Lanta Sand Ko Lanta

... it?). By the time I reached the cave the rain (and my sun-protection, probably) had stopped anyway. Still, I began to walk the trail to the cave...
..."You-you! Stop! Must have guide!"...I'm like "What?... ...No I'm ok, I have headtorch." Woman says "No-no, you must have guide, 200 baht (4 quid). No money, no cave." I said "It's a cave. Its nature. Should be free." - "No-no 200 baht."
F*ck it then, I won't go ("Mai-mai-mai"). Been in enough caves for now ...

... everyone that the bike key was the wrong one and that her motor bike would not start. I wished I’d kept the key. Apparently word on the street was that she threw the key into the ocean. She didn’t want to be home because someone was trying to kill her there. I decided enough was enough. I was staying out of island politics.

Wan swam and punched the waves with her fists. I watched from the balcony. I decided I needed a massage and had one before Kate and Craig were due ...

Hello again!

And so after the sun and whisky spectacular that was Ko Phagnan and it's Full Moon Party I scooted over to the West Side of Thailand and had a couple of relaxing days in Krabi. I ate lots of fruit and drank lots of water in order to detox and my body much appreciated it. I was also lucky to stay in the Good Dream Guesthouse there which had the Ashes cricket on. Not for the first time I wasn't travelling as purists would like but you really can't beat England vs ...

... and early tomorrow morning I am off to Bali!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED!!! I'm so ready to get a bit out of the regular SE Asia loop to something I know little about. Of course, I am landing in Kuta Beach, which won't be a huge change from the past month...but once that is ticked off to list, the real adventure begins. :) Let's hope I don't get swallowed up in an earthquake, volcano, landslide, or some other natural (or not so natural) disaster that like to hit Indonesia all the time. :S

... for 7 baht (14p) I had to go back for more! Then I had this Thai dessert made from corn on the cob. I had a box of this [the box made out of bamboo leaves] for 10 baht (20p). I was full. So that was the 25 baht banquet (50p) - great. H had a lovely banana and chocalate pancake - 30 baht - the extravagance of that woman! The bus was picking us up at 9:30 and at 9:20 the heavens opened and it chucked it down. We walked back through ...

... those feelings mixed into one.
We boarded the boat and there were more people than I thought there would be. Tom & Lucy (Sarah's brother and his girlfriend) were there as well as they were doing their last day of their Padi Open Water Course (which they have passed now). Yo & Grant (Sarah's friend and her boyfriend from Sydney) were on the boat as well, but since we didn't know who they were by this point never ...

... you need to spend a night at the border. Ugh. But the travel agent said he wouldn't sell it to me, because it's worth it to just wait until the next day to catch the minivan & pay the extra 500baht at the border because I will be a day over my allowed 30-day Visa. Fine by me, to avoid a border night stay. So I met up with Stephan for lunch & to pick up his new tailored suits (which are very popular around Thailand, "Hello my friend, nice suit for you?"). We ...

As there is no pier on Ko Lipe, we took a long-tail boat out to our ferry, which was taking us to our next island- Ko Lanta. We had decided to give Ko Mook a miss, as it was a lot cheaper to get a boat straight to Ko Lanta and we could cut down on our boat trips. We'd booked accommodation at Koh Lanta but not for the first two night of our arrival- due to our change of plan. So our first mission was to find somewhere to stay. This was easy, as a tout pushed a leaflet into my ...

... amp; I hiked to a lookout point to get some good view pictures of the village itself & surrounding water, as you can see in the pics. We hired a water taxi (long-boat) to take us to Long Beach where we spent an afternoon on the nicest beach I've been on. White sand & crystal & Phi Phi Leh island in the background (where they filmed the movie "The Beach"). Phi Phi has a very rich nightlife - in our case, they consisted of dinner at a ...

... to crash out in their stores here. My luggage was hauled up a set of steep rocky stairs on the shoulders of the manager to my bungalow. Yes, I'm staying in a bungalow! After scaling the steep stairs, through a mini jungle and over a short wooden bridge, you arrive at my bamboo bungalow. It has a bamboo patio wrapped around the bungalow on two sides, with a table and two chairs on one side and a love seat that looks as if it should ...