From Bangkok we made our way to Koh Tao - the island of cheap scuba diving. In short we did our advanced open water... 5 dives in two days plus free accommodation. The island had some great restaurants and it was all relatively cheap. Fantastic place. Our highlight was that we dived for about 30minutes with a whale shark; we were incredibly close to it and exhilirating is the only way I could describe it.
Next stop: Koh Phangan, home of the full moon party. Our beach bungalow was not equipped with aircon so we were out of bed by 9am every day and we were forced to avoid our room until after dark. Luckily we had a good communal area where we (and the other poor souls who couldn't afford aircon) would vegetate all day with books, beers and the occasional movie. As for Koh Phangan - we stayed in Haad Rin which is where the full moon party takes place and it wasn't so bad. The roads were taken up by lots of shops and restauranrs, numerous young westerners walked around scantily clad and some unscrupulous locals selling vodka buckets with already opened vodka bottles (watered down or drugged up? We aren't sure). So it definitely had atosphere; it also had parties on every night. We visited the famous Coral Bungalow pool party which is notorious for a reason! In hindsight we probably shouldn't have swam in that pool... It was a combination of pool water, alcohol and questionable bodily fluids. Gross gross gross! At about 2am Rich and I felt we were being discriminated against... apparently only single people are good for conversation! So we headed back to our room and off to sleep.
The following day we met a bunch of crazy aussies (but then what Aussies aren't crazy?) who had also been at the pool party: Jezza (the most talented, and nicest, womaniser I have ever met [no offence meant]) and Harry Potter (aka: Luke). FYI Luke had jumped into the pool head first and earned himself a notable Harry Potter scar which has probably since decreased in size because of his addiction to anti bacterial hand gel (it can be used for EVERYTHING!).
The next party that we had to pace ourselves for was the full moon night. Basically we prepared with a nap, headed out late so as to increase our chances of making it through to sunrise, got a bucket each and covered ourselves with luminous paint. We met up some friends and sat on the beach for ages, did a bit of dancing and walked around looking at the general craziness. It was a good night but not a great one and i think we made it home about 4am.
As soon as possible we moved out of our naturally heated bungalows and up the west coast of Koh Phangan to Haad Son beach where we got a pretty cheap chalet with aircon and a swimming pool. Amazing! We sat by the pool for 3 straight days until we ran out of books to read and decided to head to Koh Phi Phi.
We crossed the coast towards Phi Phi with a couple of nights spent in Patong, Phuket. Most of that time I felt as though my jaw was on the floor. I saw stunning ladyboys that really did look like woman and I got accosted by locals carrying giant lizards who wanted me to pay for a photo with it (er... no thank you!). The most amazing thing about Patong is that people actually go there on holiday... they must be weirdos. It was also quite wrong that people had young children with them on a road featuring numerous half naked girls and ladyboys. It was all quite strange and we got the next available ferry to Koh Phi Phi.
Phi Phi was awesome.. beautiful beaches and good food. It a great place to meet people and we were able to camp on Maya Bay which is the beach featured in Leo Di Caprio's movie 'The Beach'. It was absolutely stunning, we had thai green curry, buckets, music, we slept under the stars and chatted about random stuff. All in all a night to remember. We also did some diving in Phi Phi and saw octopus, nudibranch, shrimps, leopard sharks etc. All quite cute things surrounded by beautiful coral. Our stay there was brilliant and we really didn't want to leave.
But leave is what we did... southwards to Kuala Lumpur. More info to follow asap
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S&R. xxx
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