...and back to Thailand for some island hopping

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After lots of last minute uncertainty due to the Bangkok airport protests and no idea whether we'd be able to leave Cambodia for the island of Koh Samui in Thailand as planned, we touched down only about an hour behind schedule, after being rerouted through the chaotic Thai military airport.

We didn't plan to do too much in Samui, rather than enjoy being back on a beach after two months of bussing around Asia, but we still found the energy to rent a moped for the day and explore some of the neighbouring beaches. It felt a little bit like a ghost town though, as with so many people's holiday plans disrupted by the closure of Bangkok airport, each of the beach areas was only a fraction as busy as it should have been. Was great to feel like we had the place virtually to ourselves though.

The only other thing of note was getting lured into a timeshare pitch at a local resort with the promise of fabulous prizes, which we both should have known better than to go with, but were both too tempted by the 20,000 baht cash prize to refuse. So we spent the next two hours pretending to be interested in our salesman's pitch, only to walk away with a "free" stay at one of their resorts, accompanied by all sorts of restrictive terms and conditions. We're going to try our hardest to take it though and are already planning out next holiday!?

On to Koh Tao next to learn to dive, but not before Sam and I were both extremely sick on the high speed ferry crossing. We were joined by the rest of the cabin though which was staffed by about five people whose sole job it was to hand out bags and collect vomit! Nice job...

While Sam continued to feel green for a good few more hours, I did a tour of all the dive operators on the main beach of the island and found us a good deal on a place to stay and be taught for the next four days and nights. Our instructor was a nice enough Brummie, though totally lacking in any personality and charisma, who rushed us through our course with all the interest of someone who was doing this for the ten thousandth time. All went fine though and despite a few slight hiccups along the way at 10 metres underwater, Sam and I are now PADI qualified open water divers. Scary!

After some more snorkeling on a remote beach called Shark Bay the next day we headed off to Koh Phangan for one of the famous Full Moon parties. We decided to stay on the opposite side of the island to where the party happens to give ourselves some peace and quiet before and after the event, but ended up in a chalet next to a group of about six Irish teenagers (the Irish are everywhere and might actually be quietly embarking on some kind of world conquest) and a guitar, which was all we heard for the next four days.

The party itself was good fun and well worth seeing, though Sam and I both felt this kind of thing might be slightly behind us. A beach lined with bars and venders flogging buckets of booze and red bull for three quid and music everywhere was great fun to be a part of, but girls and guys getting it on in the sea with tens of guys pissing not two metres away from them, made us think, maybe this wasn't quite our crowd! Still had a great time though and staggered home at about 5:00am after we'd had our fill of buckets and caught up with Ross and Vicki, our pals from Cambodia.

Having done the Southern Gulf of Thailand, next we headed over to the Andaman coast to take in a different set of idyllic islands. We stopped off in Krabi town for a couple of nights to plan the next week or so and while there headed off on a snorkeling boat tour of the nearby four islands. Great fun and saw some brilliant beaches and marine life, but this was the time Sam's brand new underwater camera case decided to leak and by the time she's realised and got out of the water, the camera was full of water and never came back to life. Thus started the next week of arguments and frustrations with the camera store and manufacturer as we tried to get our money back for the defective product they'd sold us only a week before. It would take a separate blog to detail everything we went through, but will just say that after hours of store visits, phone calls around the world, bus and boat rides, we finally got a replacement model and were happy to put the whole thing behind us.

Anyway, with my 30th birthday only a few days away, we decided to head to Koh Phi Phi, which we knew would be a bit more expensive than the places we'd been, but we didn't want to miss out on seeing some of the best beaches in Thailand, as well as staying somewhere slightly more plush for my birthday.

We definitely ended up on one of the nicer places on the island, though our attempts to get a cheeky upgrade by mentioning my birthday, seemed to go right over the heads of the reception staff. We rediscovered the buckets again here and had an impromptu big night out. This was kicked off at one of the busiest bars which had a Thai boxing ring in the centre of it, where they encouraged their punters to get in the ring and kick the crap out of each other for a free bucket of drink. It was pretty vicious and at the sound of a bell, good mates would suddenly start trying to kill each other. The worst occasion being when a couple of girls got in the ring and one of them went so nuts, the poor girl on the receiving refused to come back out of her corner after the first round and spent the next couple of hours nursing a nose bleed and other bruises.

So a few days later I decided to turn 30 and Sam and I settled on a couple of local scuba dives to celebrate, the first we had done without an instructor since we passed our course. It was a great way to spend half the day and we got to do two brilliant dives swimming around with a giant turtle on one and about ten black tip reef sharks on another.

After drying off and a bit of a doze it was on to birthday activity number two, get a tattoo. I'd been thinking about it for days and Sam and I had spotted a design we both liked which she was going to get me as my present. I had a slight change in mind though, so after about two hours of discussions and redesigns I was happy enough to hand over the money and settle down for an hour while a stranger who didn't speak English, repeatedly jammed five needles attached to a piece of bamboo into my back. I think it looks good, but let me know what you think when I get back. My only other birthday request for the day was getting drunk, as it had been such a long time since we'd done that, so we did and I don't remember much else.

So after three weeks on the Thai beaches and two months of amazing experiences in SE Asia, it was time to leave and start making our way to Perth in time for Christmas with Sam's brother, and her new baby nephew. Not before a nine hour stop over at Singapore airport though during the middle of the night, during which time I explored all the cool lounges while no one else was about and Sam found a selection of varyingly uncomfortable chairs to try and sleep in.

It's crazy to think of how much we've done and seen since we set off just over three months ago and how much we did in Asia alone and we've still got more than half our trip to come...

DIARY ENTRIES

Saturday 6th December: First day of PADI course. Instructor Jon seems to rush through everything quickly, but ok. 2.5 hours in classroom then an hour in the pool, learning skills. Pizza for dinner. Sam bought 2 dresses. SJ

Sunday 7th December: Dive school started at 8.30am! Completed the theory and then on boat for 1st 2 dives. First went badly with Sam's ears causing problems and Lee floating to the surface. 2nd went better but visibility was bad. Found out Craig and Tanja engaged! SJ

Thursday 11th December: Hired motorbike on Ko Phangan and visited Haad Mae & Ao Chaloklum beaches. Had lots of fun with new camera. Lovely weather, relaxing day. SJ

Saturday 13th December: Recovery day after Full Mon Party. Lee woke up t 1pm. Sam read in the hammock whilst Lee made the most of the air con. Went for nice troll on Haad Salad beach. SJ

Monday 15th December: Long day! Really good boat trip around Krabi's 4 islands including fun snorkeling. Things ruined though when Sam's camera leaked. Horrible evening then spent arguing with camera shop who would not help. To be continued....LR

Thursday 18th December: LEE'S BIRTHDAY! Up at 6.45am to go diving. Saw a turtle, 10 x black reef sharks, a sting ray and hundreds of Nemo fish. Spent hours sorting Lee's tattoo then had more buckets in the bars in town. Lee v drunk and went to bed at 2.30am SJ

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