I've Been Driving in my Car!

Clearly not "slumming it"

Langkawi Island seems to be very nice, we found a chalet to set up home but then found a plush hotel that was offering deluxe superior rooms for a mere 10 ringgits extra so we've moved into there and it's "like proper posh innit", we have an oasis pool all to ourselves and a bath tub, Oh and a fridge. We're just waiting for them to tell us it was a mistake and that there was a hundred missing from the price!


Darren finds a very possible
employment opportunity

So after two days of chilling out in our posh resort, we decided to go for an adventure and hire a car for the day. We visited Langkawi's newest attraction... the cable car which takes us up 700m above sea level. The cloud was thick and it decided to pour down when we got to the top but hey we're use to rain so we ventured out onto the viewing point to see the "view".


Some murky altitude, yesterday.

On our way down we sheltered in a coffee shop to wait for the rain to pass. We then noticed a park full of rabbits which were so cute, but then we noticed the archery targets inside this fenced park WITH the rabbits, hmmm a little worrying, not sure the animal rights activists out there would agree with this?!?


Those are actual live Bunnies! Brilliant!

We then drove up to the highest mountain on the island which took a good 30 mins in our little rollerskate and then when we got to the top it was all closed off by some telecom company, how thoughtless of them. So we zoomed back down and then found ourselves at the Durian waterfall which would have been lovely if I hadn't come across another pesky snake, every flippin time, they always seem to go across my path, so after that I was a nervous wreck and Darren had to lead my shaky legs back down.


Romantic Waterfall Photo Op

Then off to the main town and I know it's disappointing but we succumbed to a Big Mac and Fries at McDs, well there's only so much rice and noodles one can take! Give us a break huh!


Schoolboy Humour - Needless
to say Darren find this hilarious.
Chocolate Coated Nips indeed.

After writing this Darren and I are going to play cards and drink our litre Smirnoff vodka we bought for 4 quid and get very drunk, so I will leave you to it and to take a look at our photos so far! Chin chin :)


Perodua. Malaysian Car of the Year. 1962.

Going South

Yes, we've escaped from The Island, Koh Lanta. Lovely as it was, we have to move on otherwise we'll spend the entire year sitting on hot, sandy beaches. And you know how much that sucks.

Before we left we went diving yesterday at Hin Muang and Hin Duang - really good visibility diving. Saw a lot of fish and even more Nemo's! Diving's brilliant fun. My neck's a lot better now too, thanks for your piles of email of concern... (none). Sigh.


Now we're in Trang. It's on the mainland and appears to be closed. Whether that's because its a Sunday, or because its a Bank Holiday, or just because of our rubbish timing, it doesn't matter because there doesn't seem to be too much here anyway. They have left faded KFC signs on roadside stands to taunt us, as there doesn't appear to be one here, dammit. Yes, we spent all afternoon looking.

Tomorrow we continue our travels towards Malaysia - Land of interesting politics, international terrorist organisations, but more importantly... really, really good food.

Lonely Planet warns against travel in certain areas because of the risk of kidnap by pirates! "Arrrrrrr!". We're not going to those bits. Apart from the fact it could be traumatic, it would also make my "Scunthorpe Hide and Seek Champion, 1997" T-Shirt particularly ironic if we went missing....

Injury Shocker!

Don't panic! It's not as bad as it could be. I pulled a muscle in my neck the other day, annoying since we were meant to be going to local dive sites the next day - so we've postponed it and extended our stay in Koh Lanta (these dive sites better had be as good as people claim), and hopefully I'll be able to turn my head in other directions other than 'forwards'. Sigh.

The extended stay would normally be ace - on a beach and all that... except for the last two days its been absolutely chucking it down. That's tropical storms for you I guess. Again, hopefully it'll clear for the diving.


It's raining.... what are we supposed to do now!?!?

Anyway, apart from that we've been zooming (30mph) around the island on mopeds, we got hammocks from Hammock House in Lanta Old Town, went snorkelling on a daytrip to Koh Rok, and saw lots of fish, including Nemo's! (ok, Clown Anamone Fish if you're getting technical). Very cool.


Darren steps off his personal Powerboat

Oh, and we went to Lanta Butterfly Farm, which when we got to the top of some very long steps we were told actually had only a few small butterflys. The clue was in the deserted entry kiosk at the bottom of the farm/quarry.


The Lanta No-Butterfly Farm

Apart from that, like I say, its been raining. We've played a lot of cards, and played with ALL the settings on the camera. Seriously, there was an island-wide powercut today and there was nowt to do. You appreciate how set up England is for dealing with rainy days now. It's still hot though! Ha!


