After departure from the idilic island, regret was seeping out of every pore of my being. I literally felt sick, that’s awful dramatic, and we all know it was the suspicious Thai road snacks/rice sausage that really did me in.

By the time we shuffled onto some horrendous princess death boat I was about ready to die. Far too long on a sweltering hot slower/older vessel, plus terrible cramped hot mini bus (picture feathering gas pedal, snorting Thai scented oils) we get back to Bangkok. It’s dark. My insides are 99% liquid and ready for the apocalypse. We immediately Hotwire a 4 star and I literally can’t leave the hotel room. Literally. Literally can’t leave the bathroom. I’m sorry for the TMI. But it appeared that I had developed an allergy to leaving the haven that is Koh Kood.

I drank my weight in bottled water and had a great sleep in crispy white sheets in a perfectly air conditioned hotel room. Then woke up fine the next morning (after consuming copious amounts of gravol and pepto).

We hit the Budget and apparently they didn’t have any cars available. Fancy that, a car rental with no cars. So we hit the Budget at the airport and started heading out of the city. Sounds easy right? Except it goes on forever. Hundreds of miles of Bangkok. Sprawled. Everywhere. Somewhere in there we stop at some sort of Thai Target and the boy gets a Thai phone 6 with the data package. I trip advisor us a plan. We roll in to Kanchaniburi after dark. Can’t remember the name of the place but I’d go back. British expat, Thai wife (real good cook), nice dogs. She makes us some grub. We hit the hay. They had a pool but I didn’t get in.

Next we drive north along the Myanmar border, kind of. Real dry. Forest fire season. We take a ferry across a lake. I think I had a few car naps. We got to Sukhothai. Again, after dark. Stayed in a bungalow by the river. Boy was severely disappointed by sheer overwhelming number of farangs, but it comes with the territory of the ruins. What can I say, I’m hella basic, he puts up with me, I’ll definitely keep him.

So we get up bright and early. Because you might as well not adjust to different time zones. I get my fill of ruins, perfectly glorious in the light of the sunrise. The boy literally finds a way to bring the car into the world heritage site. I attempt to avoid the growing crowds of tourists. It doesn’t get much better. The heat of the sun seems to double by the minute. I’m sweaty and tired before noon. And that air conditioned car that’s following me around gets too appealing to ignore. So then we’re off to Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai. Which I loved the first time. When we were just wee lovebirds, aka basically strangers who had been dating a little over 2 months. It was our home base; the start and the end of the Mae Hong Son Loop we traversed in 2013. So we were setting ourselves up for a let down. I didn’t take any pictures this time. I went to a lovely spa, had a great massage and facial. The crowded streets of the night markets were suffocating and overwhelming after unwinding to the pace of Koh Kood. We stayed 2 nights and headed south for Khao Yai. Which was amazingly unforgettable. And I’ll tell you all about it. But not right now.