From North to the South in an easy 36 hours

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Sorry to those back home for not being in touch the past few days but we have been on Thai public transport the entire time!

To be precise (are you ready for this??) - a three hours travel sickness enducing ride down the moutains from Pai, a wonderfully luxurious and efficient flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok (we splashed out), a miserable 2 hour wait for the local train from the airport which we eventually gave up on and jumped in a taxi to the big train station in Bangkok, an air-conditioned (not sleeper this time but good enough) train ride down to Chumporn which we arrived in early the next morning, an hour bus ride to the port where we were told by the travel company there was no boat (but once again given no reason whatsoever), we were then put on a high speed catamaran to an island called koh tao (not the right island but close enough), a 5 hour wait in the sun with our bags until finally a boat came to take us to koh phangan where we were met by a pick up truck (the only method of transportation around the island) and eventually we made it to our bungalows (beach hurts) that we are staying in for four days.

As you can imagine we were feeling a little groggy and miserable but the sight of the beach was enough to shake us out of our bad travel moods .... White sand, crystal blue sea and palm trees in a tiny bay surrounded by bamboo huts and charming thai boats called longtails which are used as water taxi's. We jumped straight into the sea, then grabbed some local food (which is twice as expensive here .... !!)



Now the reason we were so desperate to get to koh phangan yesterday was that it was the Full Moon party which happens here every month and we had been told it was not to be missed. It takes place on a beach with a mere 20,000 people attending and was incredible! Legend goes it started with a few travellers having a few drinks around a fire on the beach and has just grown and grown. Everyone gets painted with uv paints and everyone is dancing on the sand with djs and fire performers the whole length of this beach. We spent the night with some German's who we met in the taxi there and were joined by a scourser and a lad from Coventry ....

It felt a million miles away from the sleepy towns of Northern Thailand but was really fun to hear Western Music again and even eat a burger!! Traditionally the party doesnt finish until 8am but after our lack of sleep for 2 days we crawled to bed at 5! Totally worth it though.



Today was spent taking in our beautiful surroundings and sleeping on the beach and moaning about the terribly high price of our noodle soup at lunch (60 baht - about 1 pound 20).

Tomorrow we plan to kayak around to some other beaches and do some snorkelling (Andy wants to see a 'Nemo' fish)

Love to all! becky@andy

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