Happy New Year!

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First of all, happy New Year 2006! Hope you all had a good one.

We are in Penang, Malaysia right now doing a border run to renew our Thai visa. It's a huge city with a strange mix of old run down colonial buildings with plants actually growing out of some of the upper floors, Chinese temples with giant sticks of incense, and modern shiny sky-scrapers! It has been a nice change of pace, but we are looking forward to heading back to the beaches of Thailand tomorrow.

We spent a quiet Christmas in the resort of Kata on Phuket, which was a little too family-orientated for us. On Boxing Day, we took the boat over to Phi Phi - that's right, the one that was hit by the tsunami, and was supposed to be the location for our wedding! Although you can see evidence of the tsunami quite readily, it is still a gorgeous place and is putting itself back together quite nicely. We had a great time on New Year's Eve, dancing the night away at Carlito's Bar on the beach and watching the midnight fireworks.

From there we headed to Ko Lanta for some chill-out time, then over to Ko Phangan which was the complete opposite. Although home to the famous full moon party, there seem to be parties every night, and we spent every night dancing on the beach until about 3am! A few days before the full moon, we decided we were burned out and couldn't make the big party, so came down to Malaysia instead, where we are now.

Hope you are all sticking to your New Year resolutions. I broke mine every night at about 2.30am to 3am when we would hit the cheese sandwich stands!

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