Here are the available villas for rental in Thailand.

The land of smiles

Bangkok is a hot and bustling city. A river cruise is a good way to get round. It cost £15, which includes a buffet meal and local entertainment.
We stayed in a three star hotel at £12 a night - a bargain. Next, we were off to Pattaya, 100 miles away. The hotel cost £10 a night, which included a balcony, air-con and a good swimming pool.
Pattaya might not be everybody's choice. The beach is not fantastic, but a boat ride will take to islands with wonderful beaches.
Another day trip which is really good is to the River Kwai. On the way, you stop at the floating market and you ride on a long, narrow boat which is a good laugh.
The cost of the holiday with flights and hotels was £550 for 18 days .
I will be going back soon to the land of smiles.

Travelling with kids

We took the children to Thailand, but decided we wanted to have more than just a beach holiday. However, with an 11, nine and six-year-old, it needed to be fairly easy, too. On a friend's advice we took a short flight up to Chiang Mai and then a bus to a resort in the Mae Sa Valley.
When I say resort, this was no Hilton. It was very simple. Lovely thatched bungalows dotted the hillside and there was a central building where we took our meals.
It was a real adventure for the children - they felt like they were in the middle of the jungle. Yet the resort was actually pretty self-contained, only accessible by a little bridge from the road, so we felt quite at ease with them playing in the gardens by themselves.
The highlight of their stay was an elephant ride. Not very PC these days, I know. But it was a thrilling experience for all of us, not just being on the elephants, but really feeling like you were out exploring. An illusion, perhaps. But far more exciting than a fake jungle in Disneyland. ... more

Platform three for the Golden Triangle

From the Daily Mail

There we were, champagne flutes in hand, the breeze ruffling our hair, in the open observation car at the back of the luxury night train which runs from Malaya via Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Thailand's laidback second city.
It is way up-country, just below the lawless, drug-producing Golden triangle where Burma, Laos and Thailand come together.
It was dusk, warm and just a touch humid. As we watched the endless jungle fall away, we looked out at swirling rivers, paddy fields, lotus ponds and buffaloes.
We passed isolated wooden houses perched on stilts, and tiny but exquisitely-maintained railway stations.
The injunction from Eastern and Oriental Express was to dress for dinner 'with the style and glamour of a bygone age'.
That allowed me to preen myself in a sleeveless cream silk Nehru jacket, made for me in India some years ago.
But I was beaten in the glamour stakes by elegant ladies of varying races in national dress, and by patrician planter-types in those old-fashioned dinner jackets I remember from my youth.
After a while, we moved to the bar for a pre-prandial cocktail, past a glamorous Chinese woman who had taken over the library car (yes, this was the sort of train which had a library) and would, for a fee, tell your fortune.
In the bar, an elegant gent played Noel Coward numbers on a grand piano. By then I felt I was playing a bit part in my favourite Marlene Dietrich film Shanghai Express, made back in 1932.
Alas, there were no mysterious occurrences during dinner, so, after more champers, I prepared to snuggle down for the night in my private compartment.
It came complete with walk-in dressing room, shower and 24-hour service from my steward, Cham, who came running at the touch of a button, bearing a late-night whisky-soda or two. ... more

I beat Leonardo to The Beach

From the Mail on Sunday

Recently it was Captain Corelli and the Greek islands. In the late Eighties Peter Mayle did it with Year In Provence, while Jack Kerouac's On The Road inspired a generation to seek nirvana along the highways of the USA.
Books have always inspired travel. The Beach, Alex Garland's debut novel, described as Lonely Planet meets Lord Of The Flies, has done the business for Thailand. Cult reading among the children of the Year In Provence generation, it has lured tens of thousands via the cheapest flights to Bangkok.
The Beach explores hip young haunts: Bangkok's seedy Khao San Road and the cheap beach huts of the south provinces. It captures perfectly both the edginess of Thailand and the spirit of young independent travel - that quest for the secret beach unknown to 'adults' and the real world.
Of course it all goes wrong for the backpacking hero in a tiresome murderous manner, but by then every twentysomething reader is convinced that if they could only get to Thailand, they wouldn't make those mistakes.
The beach itself is Maya Bay, on an uninhabited island called Phi Phi Lei, accessible only by boat. My other half, Spencer, and I, persuaded the last speedboat in Phuket to make a detour. It's a particularly long sea crossing if you find speedboats terrifyingly small and the ocean really rather large: the Thai speedboat crew appeared to be aged 12 and found siphoning petrol easier with a lighted cigarette dangling from their lips. What may have been two weeks or 90 minutes later, the speedboat ducked between two huge James Bond rocks at the entrance to Maya Bay.
It was breathtaking. Stylised by setbuilders, Maya was a perfect cartoon of a beach: a white crescent of sand framed by palm trees. The natural gateway of the rock formations meant outsiders couldn't see in. As in the book, you wouldn't find it unless you had inside information.
The Thailand adventure begins in Bangkok, a city where you can rent cut-price penthouses like the Fortune Hotel, with a view to make you feel like a Jedi Knight, or £1.50 downtown bolt-holes with clanking ceiling fans and suspicious stains.
We headed for the Khao San Road, vividly described in The Beach as the mainland HQ of all backpackers. At midnight it was raucous with the youth slang of ten languages and the rooms were as insalubrious as we'd hoped. Stalls sold fried Pad Thai noodles off hissing hotplates for 20p and bootleg Ralph Lauren shirts for a couple of quid, while a seamstress sewed fake Levi labels into jeans - the consumer gods of Nike, Reebok and Rolex are defiled on a nightly basis here.
It's not hard to see why Thailand appeals to young travellers. The architecture is alien, all pointy onion shapes and sweeping curves; the colours are alien, taxis coming in neon pink sliced with sage green and yellow; the language is an alien font, allowing you no Latin-derived clues.
We sat down in a corner cafe to wild boar in whisky (like beef in black bean sauce), oyster omelettes (gravel in batter) and fluorescent pink hardboiled eggs (either from the rare Fluorescent Pink Hen, or created with the cunning use of cochineal). ... more

How much is that moggy in the temple?

From the Mail on Sunday

Two years ago I road-tripped across America with my Burmese cat Claudius. He was old and we stayed there until he died to avoid quarantine.
Eventually I decided to have another pet but, being prone to itchy feet, realised I'd need another travelling cat like Claudius. Burmese or Siamese could be the only possible breeds for me.
I rather fancied the classic Siamese, the chunky, squinty-eyed version which could still be found in Thailand. They can be shipped out by anyone willing to make the effort.
I flew to Bangkok in October and met up with a resident Siamese cat expert, Martin Clutterbuck, who wrote The Legend Of Siamese Cats.
His book tells how cats were traditionally kept in temples (or wats) to guard ancient texts from mice. Nowadays unwanted kittens are left at temples.
I took the express boat up the Chao Phraya, Bangkok's central river, to one at Thewet.
At Wat Naranat a woman was feeding a group of moggies. But she had no Siamese to show me.
So I headed further up the Chao Phraya to Wat Phai Lorm but this turned out to be a bird sanctuary.
However, it was not far from Ayutthaya. This ancient former capital was sacked by the Burmese in 1767 but is today littered with impressive temple ruins. Still no cats, though.
So I took the overnight train to Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city. ... more