Sam Harrington

1st June 2009

This was the day we flew to Cairns and picked up our campervan. We were so lucky, when we arrived we were told we had been upgraded. Our van was lovely. It was quite new and shiny, it made me a bit nervous about driving it. It was bigger than anything I had ever driven and tall, El could stand up in it, with room to spare. So El did the first bit of driving. We stocked up in the supermarket and drove to a campsite called Ellis Beach. We were parked right on the beach. It was lovely.

2nd June

We found the van very comfy to sleep in, so it was a good nights sleep ready for a drive. I drove us north to Port Douglas, it was so easy to drive. Port Douglas has a 4mile long beach. We sat on the beach for a while, then had noodles, cooked in the van, for lunch. Nice and nutritious. We then drove up to Mossman Gorge. It was a beautiful rainforest and we discovered once in there we could have swam in the river. Might have been a bit cold though. We drove further up to the Daintree River. Here we went on a croc river tour. We saw some massive crocs and because of the winter weather they laze about on the banks trying to warm up. That night we had burgers for dinner. All the camps and parks in Oz have free bbqs you can use.

3rd June

We drove back down past Cairns today. We went up to Kuranda. Its a village up in the mountains with a lovely steam train. We walked through a bit of rainforest and Elliott got us lost from the van. I was not happy, I was really hot and bothered, he should have listened to me! Later on that day we had had a long drive to Innesfail and El suggested we went to one campsite whereas I suggested another, I was wrong this time, and didn’t I know it. A bit of a touchy evening!

We had steak for dinner. We couldn’t believe how cheap meat is. Steak costs about $20 for 4rump steaks. That would cost about 50pound back home. Mince is $3.50, so 1pound 75!

4th June

We woke up to rain today. We drove down to Mission Beach. Another lovely beach again, with no one on it! If you had a beach like that back home you’d be struggling to find a square of sand to plant your backside! We found a council run campsite right on the beach. As it was council run it was cheaper but the toilets and showers weren’t as nice. You get what you pay for basically. We spent most of the day on the beach. A german man camping next to us opened a fresh coconut, I’m not sure it was that fresh but Elliott liked it.

That night we sat with a few people, 2Germans, an Englishman and a Japenese man. The German girl showed us some fruit she had picked up from the Northern Territory that the Abbos eat from a Baboa Tree. You have to break the shell, which is the size on an aubergine. Then inside is lots of little shells that you crack again to get an edible nut. These nuts are smaller than peanuts and taste like walnuts. A lot of hard work for a nut! She was an intriguing girl, she had told us she had tried eating green ants as they are full of vitamin C and taste sour. Interesting.

5th June

We drove down to Murray Falls, a natural waterfall which we had been told about. The waterfall was amazing and at the bottom there were little swimming holes. We got in, well it took me about 30mins to get in! It was freezing! Elliott loved it, sliding down the little falls, he could have had hours of fun in there. We were gutted we hadn’t planned to stay there the night as it was a beautiful spot. Instead we drove for hours to Saunders Beach.

Saunders Beach was a free camp. It was on the beach, lovely. Thats all that was lovely about it. There were tons of sand flies that ate me alive, it was pitch black, a cold outside shower and frogs in the toilet! To start the evening off we stupidly decided on cooking a curry for dinner. What idiots! Where do we sleep? In the same place we cook the smelly curry. Needless to say we didn’t cook any smelly food again! We weren’t prepared for the darkness, we didn’t have a torch. Luckily the toilet had the worst light ever in it. As I went into the toilet there was a tree frog sitting on the wall beside my head! Oh dear, the fuss I made of that!

6th June

Elliott woke up energetic and went for a run, me I stayed in bed! We then drove into Townsville and got a ferry over to Magnetic Island for the day. The sea was warm enough to swim in and the sun was out, a lovely day sitting on the beach. El even found $20 on the floor! When we got back to mainland we drove back to Saunders Beach. Tonight the frog was sitting in the toilet bowl waiting for me, a kind German lady remove him for me, what a whimp!

7th June

Airlie Beach was our destination. About 2 1/2 hours from Townsville. It was alot more touristy than anywhere else we’d been. It’s the gateway to the Whitsundays, so we booked out tour. 3days 2nights on a tall sail boat.

