Chaloklum Bay Resort Ko Phangan

... and stumble home at 9 a.m., I was in bed at a very reasonable 5 a.m.!

Unfortunately, in order to ensure we had a room for the night of the party, we had to reserve several nights in Haad Rin. At the time, I didn't think it would be an issue, but the more I got to know the island, the less I liked it. The weather wasn't very nice so we didn't even lay on the beach. To be honest, the best part of the island was the stand near our hotel that served ...

... goodbye for now (apologies for all the typos, just can't seem to spell and type properly since have been here, brain not engaging!)
Day off today and sanding completed and ready for staining in the morning. There are only 3 of us volunteers left now as the cook left for a holiday yesterday so very trusting of the owners! We went to the food markets to stock up on fruit and veg yesterday so encountered some awful smells. I have also never seen so many stray dogs in all my life ...

... 8,000km all over Thailand learning to cook Thai and is the only foreign chef to be granted a work permit in Thailand to teach Thai cooking. I recommend it if anyone is on the island.

Sadly it was time to leave Thailand as our visa had nearly expired so we made our way on the overnight train into Malasyia. We enjoyed our rest in Thailand however look forward to our next adventures with the Orangutans in Sumatra.

Hope you enjoyed the blog.

Andrew and Nia

... four in the morning to my favorite place the ko san road!!! (if you have ever been there it is the pits!!) Said bye to Andrew top American dude who hopefully will have few beers with if i ever to America or hit Vegas with one day.

Anyway last two weeks in Thailand were great fun as met some really decent people, which is awesome but then like i said before hard as you only met them for short period before going your separate ways.

Love you all and sorry for the slow updatexxx

... time to bid the lovely ladies farewell and head over to The Sanctuary, a hotel and spa only accessible by boat on Hat Thian beach.

The Sanctuary goes in for two kinds of treatment: beauty and cleansing. Looking at the offerings it soon became clear that my budget wouldn’t stretch to a twenty quid manicure so I opted for the one day cleanse. Luckily by this point I’d befriended Gina, a salt of the earth thirtysomething from Leeds who also decided that ...

... her eindeutig besser und eben mit pool und noch dazu billiger. Ich finde halt, es hat einen besonderen Charme - kann mir aber schon vorstellen dass die anderen des net teilen. Ich schaffe es zuletzt im Ok II Bungalows Zimmer zu reservieren - um 600 Baht - also viel billiger als bisher.
Die Fähre geht um 13h und wir fetzen mit dem Katamaran rüber nach Koh Tao. Wir werden sogar ...

... We booked our Open water dive course with Big Bubble and went to search for some accomm closer to town. We found Orchid cliff.... close ish to town but kind of secluded.... and what we would later grow to loathe, about a bajillion hundred stairs above town. We headed back to our far away bungalow....a different but not at all easire route this time and made it back just in time for our first monsoon storm.... went for a swim in the rain which was fun! The next day we got ...

... bumped into them againabout 30minutes later. To Chris' credit, for the first time ever!! he wasgracious in victory, and didnot boast about winning. I did my best tokeepout of the football talk, because I wanted the final night to be calm and relaxed because on the following day, the group of four became a group of three. On day five, Chris, Tom and I headedto Ko Pha Ngan at 9am, leaving Ben behind who travelled back to Bangkok later that day. It was great having ...

... in new skills, dive up to depths of 30m (OWD max is 18m), at night, in caves, wrecks, etc. It is a great course and the increased experience and tutelage of my instructors at Buddha View vastly improved my diving ability. We loaded up our kits and were off on the morning boat out to the 30m underwater pinnacle at Chumphon Pinnacle. The objective of our first dive was the deep dive, which is less of a skills dive and more of a "see/feel the experience" dive ...

... flipping end over end to the bottom of the hill or off to the side and over the rock face so I am still clinging desperately to one of the bars. Good thinking Chris.

This effectively serves to guide the bloody thing down directly on top of me. If you’ve ever been pounded into the asphalt by a motor vehicle you’ll be able to relate when I mention the sheer unpleasantness of the whole experience. On the bright side at least I cushioned its impact into the ...