. I’d expected our four-man team to comprise of a driver who pressed a few buttons and turned the wheel, perhaps one or two people organizing the champagne and caviar, and perhaps a final team member to work on their sun tan.

In reality, we were to brave the world of racing yachts.

We were paired up couple of a similar age to us. P’Yee is an engineer, married to his wife P’Gik, an accountant.

Nick took us to our yacht and explained the basic terminology and sailing concepts to us before we set sail.

There’s a lot of jargon involved but nothing especially difficult to remember. Apparently phrases such as “We’re going the wrong bloody way” and “Bloody hell, the motors broken” are quite specialist terms, used only with this sole voyage.

Once we got out of the bay, our first task was to raise the sails. This was a team effort with Yee releasing the sail and I fed it through the mast.

Apparently the wind was more severe than expected. Gary explained to us afterwards that 14 knots is a good wind speed to introduce us to sailing, I’ve found websites today suggesting 10 knots is perfect but we braved winds of 18 knots which made for quite a rocky journey.

We sailed for about 3 hours. My main responsibility was to control the sail, a very responsible job that probably should have been given to a responsible person with a greater intuitive sense of whether we were balanced or not, but I did get the hang of it and kept my crew members out of the water.

I particularly enjoyed turning the yacht which entailed stuble-roll-flipping myself from one side of the boat to the other, avoiding the swinging metal boom and regaining control of the sails as quickly as possible. We did that a lot and it got easier each time.

Yee was responsible for controlling the rudder and had the frustrating job of trying to remove and insert the motor once we were out of (and returning to) the harbor. Apparently our yacht had faults which didn’t seem to phase the crew, but it certainly upset Nick.

There was very few moments where we could actually relax. The wind and waves meant we fought to keep balance much of the time. IN spite of this I think we all felt a lot more comfortable after the first 90 minutes.

Apparently half of the participants came down with motion sickness, or, as our MC euphemistically put it – “fed the fishes“. Tik and Yee suffered but, to their credit, recovered and continued to participate.

Our faulty motor put a spanner in the works and we actually got toed back to land. It was a really exhilarating three hours, one I would willingly repeat. I was pleased that my collarbone injury hadn’t hampered me at all (although Yee had to work the mast because I’m sure I would have struggled).

It seems that most people we spoke with afterwards also enjoyed their experience (nobody admitted to me that they’d been sick though) but, I’d say that most of us considered it a once-in-a-lifetime experience that we can cross off our list of things to try but probably won’t return to.

Casually enquiring about pricing, I was surprised that a weekend of training is actually not that expensive. A 2-day course is only 8,000 baht so is in reach of most westerners as a casual hobby.

We were all pretty tired and were ferried to the Hard Rock Hotel, Pattaya before the evening’s events.

I was very impressed with the hotel. I’d always dismissed it as a bit of a gimmick yet I really enjoyed the unique touches they’ve added that distinguish it from other hotels.

The staff were very friendly, happy to start a conversation as they passed. Despite all the concern about the Thai tourist industry and low occupancy rates the hotel seemed very active but not noisy in any way. The Hard Rock Pattaya have a buy-one-night-get-one-free offer open to both Thais and expats. With typical rooms at only 1,800 this is a realy bargain.

Our room was small but certainly adequate – although I’m not sure why it comes furnished as standard with two separate double beds.

They had a big fat TV mounted on the walls with a custom entertainment system you could navigate through using a wireless keyboard. Not especially useful but, we at least used it to play some music.

N.B. this is a stock photo but our room was very similar.

Twinnings – one of the event sponsors, left us two comprehensive tea sets in the room which I really appreciated and I will definitely make use of.

We certainly enjoyed their deep bath and, after 90 minutes of quiet time, we met everybody by the pool for dinner and a party.

The party had a blue-and-white theme and we were informed there’d be a competition for the most stylishly dressed people.

It was nice that the meal was a comprehensive buffet, and whilst we had an MC and speeches on stage, we could actually sit quietly and talk to our new friends.

I won the best dressed competition. This was more due to a lack of competition than much effort on my part. Tik deserves most of the credit though for buying me the only new clothes I’ve had in two years, and in making sure my fly was done up when I collected my prize.

I’ve won a Hard Rock T-Shirt, the latest Natalie Bedingfield album (perhaps the only original CD I’ve ever owned in Thailand) and a complimentary voucher for a gym in Bangkok.