8th June

The boat departed at 8.30am, we ended up dumping the van on the side of the road, as there was nowhere to park due to a boat show. I was convinced it would’ve been towed by the time we got back. The ship had 3 crew members and space for 18 guests, luckily for us there were only 9! So double the amount of food! Yay. We sailed out to our first island, Hook Island and had a snorkel there. We were given stinger suits to wear. It wasn’t stinger season but as it’s winter and the water temp is slightly cooler we wore them. The snorkels weren’t great and I was holding Elliott back as I was getting frustrated with them. Also did you know that coral can’t live in water temps below 18C so the water never drops below that! Before we snorkelled we were given lunch and after tea, biscuits and cake. We then had another snorkel, loads of friendly fish, that might have had something to do with the guide feeding them above us! We moored for the night at Marcona Inlet, one of the crew members saw a “splash of a shark” but he was always telling tall stories so we weren’t sure whether to believe him. For dinner we had our favourite…steamed fish and veggies! It was actually ok, not that I like it still but it was either eat it or go hungry.

Our little cabin was really warm at night and the bed wasn’t even long enough for Elliott so he spent a few hours in the middle of the night sleeping on the deck.

9th June

We were woken up by the engine at 7.15, we had breakfast and stopped at Tounge Bay. We got in the little dingy and went over to the island. We walked through the bush up to the lookout over Whitehaven Beach. It was amazing! I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, the colour of the sea was rich blues and turquoise and the sand was white. You could even see the sting rays in the water. We walked back through the bush to the beach. There were a few people on the beach but they soon disappeared and we had the beach to ourselves, which our guide said has never happened before, we were very lucky. We spent some time in the water looking for sting rays which wasn’t hard. Then we sun bathed on the beach. It was fairly windy and we both got a bit of wind burn as well as sun burn! On the way back to the ship our guide showed us an ants nest. He then picked an ant with a green bum and licked it. Everyone tried it but me, that grossed me out abit!

When we got back on the boat we were told that the turtles that live in the bay were swimming round the boat. We saw a couple and they were massive, about a meter long, we were told they could live up to 200yrs old! We had lunch then another snorkel. I was really struggling with the snorkels so I decided to skip this one. Instead I went in the dingy and the guide gave me an out of water snorkel, which is basically a big magnifying glass. Very cool. Elliott disappeared for ages. We then had more food and moored up for the night. We were fed some more then we went to bed and Elliott did the classic snoring all night! Great.

10th June

We had a wake up call at 7.15am again and had breakfast while sailing to another snorkel site, Dumbell Island. The water was a lot deeper and all I could imagine was a shark appearing so I chickened out and Elliott did it alone. Apparently there are alot of turtles here but we didn’t see any. We then sailed back to Airlie Beach. The van was still there luckily! We had a few drinks with the other guests. We decided to stay at the same campsite as another couple, Rhona and Chris. We snuck in after the office was closed so we didn’t have to pay. That night we met some of the crew in a bar in Airlie and we all played some drinking games.

11th June

We woke up feeling hungover today and we had to sneak out of the site early so we didn’t get caught. We sat by Airlie Lagoon for a couple of hours and had some lunch and decided to make a move. We had only been on the road for 5mins and we witnessed a car accident. Elliott was driving and I saw a car ahead of us swerve across the road. The next thing we knew it had spun and landed on its side on the cane railway! We were the first people to stop. In the car were 2 old ladies one 83yrs old! Neither of them were wearing seat belts and Elliott and another man had to pull them out of the car, the only injury was a split lip, lucky! We had to stay to give a statement. We carried on and found a hill billy campsite. We had a little nap and when we woke up the field opposite us was on fire! It wasn’t our day! We were soon told that it was a controoled burn to burn off the old sugar cane, smoked us out though!

12th June

We did quite a bit of driving today after looking round the shops in Mackay. We stayed just north of Rockhampton at a free spot right on the highway.

13th June

The nights are SO cold now. We are sleeping fully clothed and in sleeping bags. We had to get up early as it was so cold and make a move with the heater on. We stopped at Rockhamptons Botanical Gardens and free zoo. We had a wonder round there and looked at the animals, koalas, kangaroos, crocs, emus, etc… We also went to a heritage village in Rocky that was quite interesting. We carried on driving to Gladstone, nothing there!

14th June

Drove into Bundaberg. Where they make Bundaberg rum and ginger beer.

