GRosie

25th Oct Day 91 Koh Lanta We checked out of the hotel and the hotel porter put our bags in his oversized wheelbarrow to bring us down to the pier. As soon as we got to the pier there was a guy trying to sell us a hotel and kinda trying to keep us with him as if he worked on the boat, but we were wise to him so just moved to the boat. Unfortunately it was no better on the boat. We got a row of seats on the boat so I just lay down and closed my eyes while all the touts annoyed G, hehehehe! We ignored them all, and when we got off the boat we chose a place and the guy who worked there brought us to look at it. Literally ... read more

Sri Bungalows So we arrived in Ubud, which is an inland town set in the mountains, the drive to it was pretty fantastic with some amazing scenery. The town itself is know to be very "arty" there are lot of craft shops and clothes shops selling one off designs it is a beautiful place and not very commercial, but you can still get a convenience shop and there were two big supermarkets so there is nothing we could have wanted and not gotten. The guest house we were staying in was made up of separate building with 4 rooms to each the rooms were very big and they had a really nice private balcony/terrace outside our room where they served tea in the afternoon. There was also a small swimming pool which looked out over the ... read more

I now know the true meaning of a red eye flight, although it took me 30mind to be able to open them so I could see that! Two and half hours sleep after a really busy day not good! Anyway we got up and out to the airport no problem, and managed to get a bit of sleep on the plane. So we arrived in Bali and it hit us that we haven't a clue what to do where to go etc, but sure what's new! So we are going through immigration only to find out you have to pay €20 for you visa. This is news to us and we have no cash on us and nothing in our current accounts and they don't take credit cards!!! So we were like Fudge, what do we ... read more

We are nearing the end of our island hopping :( Today we are heading back to Phuket and surprise surprise the mode of transport is a mini bus!!! We are collected from the hotel and dropped at a rest stop to wait for the real bus that is going to bring us to Phuket. When we get off the bus though H noticed her bag was vibrating, and the bus driver noticed too cus he was giving her some strange looks. Anyway she is like WTF? Turns out it was her toothbrush, which typically is at the very bottom of her bag, she eventually gets it out, turns the battery upside down, problem solved. We didn't have to wait long for the next bus to come and once we were in it I fell asleep, or ... read more

So we arrived in Phi Phi and started the familiar search for accommodation, only this time it seem the whole island was booked up and there was no room at the inn! We eventually found the one hotel with availability for that night so we had to take it, on first impression it was ok but once again time told a different story. The sheets had these very suspicious stains on them and we were worried that it was blood from bed bug bites eeekkkk we had so far managed to avoid bed bugs. So we got out the silk sleeping bags and got very little sleep. We had to get up really early to go back to the two places that said "come back tomorrow" to see if they had any availability, but there was ... read more

So next stop if going to be Koh Tao we rock up once again with no idea where we are staying. When we get off the boat we get a lift in the back of a truck, there weren't that many tuk tuks it was just the locals with there Nissans jeeps and a bench in the trailer to give you a lift and charge you for it! Any who so we were dropped at this really nice place on the beach that we could not afford and they didn't even have hot water :( so we had some lunch and then took it in turns to walk up and down the beach to see if we could get anywhere. Eventually we got a place that had air con and hot water and seemed ok. We ... read more

So the infamous full moon party was on the 12th of Oct. So that was our next stop as we had been warned that most places are a 7 night minimum stay coming up to the full moon party. So we checked out of Lamai Wanta and got the bus to and boat to Koh Pangyang after what felt like forever we got to the island but typically we had no where booked so we got a tuk tuk to one of the places a friend recommended but the tuk tuk driver had his own agenda and brought us to some random place, after a small argument we got him to drop us to the nearest town, which was like a blink and you will miss it place and we couldn't find a guest house to ... read more

We were collected from our hotel by a mini bus and er assumed we would be getting off and then onto a ferry as foot passengers. We were wrong, all the ferries were car ferries se we stayed in the mini bus for the whole trip. When we got to Ao Nang we asked the driver to drop us at the Pranang Flora, we had no booking but it had food reviews on Trip Advisor. After driving around for 10mins at a snails pace we found the place and the driver jumped out to talk to the receptionist to try and get commission out of us, but we were having none of it knowing that his commission would be added onto the price of our room . We got the price down to 550B per night ... read more

Not much to report for the week, we spent the days by the pool and the evenings we would go for food and maybe a drink if we could be arsed. The food in the resort was amazing so there was really no need to leave the resort plus the area in we were staying in, Lamai Beach during low season is full of old western men and their "girl friends" aka Lady boys and prostitutes so there really wasn't much reason to leave either. One of the evenings we went to Chewang which is another popular beach area, and spent two hours looking for lights Debbie decided she wanted. It was way busier but also very commercial. Luckily we were in Samui for rest and relaxation it didn't matter much. G fell in love with ... read more

So today we have to figure out how to get to the islands, G isn't feeling too good, we think she has a sinus infection! Debbie manages to get a late check out so she can stay in bed and hopefully get better . We still need to decide which island we are actually going too. So Debbie decides to waste about 2 hours looking into flying to Koh Samui, even though we knew we couldn't afford it. G had read that under no circumstance should you book an overnight bus from the Koh San Road or anywhere near it! So we wanted to get a government bus but they were all booked out and Debbie wouldn't wait till the next day to travel as she only had 5 days before she had to return home. ... read more