The Kingdom of Thailand

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Back to Bangkok we go!



This time we get te pleasure of picking up our little ginger friend Steve (Kirk/Captai Kirk/Ginge/Kirky) for our visit to the South Islands. Before that though we celebrated Alex's 24th birthday first on Koh San road, complete with some flashing minnie ears.

The first island was Koh Phangan for the infamous full moon party on hadrin beach. This was as crazy as everyone says, with about 20,000 people on the beach partying util th sun comes up (you cant go to bed until the su comes up). Unfortunately it was cloudy so didnt see the full moon but the night before was clear so I reckon thats good enough. We stayed in Koh Phangan a couple of days after the full moon, and it was amazing how quickly it turns from a thriving party centre to a deserted town, we felt like there should be tumble weeds rolling past. The full moon is obviously ood trade for the islanders but only for a few days every month, they spend the rest of the time reparing the damage and setting up for the next one. In a similar way to Vang Vieng in my last post, its both bad and good for the locals. The kids are getting into drugs and western culture, and originally it was just a party from one of the locals to say gopopdbye to the australian visitors he had. i cant imagine he would have thought 10 years down the line 30,000 people would be turning up weeky!



After Koh Phangan was Koh Tao. This is supposed to be great for diving but with low funds and a lack of paddy qualifications we settled for a snorkelling trip. The coral was good but obviously didnt compare to the great barrier reef, and previous rain fall made the visibilty pretty low, though there wee plenty of fish and me and tom did our usual boat backflips, which is always fun. The next day we hired mopeds o explore the island,and discovered a few awesome resorts, that if we were rich would be awesome to stay in. Infinity pools looking over white sandy beaches, pina coladas on recliner sunbeds, awesome.

Then it was back to Bangkok (only the 3th time on the trip to date). Kirky ad Bxon flew home, Tom went to Laos, and I went to Cambodia.

Time to start my individual travel time!

Andy xx

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Photos

Hadrin beach
The night of the full moon party. Paint, bright colours, and lots of buckets!

Infinity pool
Tom and Steve by a remote resort infinity pool in Koh Tao

Nangyuan Island resort
The view from the top of the island, just off Koh Tao, te end point of our snorkel day