15th June

After a nice but chilly night in Bundaberg we drove to Elliott Heads. It was another lovely beach with no one on it. A few days a go El got a fishing rod. So he fished while I sunbathed. After lunch we made our way down again. We had planned to stay at Lenthall Dam, a free camp. It was about 7kms down a dirt track and when we got there it was closed to campers! So we carried on a little bit further down to the national park camp site, Wongi. It was completley out of the way. There were 2 other vans there and one of the couples made a  camp fire, our first one. It started to rain though, just our luck! Again we weren’t prepared and there weren’t any lights there. A trip to the toilet required the light from the mobile! It rained all night and we were parked under a tree, a sleepless night!

27th May – 1st June

This was the stop where we caught up with Jacqui and Matt. We were staying at Lesley and Wills with them. Our first night there Les cooked us an amazing roast dinner, just what we needed.

We went to a theme park with Jacqui, Matt and Steve. Elliott was a big girl and got sick on one of the rides, that was the end for him! We saw our first spider on the veranda. I’ve never seen any of us move so quick!

Elliott went to see some friends in Brisbane on his own, it was time for us to have some time apart! He seemed to have a nice day.

We went down to the local pub one night. They do a courtesy bus service, you call them and they pick you up and drop you off. There was a live band playing and Jacqui, Les and Will came to join us after the casino.

30th May

The day of the party. It was a good day and the weather was nice. There was so much food laid out. The part that everyone will remember would have to be the stripper. The young kids are put in the lounge and Elliotts got his front seat. At the end she says to Elliott “You’re wierd” I laughed for ages!

The day after the party we went to see El’s Uncle Richard and cousin Alex. We went out on the jet ski. Only when I was out on it Richard tells me about the sharks in the water and that they are the size of the jet ski! I’ve not been on it since.

22nd – 27th May

We loved Sydney. We flew into terrential rain and a bit of lightening, just our luck. We were staying with Mark and Katie, it was lovely to be in a house instead of dingy hostels! Mark picked us up, we were lucky he showed up as Elliott hadn’t emailed him to confirm.

Our first day we went to Summer Bay, where the surf life saving club on the beach is filmed. The beach was very different to the ones in Thailand, the waves were massive and it was really windy.

Mark treated us to the Jet Boat in Sydney Harbour. It’s a stunt boat and they do loads of spins in the water, we were soaked when we came off. We got a fantastic view of the harbour though.

So we didn’t realise that Sunday drinking is so big in Sydney. Everyone drinks on a Sunday, no one cares that they’ve got work the next day, even that it’s a dreaded Monday. We went out for drinks with Mark, Katie and some of their friends. Unfortunately we couldn’t drink much as we had the Harbour Bridge climb the next morning and they breathalise you before you climb. And of course when you drink a curry is needed! It was awful, Oz don’t do Indian! You have now been warned if you ever go.

The Harbour Bridge Climb was amazing. Altogether it took about 3hours to do. When you go in, you have to put a jump suit on and harness up. Then your guide shows you how your harness works. We then went out and climbed up the first part. Here you are walking just below the bridge where the road is. To get to the top you have to climb a bridge inbetween moving traffic and trains! When you get to the top the guide took some photos of us and pointed out landmarks, like the Blue Mountains. The weather wasn’t too bad when we did it, it was quite a clear day so we could see alot. You def wouldn’t be able to do the climb if you were afraid of heights!

Once we finished the climb we took a ferry over to Manly Beach. The weather had turned and we were sitting on the beach with tea and hot chocs!

We also took a tour bus to Bondi Beach while we were there. The sun had finally come out and we had fish and chips on the beach.

20th May

We got up and got a taxi to Orchard Road. It’s similar to Oxford St, although all the shops are in shopping malls. The weather was fantastic. We got a 48hr ticket for tours of the city. There were various tours that took you to different areas. We went on one that would join us up to a shuttle bus that would take us to Singapores Night Safari.

The night safari was good, there’s a train that takes you round to see the animals and you can walk. The show was good. Of course I got picked on to have a snake round my shoulders. There was no way that was happening. Why do I always get picked on…maybe it was Elliott shoving me to do it that caught the ladies attention. Who knows?

21st May

After nearly 3weeks of Asian food we were dieing for some cereal for brekkie. We managed to get some but had to eat it out of mugs…classy! It was so yummy though! After breakfast we were on our way to an internet cafe and nearly got flattened. A lorry carrying bags of cement came round the corner and half the load slipped off the back about 2meters from us! Good health and safety!

We took one of the Hippo tour buses to Funan Digital Mall. 5 floors of all of computer and camera shops. We then took a Hippo River Cruise. That was good, you get a different perspective of the city from the river.