We really enjoyed the evening but chose not to extend the night by going to the Hard Rock foam party later on. Instead we collapsed into bed about 11 O’ Clock.

This morning we enjoyed the hotel’s buffet breakfast, checked out at 10:30, boarded the coach and returned to Bangkok for about 3pm.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We were extremely impressed by the organization of the entire weekend. We experienced something we’d never had considered doing ourselves, we’ve enjoyed a lovely hotel, met some really great people and we spent less than 700 baht (300 baht of this my Starbucks breakfast on Saturday).

The event organizers didn’t push us into tedious marketing photos or force us to party until dawn, instead they were very considerate in giving us only light entertainment at night.

There will be many more photos to add in the coming fortnight. We’ll be getting them from both KTC and from Wave FM.

In the meantime all current photos are here.

Tik and I were lucky enough to be treated to dinner by our friend Chris and Gai.

We had Italian food at Angelini Restaurant (warning this website plays music and won’t let you turn it off! – stupid designers) in the Shangri-la hotel.

Thanks Chris, and good luck to you both for your coming year of adventures.

For reasons no longer apparent, I decided that, rather then run down a steep hill, I’d dive head-first down it instead. It’s been about a year since I last attended Aikido, and I have fond memories of those controlled rolls we used to practice. My first roll went exactly to plan and made for a wonderful photo opportunity (see above), the consequent roll didn’t go quite to plan and the picture below quite lucidly expresses the exact moment that my body said to my brain – ‘whoops!’.

… About 2 minutes later the pain arrived. In the interval I managed to hold some dignity and posed regally for a few more photos …

I then nearly passed out. Suddenly everything in my field of vision burst into intense color. Everything blurred but I remember clearly that every blade of grass was almost neon to me. Fully in control but hosting a body of incredibly sharp pain, I conceded that perhaps I should head to hospital. A quick X-ray confirmed I’d fractured my shoulder broken my collarbone. Apparently I shouldn’t take a shower for at least another week and should wear a support band that keeps me permanently in a full-nelson for the next two months.

The hospital did a good job patching me up. In all I spent just 600 baht (about $17) at the hospital and was in and out within 30 minutes. The day was still young and, rather than let my stupidity get the better of me I endeavored to do far more than the doctor felt I should. Throughout the day my arm got a little more flexible, I did manage a shower, and one day later I’m not really suffering. It’ll be a while before I’m back to full health but I plan to be back at the gym and playing tennis in a few more days. I’m grateful that for the last month I’ve been doing a lot of push-ups so my shoulders were a lot stronger than they’ve ever been but, you’ll see a lot more photos of me with my head above my body in future.

We made the most of CouchSurfing this new year and joined up for our first group event.

We were to meet in Charley Brown’s Mexican restaurant on Sukumvit 11. They had a great promotion where, for 1,000 baht we were served a refillable variety of Mexican snacks and could order any drink on the menu except for Corona.

We invited P’A to join us and also one of Tik’s new colleagues Vivek. As we’d not actually eaten all day Tik and I were first to make use of the offer and we arrived about 30 minutes before anybody else.

Between 6 and 10:30 more people rolled in, to make a total of about 15 people. I thoroughly enjoyed the Sangria, even more-so when I learnt it was included in our 1,000 baht package.

We spent most of the time talking to new friends and learning about their life and travels.

The group divided at 11pm. Most went to Central World Plaza for the new year countdown. Tik, P’A, Vivek, Nicky, Marcello and I headed to Tapas Bar in Silom soi 4.

We danced there from 11:30 until about 1:30 and, pretty much missing any dramatic countdown during the dancing. It was busy but we did manage to find some space to dance.

Tik and I left about 1:30 and took refuge at Coffee World round the corner. By a stroke of luck as we sat down, pretty much all the other Couchsurfers arrived there too. P’A came to join us there and we spent the last hour of our night out talking and recovering from the exertion.

We were looking forward to our first CouchSurfing event. I was looking forward to mixing with new people and Tik was excited about the unlimited food buffet. We’ve made some great new friends and, although we’re both heading to Khao Yai tomorrow for a few days, once we’re back in Bangkok hopefully some of them will come stay with us.

Based on our first few hours of 2009, this year is certain to be the best year ever.

Click here to see our photos