Bottle Beach

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Days 152 - 162

We caught the first boat back to the mainland and got a taxi up to the Thai border. Once in Thailand, we walked 1km in the blistering heat with our backpacks to the train station - grim is not the word! We then got a 10 hour train up to Surat Thani. When we got off the train we got a taxi to a hotel and spent the night in a nice hotel room with air con!!

Next morning we caught the first ferry across to Ko Pha Ngan which took about 4 hours. We then got a taxi and another boat to Carly's paradise, Bottle Beach. We raced up the beach to the place she had stayed at before and hadn't stopped going on about since and they had rooms - woo hoo!! We had something to eat, got settled and sat on the beach for a couple of hours. It was as gorgeous as she remembered and even better than Stuart expected. Despite plans to leave after 5 days to go to Ko Tao as soon as we got there, we decided to spend the whole time at Bottle Beach.

Despite the beautiful day we arrived, the next few days had thick cloud and rain, but we occupied ourselves in the bar all day. After the initial few days, the sun came out and we chilled out on the beach. There was a tattoo place on the beach and Stuart wandered down to have a look as he'd been looking at getting one for a while. He had designed one a while ago and decided to go for it! (Don't worry, it's really nice mum!!) It took 6 hours altogether - 3 hours one day followed by 3 the following day. It was done by hand rather than machine and is really cool. It was really funny as he had an audience of kids watching who all loved it. It became the talk of the beach!!

On our final day, it was Jason's birthday (he's been there for 4 years and quite frankly we were green with envy, lucky git!). He spent a fortune on fireworks and we had a BBQ too. It was a great way to finish a fantastic 10 days in paradise.

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Photos

Beautiful, Beautiful Bottle Beach
The photos don't do it justice at all! You HAVE to go there.

Beautiful, Beautiful Bottle Beach
The photos don\'t do it justice at all! You HAVE to go there.

The Tattoo Parlour!
Better than some greasy biker's shack down the Cowley Road!!

Lanterns
On our last night they were lighting lanterns which float up really high into the sky and look like yellow stars. They were gorgeous. They are a Thai tradition that symbolise your worries floating away.

Comments

[Mum]

Tattoo???
I assume it has "Mum" with a heart and arrow in it!! PS Hope it hurts!!!