That night we had another local meal from a stall. Peanut Satay Chicken for me and El had about 3different meals. I didn’t think much of it and at  this point couldn’t wait for some proper food!

18th May

We had an early start to get our flight to KL, 4.50am up and ready to leave! I was unsure there was an hour that early! The flight was hassle free and we got a taxi to the city center. On the journey in the Petronas Towers are what caught our attention. Fantastic building! We checked in at our hostel and got on a tour bus to see the city. We saw the National Palace, where an oriental girl was giggling shyly towards El and I. She then asked for a picture with us! Very strange. We were a  bit shocked that a stranger wanted a picture with us, so we agreed.

We stopped at the Petronas Towers and wandered around the massive shopping center underneath. I even wandered into Tiffanys but El soon wandered out! lol. After it got dark we went up the Menera Tower to see the Petronas Towers all lit up and have a 360degree view of the city. Amazing!

We had dinner in a chinese place, after we’d eaten and walked out we realised the food had been cooked out on the street. We were glad we hadn’t known that as the food was lovely!

19th May

We had to get up and out early this morning to go up to the Tower Bridge, the bridge connecting the two towers. You don’t have to pay for tickets to get up there but it is a first come first serve basis. We got there at about 7.45 and the place was full already! We thought by the time they open at 9ish we would get to go up there and be finished in time for our bus to Singapore at 11.30am. We queued for about 1 1/2 hours to go up. We were relieved when we realised we had enough time. Its a lovely view when you get up there! It’s 170m up. Although I didn’t think the view was as good as the Menera Tower.

We managed to get our bus with about 15mins to spare, lucky.

The bus was a spacious coach and took 5hrs to get from KL to Singapore, with one stop at a minging bus stop! The toilets, well they were in a class of their own! Squatting toilets with flies buzzing round everywhere. The only way to flush the toilet is to check a bucket of water down! A true culture shock, Elliott didn’t realise how lucky he was!

When we reached Singapore it was about 5pm and we were dropped off on the side of the road, not in a bus station as you’d expect. We had no idea where we were! We were lugging our bags round in ridiculous heat and humidity and getting very touchy with one an other! We ended up checking in to a budget hotel at 7pm. That was a stressful experience.

12th May

We left the resort at 6.30am to catch a ferry to Surat Thani. We then got on a coach to go to Phuket. When we booked the tickets, we checked they were first class as they had air-con. The first bus we got had air-con but not brilliant! After about 30mins on this coach we stopped in the middle of nowhere at some bus terminal. We were then directed to a little vehicle that resembled a Tuk Tuk. It looked a bit like a pick up, with seats on the back. About 15of us were pushed into the back, 2 people had to stand on the end holding on to the roof. There was no air-con here, just open windows! We were on this ‘bus’ for about another 30mins then we stopped at another bus stop! This time we were all taken off and told to sit and wait. A man who spoke a little english told us we then had to pay an extra amount of money to be taken to Phuket! Elliott was fuming! We thought we had paid the lot, the man said if we didn’t pay, we weren’t going anywhere and we had no clue where we were! After everyone paid we were put into little mini buses and taken to our hostels. The trip took 10hours altogether! It was a long old day but we got to the right place in the end.

Patong Beach were we stayed was a lot more touristy than any other place we had been, but it was very nice. We had dinner with 2people we had met on the bus. Elliott finally managed to get a hot thai green curry! This was the night Elliott took me to the hospital! I had to have my ear syringed. It wasn’t very pleasant, especially with Elliott taking pictures. When my ear cleared I could hear EVERYTHING! I couldn’t sleep that night, all I could hear was the air-con, fan and traffic outside, at least I weren’t in pain that night!

13th May

The weather was overcast so we went and had a stroll through the mall and booked our tour to Phi Phi Island. We ended up going to the cinema to watch Star Trek. The cinema was the best we both had ever been to and so cheap. A ticket cost 2pound 80p each! We went for a walk down the beach as well.

14th May

We hired another moped again today. We wanted to do some elephant trekking and heard it’s cheaper if you turn up rather than booking through a tour operator. We found one site, and rode an elephant called Dochra, it was great fun! The elephant owner took tons of pictures of us on it…in between looking at the rest of the photos on the camera and taking phone calls! We did get eaten alive by gnats though! The elephants were lovely but they are chained to trees when they aren’t being ridden. Quite sad really! We then found a waterfall, which was running this time! We had to climb about 150m of stairs to get to the top. It started to rain as we were coming back down, and when it rains, it rains! There was also a thunderstorm, we managed to get back in time to avoid getting wet. We went bowling and to Burger King with the people we met on the bus, Katie and Dan.

