A not so fond farewell to South East Asia & 350 Quid!!

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I can't believe I've been away for 8 weeks now and in that time travelled through 4 countries (well 6 if you count 1 day travelling through Malaysia and Singapore as countries travelled!!) and had an absolutely amazing time until the last day which sadly has left abit of a sour taste in my mouth and has slightly tainted my SE Asia experience!! From the highs of jungle trekking, Rock climbing on Rayley, making some fantastic friends and partying far too hard, to the lows of getting ripped off by taxi drivers, minibus drivers and buses, nearly getting arrested over G&T's and those dreaded overnight buses, oh yeah and to top it all off, having my camera stolen!!

Crap aside, I'll be sad to say goodbye to South East Asia but am soooooooooooo excited about going to Australia and meeting Zoe, Its going to be so nice to see a familiar face!!

Anyway, a quick update of my last week or so....... After meeting the Brighton lads for dinner i had an early night for a change which was quite nice! The next day I got a taxi to Thong Nai Pan which is a gorgeous beach on the north eastern part of Koh Phangan, its absolutely beautiful! As I was waiting for the taxi I met a couple from Scotland, Chris and Siobhan. They were heading to Thong Nai pan aswell (they've been staying there for 2 months). We shared a taxi and I managed to get a room in their guesthouse which was so nice. Really nice beach bungalows, they were like luxury and only cost me about a fiver!

That night we went out for a few drinks and had a really late night, ended up going to bed about 6am! The night life up there was amazing, really cool bars and beach clubs! By the way, I'm not turning into an alcohol, its just that you have to have a few sociable drinks of an evening, its the only thing to do!! (Thats my excuse anyway!!) The last few days at Thong Nai Pan have just been really relaxing, I've just been on the beach or in my hammock, I managed to get through 2 books in 4 days!

Today I've come back to Haad Rin (where i was previously for 5 days) and I'm probably going to stay here for a few days as Chris and Carly arrive later today so I'm meeting up with them! My original plan was to see more of the islands but I've become so settled here that I think I'll probably stay until I go to Oz! I can always come back and see the other islands some other time!!

Met up with Carly and Chris that night and had a nice meal and another early night!! See I can go out without drinking!! The next couple of days were just more sitting on a beach and having meals, hence I haven't updated this for a while! Then it was my last night in Koh Phangan and of course we had to have a proper send off!! Another 2 couples who we'd met in Laos met up with us and we all went to a beach party until about 8am!! It was such a good night and was just the right parting memory I needed of the amazing 2 weeks I'd had on the Thai Islands.........If only it could have stayed that way!!!

So I was really looking forward to my 26 hour bus journey to Singapore.........NOT!!! Anyway, I was in high spirits after my last few days and was quite positive that it would be fine, how wrong could I be?? I'm not going to go into minute detail about it cos it still depresses me too much. Basically the reason I decided to get the bus rather than the plane was because the plane was 80 quid more expensive and I'm on a budget. In hindsight though it would have been much, much cheaper to fly!! I got ripped off by a tour company who made me pay about 50 quid extra ontop of the 20 quid I'd paid (they said it had to do with Visas or something) and if i didn't pay it I wouldn't be going to Malaysia, so they pretty much had me over a barrel! I found out later that it was a total scam!! Then I got dropped off by another minibus in Butterworth (Arse end of nowhere in Malaysia) and they said they wouldn't take me any further unless I paid another 20 quid, again, I was at their mercy! I was crying at this point and then when I finally got on the bus to Singapore I looked for my camera and it had gone, the b@$tards had stolen my camera!! Needless to say it wasn't a great day and I'm still feeling pretty bitter about it now. The most annoying thing is that I really wanted to end SE Asia on a high and unfortuntely its not ended that way all because of a bunch of thieves, also it means that I've lost alot of photos of the past 3 weeks of my trip as I hadn't copied them onto disk since Vietnam!! Luckily for you i managed to get a CD copied of our last night from one of the lads, I think they'll demonstrate the level of drunkeness!!

Anyway, I'm going to try and forget about it and remember the amazing times I had and move onwards and upwards as i fly to Australia tonight for the start of a new adventure!!

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Comments

[Carrie]

You have to think that the good times will out weigh the crap times
Hi Suz, hope you are ok....sounds like you had a nightmare - just think of all the fab times you are having and still have yet to have :o) Take care of yourself chick lots of love Carrie xxx

[Bridge]

Oh no!!
I honey - thats rubbish that you had your camera stolen - but noone can erase the memories you have and the amazing experience! Keep having fun times and say hi to Zoe ! Have a prawn the baarr-bee for me!! Lots of lov bridge xxx