Sharrocks Is On The Loose

The flight seemed to go pretty smooth until 1 hour before landing the captain tells us that they are having some severe gales in England and that some planes this morning have been re-directed to Amsterdam - oh no! The captain then tells us that we have to circle a while to wait for permisson from ground countrol to land and it may be quite bumpy, but fortunatley we only have to wait 20 minutes extra and the landing is no where near as bad as they were making out - I had scenes from 'Lost' going round in my head and everything! We land, get transported over from Terminal 4 to terminal 1 and it's only here we find that our flight to Manchester has been cancelled - along with 25 other BA flights. We ... read more

Well our plan was to get to the Jatujak market for 9am when it opened and would be cooler, but feeling absolutley wrecked (am gonna need another holiday to get over this one!) we only managed to get there at 11am. The whole place is madness - stalls everywhere, you go down one alley and it opens up onto a complete new one! You need a map to navigate around it as they sell everything here, from clothes to jewellery to pets! And the later in the day it got, the more stalls came out and the more people arrived - crazy! We were ready to barter but here as the prices are so low there is no need for it - they are all in competition so put them as low as they can go ... read more

Well, we thought we would have to sit around in reception for 3 hours as wasn't expecting our room to be ready until at least 9am. However when superwoman came on shift at 7am (she really is great, does about 5 things at once whilst checking people in and wears the funkiest yellow and blue eye make up ever!) she gave us our room at 7.30am - great! We hit the sack and woke at 11am feeling like we had been asleep all night long - these rooms are great for £3 each! We decided to hit the shopping centres today and try and finish the pressie buying. Our first stop was at the Central Shopping centre which was very posh, bit like the ones in Manchester. But as all the prices were just a little ... read more

Got collected (well, walked through the streets by a guide collecting people on his way - a people bus!) at 8.15am which was pretty early by our now lazy standards, but would have been a lie in at one point! Managed to secure a space on the top deck of the boat, then it was off to our first stop - Maya Beach on Phi Phi Lai. For those not in the know, Phi Phi has 2 islands - Phi Phi Don where everybody stays and Phi Phi lai which has no accommodation, due to it mainly being rocks. Maya beach is where they actually filmed 'The Beach' and you can see why, once you have managed to look past the numerous tourist boats and people that are there it is gorgeous. The sea really is ... read more

Yep, we were right about the shoulders - think I have worked muscles I didn't even know I had! Somehow the island has made us fall in love with it, with it's funky little streets, hearing 'beep beep' from the Thai locals who haven't got bells on their bikes, the genius of trying to disguise the islands Waste Water plant by hiding it under flower beds trying to make it look pretty and even adding a volley ball court (which suprisingly is always free) - even the bad eggy smells and island debris seem to add to its character after a while! Therefore we decide to stay until Wednesday and manage to get a discount off our guesthouse - result! (it was like doing a shady deal, I had to shake hands that I wouldn't tell ... read more