Thai Break

The shade of a palm tree, next to a pool covered with giant lily pads and overhung with lush tropical shrubs, was a magical place to stop and eat our packed lunch.

The elephant was an unexpected bonus. First we heard a noisy thumping on the other side of the water, disturbing the afternoon stillness. Then its enormous head and swinging trunk appeared through the undergrowth. With an indelicate splash the animal sat down in the water, half submerging her great, grey bulk. Then she began to fan herself, slowly and rhythmically waving the branch she was holding in her trunk.

As calm returned to the pool, the absurd notion suggested itself that had the elephant known we were there, she might have found a way of apologising for the rumpus she had caused. 'No Worries!' we would have replied. It was for encounters like this, that we had brought our teenage children trekking deep in the jungles of Thailand, on our three-part adventure in the country.

We began, as most visitors do, in hypnotic, mesmerising Bangkok. Our senses were immediately assaulted by the crowds of smiling faces; swarms of tuk-tuk tricycle taxis buzzing like bumble bees; and wafting smells of charcoal-grilled meat and squid cooked by the roadside and served on wooden skewers like lollipops. We whooshed up the Chao Phya river in noisy hang yao motor launches with long dragon-fly tails, and checked out the golden Buddhas in stupendous wats (temples) with jewel-encrusted roofs with shimmering spires.

A bit of light relief, if you can believe it was that, was spending an evening shrieking support for one or other contestant at a evening of Thai boxing (the national sport). Then, for contrast, we sat cross-legged at a low, candle-lit table, picking from 15 spicy dishes and watching the slow, hypnotic movements of traditional Thai dancing.

The holiday finished down on the beaches of the Andaman Sea, where we stayed at Krabi on Phra Nang Bay which, as James Bond fans will remember, is where much of The Man with the Golden Gun was shot. The seascape is strewn with jungle-clad mountainous outcrops, punching out of the clear, shallow sea. The islands are riddled with limestone caverns and tiny lagoons formed by the collapse of the caves' roofs.

The climax of our Thai adventure was joining an afternoon's guided canoeing expedition, to explore the Sok River. We paddled through a world that has changed little in thousands of years, basking in the bright sunlight to the hum of insects and the splash of mud-skippers (weird fish able to hop about on land). We heard the hooting of monkeys crashing about in the undergrowth while we kayaked through mango trees rising from the green-tinged water. Most thrilling of all was the realisation that the inaccessible virgin jungle on the mountainsides, hundreds of feet above us, had probably never been explored by man.

And this, just 45 minutes by speedboat, from an international airport.