Dear All,
Let me first just say how appallingly i have behaved in leaving this till very late! I apologise completely. Last, I left you on the night before Full Moon Party. We had a great time spending the night with our Thai friend Ken, and two Swedish friends Olivia and Livia. The crazy music vibrated around you and sellers of buckets (buckets are a drink you have in a bucket) yell at you to visit their stall, promising the cheapest rates on the beach. I found that Full Moon is exactly like every other night, just another excuse to party and spend money. People's morals and ethics go out the window here and it's kind of sad to see it happening, just to get a guy or girls attention.
So Christmas came along and we had signed up for one of their scrumptious dinners. We decided to have the English-Ozzie dinner which was amazing! For entree or starter we had sweet potato/pumpkin soup (which Regan didn't have because he doesn't like sweet potato or pumpkin). For our main we had roast turkey, roast beef, roast potatoes, carrots, pickled cabbage, creamy sauce with cauliflower, Yorkshire pudding and gravy! Just when we had managed to finish this all, they arrived with dessert! I don't think they knew that you were meant to have at least half an hour break in between each course! Dessert was deeeeeelicious! It was bread and butter pudding with whiskey. Usually i can't stand bread and butter pudding but this was amaaaaaazing! Regan and i rolled up to bed to have a siesta and then joined the party-goers downstairs. The next day we had decided to leave Koh Phangan earlier and go back to Koh Samui, a place we loved so much! The staff at the hotel laughed when they saw us because we came back to them after a week away! We relaxed until New Years Eve came around and made plans with Ken to meet him after his fire shows. The buffet dinner at our hotel was pretty good, not as good as dinner at home though. We went to Monkey Bay Bar to meet Ken for 12 but it ended up just being Regan and I watching the fireworks together. We wandered down to Hush Bar afterwards and hung out with our two British friends Sean and James. Sean worked behind the bar and gave us cheap drinks! We met up with Ken and some other Swedish friends of his and went to Sound Bar, the place to be if you wanted to keep partying after 3am. After dancing and chatting away, Regan and I made our way back to our hotel and slept for the day.
After a day or so more in Koh Samui we awoke early to leave for Phuket where we were to meet our friend Liz. We were picked up at 7:30am even though the pick up was for 7am. And transported to a huge ferry where the bus rolled on to as well. we were then moved across the water and over to Surat Thani, the stopping place to get to everywhere. We arrived at 10:40 and the lady promised that the bus would arrive sometime between 12pm-1pm. So we waited and waited and of course the bus arrived at the reasonable hour of 6pm!!!! We didn't get to Phuket till 12am, which was just great! (Sarcasm being quite strong here). The next day we walked along the promenade trying to locate Liz's hotel, finally a tuk-tuk took us to her. That night we went out and savoured the scene of Phuket, which included young Thai girls trying to cajole passers-by to come in and have a drink while old, yucky men eyed them up and down. We ended the night at the Hollywood Bar after dropping Liz off at her hotel. We grabbed a burger and headed back to our hotel. The next day we stayed with Liz and her hotel and watched Law and Order. We had to leave the following morning for Phi Phi where we were to meet friends from Oz.
We arrived in Phi Phi by boat and i had come down with a flu so i spent most of the trip sleeping. We got into our hotel and spent the day and night sleeping trying to recuperate, me from the flu and regan from a bad tooth ache. Next day we met up with Annie and co. and they had paid for a day trip to see the beautiful lagoons and beaches of Phi Phi (http://www.spidermonkeytravel.com/1_day_excursion.html). We left at 1pm and the boat took us first to Monkey Beach where cute and ugly monkeys stole coconut from our fingers, they didn't like the water so we could always retreat there if they got feral. Next stop was cliff climbing and jumping, we needed special shoes as the cliff face was sharp and would've teared our feet to pieces. We all jumped off the 4m jump into the water, me being stupid landed in the water on my butt and ended up getting massive bruising on the back of my thighs. The boys however decided to jump off the 18m cliff and we all watched from the boat scared shitless they would drown or hit their heads on the rocks, luckily neither occurred. After this the boat took us to this beautiful lagoon! The water was serene and the perfect turquoise colour, we ate lunch on the boat and chilled out there for an hour. Afterwards we went to Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley island which was made famous from the movie The Beach with Leo DiCaprio. We wandered through the forest and relaxed on the sand as the sun was setting, the boat slowly took us back to Phi Phi to a night of contentment.
The next couple of days in Phi Phi were spent renting kayaks, swimming, snorkelling and relaxing. Next stop was Koh Lanta.
Regan and I arrived in Koh Lanta at 1pm and as we were being driven over to our hotel by the tuk tuk guy Annie, Josh and Liz came roaring past on scooters. They followed us to our hotel and we got a scooter to drive around the island. The place we stayed at was beautiful, quaint little bungalow near the water. They had loads of hammocks on the trees beside the sand and we spent a day reading and snoozing in them. After Annie and Josh left, Regan Liz and I took a day tour around the surrounding islands. We went to Morakat Cave where you had to swim 80ms through a cave that was pitch black in some parts to reach the inside of the island where there was a little beach and surrounding jungle. Next we went to different locations to snorkel and Liz was petrified of the fish that swam alarmingly close especially if there was pineapple thrown into the water. Next couple of days was spent relaxing and then we headed to Krabi.
Krabi is a place like no other, vertical rock formations appear out of the water and are only accessible by long tail boat. The place is a hubbub of go-go bars, street food and markets. We dined every night on noodles/fried rice, banana and honey pancake and watermelon or mango shake for $4. As cash was running low we climbed to the top of Tiger Cave Temple (http://wattumsua.thaipulse.com/) a painful experience but one i'm proud of. We left Krabi, looking forward to seeing our friend Nick who was on the way over from Oz-land.
Now i'm in Koh Phangan, we left from Koh Samui a couple of days ago to go to Half Moon Party. The view from our hotel is beautiful (http://www.bluehillphangan.com/) and we have spent days lying beside the pool or checking out the street stalls on Haad Rin. Tomorrow we leave for Koh Samui and only in a couple of days am i going home!!
Lots of love,
Francesca and Regan
