25 Mar

25 Mar - Day 4 of the Klong Prao garbage dump fire and as with previous mornings, I saw a cloud of grey smoke with distinctive 'burnt plastic' aroma hanging over the village and down to Barali & Tropicana Resorts when I took the dog for his morning walk. Anyone know how long piles of household and hotel waste can smolder for?

Assisting in my bid to be an omnipresent media whore, John at 'Thailand Real Estate Magazine' recently asked me to churn out a series of lengthy space filling articles on real estate on Koh Chang. Seeing this as an opportunity to use the phrase 'your very own home away from home on a tropical island paradise' at least one every paragraph, I jumped at the chance. The first of three monthly articles is in the April issue of the free magazine which has just hit newsstands and estate agency's coffee tables around the Pattaya area. Anyone not fortunate enough to be able to get their hands on this limited edition copy can download my article in pdf format here if they have nothing better to do.

Whoever is in charge of PR for CocoCape Resort on Koh mak obviously knows that they are doing as their resort keeps popping up in UK newspapers. Most recently in The Times where Koh mak was recently recommended as the ultimate away from it all island with CocoCape being the place to stay.

Anyone want to buy an island? If you have around US$3 million in your pocket then Koh Man Nai, pictured left giving subtle come hither looks to potential suitors, can be yours. The catch is that you can only build on a little over 4 Rai of the island, the rest is designated as National Park land. But you can't get much more exclusive than a small island a few hundred metres off Kai Bae beach. However, you may have to mine the waters nearby to prevent daytripping kayakers from ruining the calm during high season.