Lanta Sweet Mansion Ko Lanta

... it wasn't my meal....


 Around me I hear big waves crashing the shore but the tide is out. I hear birds chirping in the trees, Thai children laughing on the beach and English football on TV. If only it were hockey!! In the sea's horizon I see various fishing boats, some hazy islands and of course those waves breaking. 


 Above me, beams of light pierce through the ...

... Cuddle up!")

Still, not even Asha and Liam's mood could resist the absolutely amazing sky at 6pm. As dusk came we sipped a Singha beer at the beach bar and watched the kids pretend to be shipwrecked on small rocks. The light turned everything a perfect-pink and everyone a suntanned-brown. It might be the same job in a different location, but it still feels like a holiday.

... and the hoop higher off the ground. I decided to stay away from this one but Fi, being Fi, gave it a go with some crowd cheering. On approaching the hoop she spotted a previous jumper who was injured at the side. this came just at teh wrong time and she misjudged the height of the hoop. I was sitting at the side feeling quite sorry for myself that I was too scared to do it when I saw Fi trip and get up. I was worried but (thinking I was being too mumsy anyway ...

Man hat uns gewarnt - es ist nicht möglich mit dem Kanu durch die Wellen raus zu kommen ohne zu kentern. Wir haben es zweimal geschafft und hatten beim ersten Mal einen extrem Surf auf einer Welle - bei der zweiten Landung sind wir aber auch erbärmlich gekentert. Auf jeden Fall richtig lässig.

... Phi Phi was delayed and hot but took us not too long. We got to Phi Phi (say pee pee) at about 5pm and abandoned our belognings on the beach, half of us (we were a 6 by now, 2 irish, an american and a sweede had joined us). We checked in everysingleplaceonthewholeentireisland. Most were either full or too expensive. We ended up in the Tara Inn, no air con, bathroom smelt like wee, sheets of dubious cleanliness, infact just not clean not even ...

we rented a small bike and went south of the island, suddenly we felt like we were in another time zone, less tourists and more back packers.we stopped off at a small ffod place and had a great Muslim curry. Today just beach, may do cookery course tom.

... band of Western misfits (One Canadian guy came to the gym with the intent purpose of refining his techniques for on-the-ice hockey fights. He had to remove one of his front teeth before meals.) I also found myself a Thai manfriend named Aeki. Aeki is one of the trainers at the gym. My second day there he took me to his auntie's restaurant for the best papaya salad ever. We immediately hit it off and were pretty much inseparable for the rest of the week. In between ...

... and playing hide and seek in the coral with lots of his friends. We spotted many colourful fish and coral and even came face to face with a huge Moray eel, as well as a hungry monitor lizard (Monty) who gobbled down our leftover chicken bones. We'd better go now to taste some more apples, watch some world cup pay-back then maybe have an early night - we're off to Koh Jum early in the morning, for 2 days, then hopefully to Railey beach before heading back up to Bangkok. Bye.

... of the day just chilling and watched the sunset over the hotel from the beach. In the evening we spent some time at the hotel restaurant and bar. Today we just chilled on the beach. It was bit more cloudy than the previous day but we still had quite a realxing day by the sea. In the evening despite wanting a quite night before travelling up to bangkok we met a few english people in our hotel bar and didn't end up leaving till 2!!

... jungle(cool!) trekking through leach infested jungle to an idyllic swimming hole(cool except for the leaches!) riding local transport at half the cost of tour booked transport. One leg of our journey the bus broke down and we hitched a ride with a local who happened to be a civil engineer who fed us pork buns and bananas.

Lillan was hilarious. She was so into bargaining and getting deals that whenever she got one that was ...