JB's gone all pink!
Nothing permanent though.


Video! A different level of boredom!

Leaving Koh Tao for Koh Lanta

Well alas it was time to say farewell to our lovely little island and head further south to Koh Lanta. But first let me tell you about the journey here.




First we had to catch a boat which would take 6 hours to Surattani. So we made ourselves comfy on the deck, smothered ourselves in sun-cream and sat back to enjoy the views. This was for 2 hours, we then stopped at Koh Phangan to drop people off and pick people up! Oh my god... I think they must have been going for the world record at cramming as many people on one boat as possible. Our luxurious ride turned out to be a hot, cramped nightmare with no escape from the sun and an assault course to master if you wanted a bottle of cold water. Fours later we arrived in Surrattani, sun burnt, tired and irritated. We then had to catch a bus to Krabi.

Eventually we arrived in Krabi Town, we found ourselves a nice hotel and went in search of dinner. We now class ourselves as experienced travellers by the fact we know where to dig out the best food stalls and at very cheap prices. You see locals sitting on the make shift garden furniture that is a good sign the food is good and cheap.

We also made arrangements to get to Koh Lanta. So the following morning we upped and left for our next beach.



We have now found this is a place to get away from... everyone it seems, very quiet here. We have amused ourselves by venturing round the island on mopeds, visiting the "busy" town, which turns out to be quite deserted, and then going off road to the Old Town South East of the island. Darren was quite happy reanacting Indiana Jones as we zoomed by Elephants on red dusty tracks!



Today we have chilled on the beach, but something quite extraodinary has happened.....



It was obviously far to hot for Darren to take!!!

Well we are off to Koh Rok tomorrow for a day of snorkelling, supposed to be the Thai equivalent to the Red Sea, so should be awesome. Then we're off diving to Hin Dueng and Hin Mueng, two dive sites that are supposed to be out of this world, cool!

We are then planning to go to Trang and then make our way to Malaysia!!! So watch out for further updates.

Full Moon Party

It has to be said that at this point in my life I can honestly say in the words of Danny Glover "I'm getting too old for this sh*t"

March 14th saw the new Full Moon in, so we of course had to go to the infamous Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan.

After leaving our beloved island by catamaran, it was time to face the party scene and the thousands of people joining in the fun. Arrived in Hat Rin for 4.30pm and already people were mingling round the small village and drinking from buckets of Samsong, red bull and coke, a local delicacy!

After finding something to eat and watching the not so good film, 'The Beach' , we made our way down to the beach, after purchasing some trinkets in a drunken spontaneous moment. We didn't have troubles finding it, just follow the crowds and the VERY LOUD MUSIC.

The beach was heaving with drunken bodies painted with dayglow body paints and donning illuminous rave necklaces, you remember them ha ha!


We danced our way from one end of the beach to the other, shifting between the sounds of Ja Rule, Pussy Cat Dolls and hard core house rave music, weird mix I can tell you!



By 2 am Darren and I were pooped, we needed to sleep so we found a nice comfy spot, actually we just collapsed on the beach just to rest our eyes for a moment. Two hours later sleeping with one eye open a kind Thai patrol man shines his massive torch in our faces and tells us to move up the beach to where the music is it's loudest to sleep, yeah right then!



6am, the sun starts to rise and people are still dancing and drinking, the music is as loud as the night before and we decide it's time to leave, plus the loos were getting quite nasty.

We had to wait for our 8.30am ferry, as you can imagine we didn't look good. We were covered in sand, we had luggage bags under our eyes and we had no sleep what so ever but hey we went to the Full Moon Party and saw it out to the bitter end.

By 10am we were showered, had burnt our clothes and were fast asleep in bed back in our cozy beach hut dreaming of Pie and mash for dinner, perfect end to a crazy night!

Rock On!

Beach Life

Yes, we're still mainly sitting on the beach a lot. We've got lilo's which we lay on all day. Sigh, its a tough life...

Anyway, here's some more stuff we've seen:


We were surprised that Nav was
catching fish!? In Thailand!?!? And
promoting fishing tours. Odd.


The Amazing Pancake Men


Extreme Piracy, don't tell Hollywood


Brilliant Campervan Bar

That's it for now, we've got a party to go to....

Visa Run

Ok, before going into this I need to explain a few bits. When we entered Thailand we got a free complimentary 30 day visa thanks to the fact that we're from the UK. Brilliant! Vietnam, Cambodia, they both cost money for visas, but not here. Brilliant! The only thing is, that was about 30 days ago.

