A holiday from our holiday :)

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Arriving in Koh Phan Ngan to our hotel on a beautiful white sandy beach with warm crystal clear weater it felt like we were in paradise. However, venturing into Haad Rin on our moped we discovered why the island is often described as messed up, not least by Alex Garland, author of 'The Beach' which we have both now read. But we embraced the touristy atmosphere and enjoyed the infamous Coral Bungalows Pool Party.

Another day of lounging on the lovely sunny beach was followed by the much anticipated Full Moon Party. It lived up to all expectation with several large stages along the 2km stretch of Haad Rin beach, with every bar playing louder and louder music and thousands of people dancing on the sand. The fire performers and the neon paint everywhere made for a pretty surreal experience and it was clear why this has become such a world famous party.

On our last day we drove to the north of the island and got a boat taxi to take us to bottle beach. It was a lovely and peaceful bay as it is only accessible by boat, we enjoyed getting away from the busy and touristy Haad Rin to explore the island and see the great views from the deserted road through the middle of the island.

Next stop was Koh Tao which is much more relaxed and has been kept in a more pristine and slightly less developed state, as well as having some great dive sights. Jonny did his PADI Open Water dives here and was lucky enought o see a turtle on his first dive. I did a night dive, which was very wierd at first but I saw some fantastic colours on the coral with the torch light, once I relaxed a bit. For Jonny's second day if diving I joined him and we did his two final dives together which were fantastic. We saw so many fish (even a few shoals) and I managed to get attacked by a trigger fish ... which was actually quite intimidating!

On our last night in Thailand we went to the popular Queens Bar Cabaret show, which was hilarious and we were actually pleasantly surprised by the high standard of the show and fun attitude of the 'girls'.

We are sad to be leaving Thailand after only 2 weeks but unfortunately the land boarder crossing only grants 15 day visas, so we are off to Langkawi in Malaysia for a few more lazy beach days.

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