I have been with PayU2Blog for a couple months now and they have just released their new web interface. It is a lot easier to handle my postings now.

For those of you who don't know, they are a paid posting company. They provide you with a set of keywords to be used in the hyperlink for a link they also provide you. You have to put it in an article that is at least 60 words long. There is not requirement for it to be on the front page of your blog either. You can disclose or not disclose that it is a paid posting too. Every paid postings is $5 and they pay via PayPal every two weeks.

For the last two months they have only emailed me and I had to email back the assignment number and links to my finished postings. I also had no record of payment other than my PayPal receipts.

New Features

Now, there site shows you all your open assignments and you only have to copy and paste the links and hit Complete when the assignment is done. There is also a history report, history of payments, and you can edit the details of your blogs. Most exciting is that you can now set the preferences for your blog and what types of links you will accept. There are around 20 subjects to approve/disapprove so that is good.

What It Is Still Lacking

I would still like to see automatic emailing of assignment when they are ready or some sort of automated notification system to let you know that there is one waiting for you.

The subject of a link is hard to figure out if you want to edit it in your "Approved Subjects" profile. They should add it to each posting assignment that you get to let you know what that specific link assignment would have fallen under.

Overall

Overall there company has just become a lot more professional looking and easier to track their assignments. They have been my most stable income for my site so far.

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Well, it was disappointing, but my "Russia and Beyond" tour was cancelled this summer for our Trans Siberian railway trip from Moscow to Beijing. I was going through Intrepid Travel and they have a minimum of 4 people required to run that tour. My wife and I were the only ones so they officially cancelled it on May 12th.

They said they would refund the money but it could take up to 2 weeks. We did get it 9 days later.

Now this could have really stressed me for our trip, since we already booked our flights and such, but it hasn't really. I have backpacked before, so now am looking forward to trying it out on this trip. The tour we were on was quite a bit like that anyways.

We have found quite a few sites that let you custom build your train itineraries and even pre-book hotels if you want, so we have mapped out a plan that is even better than what we had before. We just have to debate on how much we want to spend because you can upgrade to different classes of train coaches and hotels.

The best site I have found so far (we haven't booked yet) for ease of use has been The School of Russian and Asian Studies. They have an excellent website for figuring this stuff out and pre-done itineraries that you can further tweak for what you want. Very impressive, so check it out if you are thinking of going.

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Koh Tao is a small island in the Gulf of Thailand that is scuba diving haven. It has cheap accomodation, cheap food, and cheap diving. It is the perfect add on for any holiday in Thailand.

If you haven't heard of it, it is one of the 3 main islands in the Gulf of Thailand. There is the more popular Koh Samui, then Ko Phangan, and north of them all is Koh Tao. A rule of thumb is the farther north the island is, the cheaper and more about diving it is. Koh Samui is common destination for relaxing on the beach and the full moon parties.

Getting There

You take a ferry, plain and simple. I took an overnight ferry from Surat Thani. It is the cheapest one, leaves around midnight, and is more of a cargo vessel. You sleep onboard and it arrives in the early hours of the morning. There is a night market right by the docks so you can graba bite to eat and do some shopping before boarding.

You can also take a high speed catamaran from Chumphon farther north up the coast. It is only a 2 hour ride if I remember right. It is a pretty nice. This is how I left Koh Tao. It has nice seats and plays movies. As soon as you board they hand you sea sickness pills (I didn't take them) and a blanket since they air conditioning is turned on pretty high.

Diving

This is the sole reason I went there. It is cheap and there are a ton of dive shops. As soon as I got off the boat, I headed down the beach to the right. One of the first places I went to was Dive Point. I signed up to finish the last half of my Open Water Certification and then went from there.

The instructor was fantastic. He was a Dutchman who could speak 5 different languages and had a real passion for diving. I was so impressed with him that I signed up for my Advanced Open Water certification while I was there.

Also, the Dive Point boat was the best one when I was there. It is a large boat with an area on the upper level to hang out and tan or just relax in the shade and read a book. They let friends and family of the divers come along and just relax up top (you just have to pay $5 for lunch).

The boat leaves early in the morning (like 6:45AM) and heads to the farthest destination. This was Chumphon Pinnacle when I was there. They will do two dives in the morning, have lunch, and then head back to a dive site closer to the town for an afternoon dive. This is what happened when I was there anyways (May of 2004).

I had already done the book work and pool dives for my Open Water Certification in my home city. It cost me around $120CA to do the open water portion in Koh Tao. Each regular dive cost 70 Baht which is around $17CA. This includes lunch.

When I was there I saw a lot of very cool things. There were grey reef sharks, groupers, rays, tons of other fish, and my cousin saw a whale shark.

When I was there I dived at a few of the spots. Chumphon Pinnacle, Japanese Gardens, Mango Bay, and Red Rock. There is also awesome diving and costs only $3/day for flippers and snorkels.

If you want to see sharks, Chumphon Pinnacle had tons. This could be seasonal so make sure to ask where they are. A lot of times you don't have a choice. Based on the season and currents, the dive shops will only be diving at certain spots.

Sea turtles are very common in some spots as well. I never saw any unfortunately.

For some more information, here are a few sites I like.

• Map of Dive Sites with a few photos
• Map of Thailand. Koh Tao is not labeled, but it is the little speck north west of Koh Phangan.

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Angkor Wat is a must see for anyone in south east Asia for a holiday. It is just inside Cambodia from the Thailand-Cambodia border. Only a days trip from Bangkok. It is by far the best ruins I have ever seen.

Angkor Wat refers to one temple compound of many that outside the town of Siem Reap. They are massive structures that were built by various kings in the region around the 800's to the 1200's. They figure they took quite a few years to build.

They are truly amazing. Angkor Wat itself has carvings and designs everywhere. Every inch of pillars and walls seem to have some sort of design carved into them. The temples themselves are Hindu influenced.

Tomb Raider

If you saw Tomb Raider, there are scenes among ruins where there are giant trees and jungles busting out of the walls. This is Ta Prohm, another are to the An gkor Wat temples.

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