The trip was organised to celebrate Valerie’s 60th birthday and to enable her to cuddle a tiger on the actual day. In this aim, we succeeded, although we did fail to find a bottle of champagne to celebrate in the evening. Valerie, Angie and I left Wellington and flew to Sydney, for a brief meeting with Nick and to collect Cory, who accompanied us to Thailand and Cambodia.

After a very brief stop in Bangkok we flew South, to the town of Krabi and the adjacent beach resort of Ao Nang. From there, we drove North to the Elephant Hills adventure resort. After three nights there, we returned to Ao Nang for a couple more nights before flying back to Bangkok. A three hour bus ride took us to Nam Tok on the River Kwai for three days, after which we returned to Bangkok and flew to Siem Reap in Cambodia for three days. Another flight back to Bangkok, where we stayed for two days before returning home.

All of the arrangements worked, almost like clockwork, the accommodation was good and I think we all enjoyed ourselves. My only criticism was that the food was a little bland, presumably toned down for the “benefit” of western tourists.