15th May

We had another 6.30am wake up call to catch the ferry across to PhiPhi. We snorkelled at Monkey Bay. We were warned by the tour guides not to go onto the beach as the monkeys are very aggressive! There were some idiots that went onto the beach and were soon chased off by the monkeys. We decided to stay clear. There were tons of fish and the guides fed them around you, alot of fin flapping! We then moved on and thought we were stopping at Maya Beach (where The Beach was filmes) but we just went round the island, we were so disappointed as when we booked thats what we asked for. We had some lunch and stayed on the beach at Phi Phi Don, it was a fab beach! We both got burnt as it was the first bit of sun we’d seen in a few days so we thought we’d make the most of it.

That night we went to Rock City and had free cocktails and beer till 11pm. We then went on to Banana Club with a few people we had met.

16th May

We woke up feeling very sorry for ourselves this morning. We spent most of the day in bed, as the weather was dull again! We went to see Phukets Fantasea in the evening. It was a show about the history of Phuket, they had performing elephants, which we felt sorry for. We did have our picture taken with a baby tiger though, that was great.

17th May

The weather was overcast again today! Elliott got a packet of sweets which after he had opened them and had one he realised they were full of ants! It was hilarious! Then his flip flop broke when we were walking around the shops! So we had to find him a new pair. That wasn’t easy, imagine trying to search for a size 13 flip flop, when you are in a country of tiny men! It was very funny though watching El explaining to the shop assistants that he needed ‘big flip flop’ haha. We tried to lie on the beach as it was our last day in Thailand but it started to rain again, so we went to the cinema again to watch Wolverine.

11th May

We hired a moped today to see the island. I was a bit scared as we had heard stories of people falling off and it costing them loads! Luckily we didn’t fall off, probably because I wasn’t driving! Koh Phangan is so hilly and I thought we wouldn’t make it up the hills, we did though, just as Elliott said we would. We came across Elephants on the island, a massive waterfall, which was dry. We stopped at Haad Salad to have a swim in the sea and some lunch. We also managed to find a Tesco! The moped was the cheapest way to see the island. I think it cost us about 10pound to hire, to hire it all they required was your passport so they know you’ll come back with it! Crazy!

8th May

We got picked up at 9.20 to get the ferry across to Koh Pangan. The pier was an old rickety pier, very rusty at the end. Not the safest thing that you have to walk down. The ferry journey took us about 30mins, which wasn’t too bad. We had booked our accomodation for Koh Pangan because of the Full Moon Party. A lot of places will only let you book a minimum of about a week. We booked into a place where Hannah and Rev had booked. It wasn’t as glamorous as it looked on the internet but all websites glorify the pics. The tiny little bungalow didn’t have air con, just a fan. It was cooler outside the room than in it, the room at night got up to 30degrees! There was a nice pool though and it was right on the beach.

There was a bar on the beach which 3blokes live at. They did a fire show at night. Was really good, a bit of entertainment as we didn’t have a tv in this room. Very basic.

9th May

This was the day of the Full Moon Party. We had a quiet day by the pool. We met lots of other English people, which was good. A nice group of people. At about 5ish most people went back to their rooms to refuel ready for a long night of partying. I had really bad ear ache this day so I went back to bed, Elliott couldn’t sleep in the heat, so he stayed at the bar getting a head start on everyone. When we were all up there was a group of english girls ody painting everyone. We all participated being decorated! Elliott had some good side burns and tash. Very funny!

The place we were staying arranged travel to get to Haad Rin where the party was. About 16 of us piled into a tiny little mini bus. In Koh Phangan its extremley hilly. To get up the hills you have to crawl up them, the car feels like its going to stop and you’d be stuck on this hill or going backwards. Scary. So you can imagine me worrying that this mini bus is never going to make it up these hills! It did of course.

The party is on a beach called Sunrise Beach, we literally turned a corner and there was about 10,000 people partying on the beach, crazy!

We got our buckets to drink from and started to walk down the beach. Buckets are what you drink from. We had one with Thai whiskey (Samsong) Coke and Red Bull. It was lovely, so strong though.

On the beach there are different bars, all playing different music. It was brilliant.

Now the toilet situation was quite difficult here, it turned out the sea was the cleanest place to go!

