"Same same, but different!"

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Don't worry, the full moon party didn't kill us. We thought you might be getting worried since we haven't blogged in over a whole week!?

So..what have we been up to...? To be honest it is a little hazy to say the least but we'll give you some rough details.

Our flight to Phuket in Thailand went fine and we met this American guy called Parker (one of those effortlessly cool guys who had just finished a 6 week, 3 dives a day stint as a research assistant in the middle of nowhere, and manages to snowboard over 100 days a year) so anyway we got a room with him for the night after sampling some authentic pad thai, some dumplings from a street vendor and grabbing a chang or two.

The next morning we caught our ferry over to the island of Koh Phi Phi. For the reasonable price of around 8 pounds each we thought we were just getting the journey. But no, we managed to stumble onto a tour group which meant we had some free snorkelling once we got to the island AND an amazing buffet meal!!

The island itself is stunning. Very small, with motorised vehicles and perfect views. We thought we'd start by getting a couple of sun loungers and chilling on the beach to take in the atmosphere. This didn't last very long as we decided to go on yet another activity: kayaking. we took a kayak round to "Monkey Beach" A little bay out of sight with only a few other people with oars in hand and unfortunately, no monkeys. Our room here was incredible with a huge bed and hot showers. On our tight schedule we were only able to stay one night before making the day long journey to Koh Phangang.

The 5 days on Phangang are somewhat of a blur of buckets, fire shows, pounding music and UV paint. We were able to meet up with various friends from home, university and even my brother Luke which was awesome! And despite the culture here of drink drink drink we did manage to explore the island on mopeds (don't worry we had helmets. Safety First!) and Emily had a Jet-ski (with Luke) and the only break we came away with was a phone (I may have decided it would be a good idea to go swimming in the sea with it). All in all an incredible week of partying on a beautiful island.

Enjoying the lifestyle and company (and the food!) of Thailand we decided to extend our flight back to Bali by one week. This meant that we were able to catch a boat over to Koh Tao, where we are now, which is in some ways Koh Phangang's smaller, tamer brother. Very very nice. Our place here is incredible. This guy had built the house himself and it is made predominantly of bottles!!

On our first night here we avoided a flash downpour before going to see a Ladyboy Cabaret show! Which was hilarious and actually very entertaining.
Yesterday we went on a day of snorkelling around the island where we saw some beautiful coral, HUGE schools of fish, and even a couple of Black-tipped reef sharks!!! - It's hard to describe how surreal and breathtaking this was - the day ending with a stop at a tiny tiny island off Koh Tao (with an awesome view from the small trek up to it's viewpoint) before heading back to Tao for a beach BBQ. Deeeelish! Today's only plan is mini golf. Which everyone is way too excited for! We are still with all of our group but we start to go our separate ways tomorrow - the girls are off to Phi Phi, then the guys follow the next day as Luke, Emily and I make the trip over to Koh Samui to see our uncle Adam who lives there.

That's all for now I think so we'll catch up with you all soon! And those getting results over this week, GOOD LUCK!

I'll upload more photos later as the connection's too slow.

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