Luckily there is a loophole which means you can do this indefinately, by leaving the country and then entering it again, so we had to embark on a 'Visa Run' (kinda like the 'Rice Run' in The Beach, which I've just finished reading).


Going on an Adventure!
Oh, and check out the tans


Good thing we brought a torch

We left Koh Tao late on Friday night, on a night boat. Almost as bad as a night bus, but on water, and sleeping next to complete strangers! Oh, and with obligatory screaming kid on board. Hoorah!


Nice beds - DON'T PANIC

Next morning we were up at 5am to find we'd arrived in Chumporn. We were sleepily bundled into what was hopefully the minibus to the Thai border. Leaving the country without our backpacks, and very tired, and slightly confused. Hoorah!

Arrived at Thai border control, to leave country. After officially leaving, we then had to hang about a bit in a boat yard(!?), to wait for the boat to take us to the Myanmar border. Myanmar used to be called Burma, but I think changed its name due to bad press.

Arrived in Myanmar! New day, a new country. Hung about a bit and got pestered by kids dressed as monks begging for stuff. Bit smelly, but then we were on the edge of the docks, which we guess is not the ideal point to judge an entire country so we'll assume the rest of it is a lot prettier.


Welcome to Myanmar!
Hey, we're in Myanmar...

All that then remained was to wait for the chap to sort out our Visas/Passports, officially leave Myanmar, officially enter Thailand again, and get back to Chumporn for the catameran to Koh Tao. Apart from we were running a bit late (someone lost their ticket or something in another minibus and our driver had to sort it out for no reason I can understand).

However, our driver knew the twisty scary road like the back of his hand, and in land speed record attempt style got us back to the catamaran with an entire 15 minutes to spare! The only worrying aspects being me and Jodie were in the front, we'd already passed a tanker who had misjudged one of the corners and upended into a ditch; and everytime the driver did a bit off steering-wheel-squeezing overtaking moves, HE made a sound that made it seem he was as surprised as us that we came out the other side! Hoorah!


We make it look easy

In fact, so he was so happy he got out and shook hands with every single passenger when we arrived intact at Chumporn. One and a half hours later we were back to the island we now call 'home', and if we don't properly leave it soon it may end up that way.

Plans are afoot: We go to Koh Phanang for the Fullmoon Beach Party on 14th, then I think we're actually leaving Koh Tao after that. Back to The World. Sigh.

Oh, and I've finally chucked out my 'Mr T' T-shirt :(

And more pics are up.


Sucker!

Working hard...on our tans

I'm afraid to tell you all that Darren and I have become certified beach/ dive bums and that we officially have filthy tans and matted beach bum hair!!! We have surfed the Thailand Gulf (on bright yellow lilos) and drank copious amounts of the local rum, Sangsam, which evidently goes down well with the infamous chocolate and banana pancakes!

All sound to horrific? I know but what can you do?

Just thought you'd like to know what a terrible time we're having!!!

Actual events that have happened:

• Darren has shaved and it has left a white tan line ha ha

• Our new friend Team Norway AKA Rune , has gone and left us stranded on this Island in search of other Thai beers

It was a sad day : (

• The beaches turn miraculously into Lounge bars at night - got to get me one of those!
  
  
  
  

We will send photos soon of our exciting Visa run trip......explain later with illustrations!

Advanced Scuba-Diving!

It's practically James Bond

Hooray!!! We've been on this island called Koh Tao for a week and have spent the last 6 days scuba diving. Facts to scare the parents with include:

• We go diving to depths of 30m! Wow!
• We did a night dive, ie. in the dark! With torches!
• Me and Jodie have now qualified for our Advanced Open Water PADI!

It's been totally amazing. Koh Toa is this brilliant island and the water is mainly hot the whole time. The beach we're at is awesome and I think it might be tricky moving on any further than this. We dived with Buddha View diving club, which I would totally recommend to anyone else. The instructors were great (Alex is mostly harmless... Jespar's a comedy genius), and are easily bought with beers. It's been excellent.

We've made good friends on route too - Hi's to Mary Lou (Buddy #1), Roony (Team Norway) and Robby and Martha. We're all totally shattered now, diving takes it out of you, and last night involved a few drinks so we're taking it easy for a few days now.

Yes, I'm aware it's cold in England

Other than that - not a lot going on... right then. Beach! No wait, new Koh Tao photo's are up. See 'em and weep office boys :)