A test to my sea legs...

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PICS TO FOLLOW

I cannot believe five weeks have passed since we were separated from our luggage at Bangkok airport...It has been a very active 5 weeks involving a lot of transport - mad 'Dukes of Hazard style' car rides (car and driver complete with) big busy ferries, traditional Thai longboats on very rough sea, numerous dive boats and even a kayak...

Our first stop was Koh Phi Phi - a beautiful island in the Andaman Sea - with the most amazing coastline, clear blue sea and fantastic sealife - in fact snorkelling with baby black tip reef sharks right beneath us. We stayed on the East coast of the island - a place called Tokho beach - where Pon and Bird - had created a little hideaway haven from the main town - with great bungalows (on very high stilts), a great atmosphere and of course, great Thai food - which I am now trying to shed the after effects of....

After the snorkelling I decided that I wanted to take my sea life experience a bit deeper and we headed to Ko Lanta on the west coast of mainland Thailand to do my PADI openwater course. I have already sent a few emails about this so I won't bore you too much. In brief, the first day in the water was a nightmare - rather than use a nice calm pool, the learning was done in the very rough open sea where my instructor actually had to hold me down on the bottom in my scuba gear just in case I got washed away. At this point I was thinking 2 things -one, how the hell can this be even remotely enjoyable I cannot be arsed with this **** and secondly, more importantly, Simon is going to think I am a complete wimp if I pull out!! So I therefore persevered and I quite enjoyed it in the end.

Our first dive together was on Valentines Day - how romantic!

From Ko Lanta we then headed North to Ko Pangnan - encompassing the mad-est journey so far. In brief we were sitting rather quietly drinking a few beers watching the world go by on a very comfy Thai train when Simon suddenly stumbled on the party style buffet car. He came rushing back saying we had to move from our comfy seats to join the locals and have some fun. The next minute all I can remember is performing live, YMCA with the Thai train guard and the train hostesses - music full volume - whilst Simon is video-ing (unfortunately I am unable to attach!) The journey was far too short and when we got off - only about 4pm - we stumbled in a drunken stupor to get foot massages and body massages - I think we may have passed out as I not sure what happened next.

In the morning we took a boat to the island and then spent the next 2 weeks with Paula and Jem and also some Spanish friends we had met in India from Ibiza. We had a great time on the island - famous for its full moon parties - although we only managed to the do the half moon and the jungle party which was enough for us and from here we headed to Malaysia

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Comments

[pat cochrane]

good to see you both
Emma thanks for the lovely photos. What can I say you both look so well.............how can you ever settle back to work after this?!!