Storms, Karst and Tsunami daft! The degree came in useful after all!

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Headed from Koh Samui to Koh Pha-ngan (Tuesday 3rd) on a boat packed with people heading for the full moon party! Managed to locate Coral Bungalows easily enough and discovered it was home of the 'world famous pool party' so thought we'd go for our first night! Pool party was mad and we had a few more buckets then ended up in the pool thanks to some joker! But a good night anyways! Spent a few days at the pool and a few nights watching storm clouds gather over Koh Samui and turning into violent lightening storms accross the water, pretty amazing sight!

On the Thursday we went a day trip to Angthong National Marine Park to see some sights, snorkel and go kayaking. The snorkelling wasn't great, about 6 boats of 30 people meant more chance of gettting your mask kicked off by another snorkeler than seeing any fish!! The view point at Talay Nai to see the emerald lake was great though, worth the very steep climb in the heat!! Sightseeing on the boat let us see lots of arches, stacks, caves etc. (Geogrpahy daft!) and 'Monkey Island' which looked like a praying Monkey. Was really nice to see after studying how they are formed, and got some lovely pics (although I'm sure they'll all look the same to everyone else) After a lovely buffet lunch with rice, coconut chicken, sweet and sour and spaghetti bolognase we went out kayaking. Was a great way to see the rocks but quite hard work!

Friday night was the main event.. The Full Moon party!! We bought our own paints and painted ourselves and our tops, and our friends that we made at coral, before heading down to the beach! Anyone looking for good buckets should head straight to Yo-Yo!! The music wasn't too great, but the occasional song thrown in and a few buckets meant we danced all night!! Stayed to watch the sunrise sitting on the beach. The whole night was great and we didn't see any trouble, only a few people being overly 'friendly' in the sea at sunrise!

Saturday we spent recovering before having our own wee title party after getting football updates text to us as nowhere was showing Scottish Football! Sunday we headed to Krabi, boat back to Surat Thani and then a bus to Krabi. Much easier and more relaxed and comfier than the train!! And found our hostel, nicest one yet! Glur Hostel, Ao Nang, Krabi. Soo clean and just lovely!

We went on a 4 Island tour: Poda and Tup for some sightseeing, swimming and relaxing; Chicken (looks like a chicken head) for snorkelling and Phranang to see a cave, said to be home of a princess spirit worshiped by locals and prayed to by fishermen, leaving her speacial 'gifts'. The tour was really nice, except for the brief thunder storm where we all got soaked!! But considering we had all just been swimming it was fine! One woman had been snorkelling in her waterproof coat though, so she either knew the strom was coming or took the term 'waterproof' a bit too literally! Our pictures look similar to the tour from Koh Pha-ngan, Karst features look similar after awhile, but there was more jungle this time and the beaches were nicer when we were actually on them.

Yesterday we planned on a lazy day and were having a late lunch watching David Attenborough on TV. The restaurant was a family run place and suddenly they started running about a bit mad, changing the channel over to the news. The tv just showed pictures of Malaysia and loads of Thai then 8.9 and more Thai. After coming to the conclusion that there had been a big earthquake the restaurant staff asked us if we could hurry up as there was a Tsunami coming!!
We left immediately and headed up the hill!! When we had first arrivied in Krabi the first thing we seen was the tsunami evacuation signs, and after 4 years of Geography we had taken picutres of them and follwed them out of curiosity just to see where they went! So we were well prepared and headed inland and up a mountain to be safe. There were private little bungalow type things all the way up, we went to the highest one and were sitting outside with a group of people. A few were completely freaking out, but because we knew where the earthquake had happened we knew we were going to be up there for a good few hours! A rather violent thunderstrom started so we climbed under a wee house and over a fence into an outside type bathroom for some shelter. We managed to get onto the internet through the room (which we eventually had to go inside due to bats swooping us outside when it got dark!) and could keep track of what was happening. When the warning was eventually lifted we headed back down and discovered that McDonalds had been open the entire time!!

After a rather stressful few hours (more so for family back home) we headed for an early night! Staying in Krabi for a few more days before Phuket.

You're a bucket!
We survied the Tsunami!!
xxxx

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