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Hello all,
We left our hotel in Laos at 6am and travelled to the border and crossed at Surat Thani, headed for the airport and caught a flight to Bangkok. When we arrived we thought we could extend our visa for the rest of the time we would be spending in Thailand. We were gutted to find out that you were only granted fifteen days when crosssing by land and therefore, we would have to make two visas runs to stay in Thailand for 5 weeks.
After the hiccup we jumped on a tube to Bangkok train station hoping to catch a night train to Chumphon to then catch a ferry. We were told that the train was full so another night bus it was!! We arrived at the ferry port at 4am, the bus driver kicked us off and we had a three hour wait for our ferry onto Kho Toa. Luckily, there was a shop with a Tv and seating area so we got ourselves a packet or Orios, two cups of coffee and one horror film and two games of scrabble later we set off for Kho Toa, hurray!! (28 hours travelling)
We decided to
Koh Tao
Relaxing with a cocktail head to the south of the island where we had heard it was quieter. After getting a free ride from the port we were shown around a few different places and settled with Rasta House... It was a bungalow made from bamboo up a rocky cliff with nice views but a bit rough around the edges. Either way, we were so happy to finally be near a beach. I bounced on the bed and came acrross a grape sized brown ball... Julian said it smelt like poo as he'd found one on the floor too. We convinced ourselves it couldn't be poo and came up with things it could have been... Julian headed for the shower and a couple of centipides fell from the ceiling as he was showering. After throwing them out we headed for the beach. We returned to find ten centipides hanging from the ceiling in the bathroom. This made showering difficult as washing hair with your eyes open isn't easy!
Back from dinner, Julian turned on the lights and we saw a huge ghecko on the wall, by far the biggest we've seen. You could have grabbed it with both hands! It made it's
way into the eaves at it's own lesuire back to it's friend whose thick tail was poking out of the gap! They weren't going anywhere... More centipides had invaded the bathroom and just as I thought it couldn't get any worse a huge spider was stuck to the curtain. All this happened in minutes. Sceaming again, Julian went to move (hit) the spider with a stick, missed terribly and it darted behind the bed. Never to be seen again. I was hysterical at this point, on the bed and under the mosquito net with it being too late to change rooms. Julian snored the night away as I spent the night jumping at the feeling of the fan blowing the mosquito net against me :0)
I surrived the night, we changed rooms but not hotels as we had got all excited and paid for four nights up front. 4 nights later we moved across the road right on the beach!! It was concrete rooms from now on. We were luckily enough to catch the Kho Toa festival and ended up going with the owners of a little bar we went to. There was lots of food, drink and live
music, we had a good weekend.
After 6 days of reading and relaxing we caught a ferry to Kho Phangan, this was a quick 2 hour journey and on landing we headed to the west of the island called Hadd yao. We spent a week on the island with our days being taken up reading, bat and ball (ralley of 181- sad but true), exploring the island and visiting other beaches on our moped. One afternoon,
We spotted a really nice pool in a posh resort and thought we'd sneak in and use it as it was quiet. No sooner had Julian removed his shorts and got into the water when a lady came over asking for our room number. Julian came with up a bad excuse, rambling on and said we were staying the following day. She didn't buy it and we had to pay to use it!
We went to the full moon party on the beach which was mad, people dancing, doing crazy things and drinking lots. The majority were dressed or painted in illuminous colours. There was skipping and jumping through fire with bars playing music in every direction. Lots of fun!
The
week had flown by and it was time to do a 4am visa run to Malaysia to continue exploring the islands.
Hope you enjoy
xxx
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Brenda Britnell
non-member comment
Another set of fab photo's. Good to see you both relaxing and the beaches look amazing. Glad you got to experience a Full Moon Party. Enjoy these last 3 weeks and keep staying safe. Love from us all. xx