We partied till 6am, got something to eat and lost everyone we were with, so decided to go home. We thought we’d done quite well staying out that late. The next morning we found out some people didn’t get back till 10.30am and they watched the sunrise. We weren’t that hard core. lol.

It was a brilliant night, we would def recommend that everyone does a full moon party, we would go back for one!

10th May

After getting 4hours sleep we were in the pool, the sauna was too hot to sleep in! Early in the morning we had been woken by someone turning the door handle, trying to get into our room. Strange, probably someone crawling back from the party, thinking it was their room. There was only one other girl in the pool and a Thai man walking around. The Thai man we had never seen around before. He kept asking us questions, he was a bit of a shady character. He tried to walk off in Elliotts flip flops (he didn’t have any shoes) They were far too big from him. He asked me what room number we were, I played dumb and said I couldn’t remember. I thought this was a bit strange. I thought he was keeping us busy while someone was rummaging through our room. We didn’t have any valuables in there, so it wouldn’t have mattered too much. He walked off so I said to Elliott that I’d check the room. The room was fine but as I turned around he was stood about 5meters away behind a bush smiling at me! This freaked me out, he was practically blocking my path aswell so I just locked myself in the room. I didn’t have a clue what to do. About 1min later there was a knock at the door, I was worried it was him, but I opened it and it was Elliott. He saw the bloke start to follow me. There was no sign of him after and we never saw him again. Very bizarre!

It was a very chilled out day, Elliott was feeling too rough and lazy and ended up burning because he couldn’t be bothered to pur on sun cream, tut tut.

We went out for dinner that night with 6others, it was their night. So we thought we’d see them off.

Weather was amazing on Koh Phangan, although we did have a few storms.

More to come about the moped we hired!!!

Before we got to Chaweng beach we had another night in Mae Nam. We spent the day by the pool and the sun finally came out. We had met another couple, Hannah and Rev who are from Suffolk…small world! We all decided we’d go and watch the Thai Boxing that night. The stadium was in the “adult area” lots of lady boys prying on men! We got tickets each for 800Baht, which is about 16pounds. The seats weren’t anything special, just wooden stands, not very comfy at all! The boxing was good, quite funny watching them get knocked out! I think the boxers were as young as about 14. That was a bit of a shock.

6th May

This day we moved to Chaweng Beach. We had already checked out some hostels when we visited the other morning.  We ended up getting a room pretty much on the beach, was a bit dark and dingy but it was a room with air con, lol. We spent the day on the beach, in and out of the sea. It was lovely and hot and sunny.  Got abit of sun stroke!

For dinner we walked down the beach. All the restaurants put out tables and chairs up to the sea. We ate at one which was 3 sunloungers pushed together and a little table on top. We had a thai meal, we are loving the thai food.

During the night we were woken to a cockroach crawling over my arm! Needless to say we didn’t sleep that night, every movement we thought was the cockroach. We hadn’t managed to get rid of the one that woke us up, during all the flapping and squelling it disappeared. A very bad nights sleep!

7th May

It was our last day in Chaweng. The weather was extremley hot and we had to sit in the shade. I still managed to burn in the shade wearing factor 30, ridiculous.

Elliott had another thai green curry that night, it wasn’t hot enough for him. He still hadn’t found one as hot as his mums!

We got up quite early to get to Bangkok train station. To get there we used Bangkoks Sky Train and Underground, both surprisingly clean! When we got to the station we were told that all trains were fully booked for at least 2 days. This was a bit of a pain as we were dieing to get out of there and to the beach. We were told we could get a bus, which would take 12hrs, thats longer than our flight from Heathrow to Bangkok! On the off chance we decided to get a taxi to the airport and see if there was a flight available. Not really the BAckpackers way to do it but oh well, we were on a flight within 2hrs and in Koh Samui in 3hrs! We booked our accomodation for when we got there, in Mae Nam. It was a lovely bungalow, with a pool, just what we needed.

On our first night in Koh Samui there was a massive thunderstorm, cut out our electric. A bit bigger than the storms at home.

The next day we got a taxi to Chaweng Beach, the real touist area. It was lovely there, nice beach too. It wasn’t too busy either. It was a bit overcast but still managed to burn my back…oops. I was in pain for days!

There wasn’t much to do in Mae Nam, its a bit quiet. On the map there was an Italian restaurant. I chose to go there and it was the most expensive meal ever. Elliott still not letting me forget it!

Any how, more later about Chaweng Beach. It’s too hot sitting here. We’ve managed to find the internet in a room with no air con…hot!

xx