The Thai Finale

Ao Nang (Krabi beach) was our next stop, though the gods were doing everything in their almighty power to stop us from getting a room. Finally found some nice enough accommodation and rewarded ourselves with many hours on the beach. The best thing about the beach wasn't the sand or palm trees this time, but the monkeys roaming free in the trees at the end! Had one big night out there which was good fun and nice and cheap as the bar kept giving us free tequilas (not my first choice!), and Candi and I got some exercise as we ran the length of the beach, as drunken people do, until we were scared half to death by an unidentified animal in our way and bolted in the other direction!

Koh Phi Phi was next, and again we had a hard time finding a room, so much so that we had to check in two people and sneak candi in for two nights! This island is really small and was practically destroyed by the tsunami, but it seems to be business as usual and it still remains a beautiful place. We may have missed the Full Moon Party the other week but lucky for us Hippies Bar on Phi Phi threw a Half Moon Party while we were there - free bbq, live music, musical chairs and a massive fire show - it more than made up for it! The night before we bumped into some Kiwi guys we had met in Ao Nang so we partied with them all night, in a bar where Che Gevara works!!! No kidding, this guy could have been the man himself! Candi and I now have a few contacts that should save us some money on accommodation here and there, from people we met that night.

We were really sad to leave, but we didn't realise how much until we landed in Phuket. Talk about a hell hole! It's full of 40+ year old package holiday tourists, ageing men with their thai girlfriends, people trying to corrupt us with cigarettes and ping pong shows (no bats involved, just girls - ew!) and the streets smelled even worse than anywhere before. We got away from it all by spending one day in a National Marine Park which was really cool. We took a long tail boat through stunning scenery to James Bond Island, then we were paddled around some other parts in canoes (saw some mud fish amphibian things that look just like the ones in the Guiness advert that spit out the water!), before having lunch at a Muslim Fishing Village that sits on stilts in the middle of the park. After another nice boat trip back to the pier we made one final stop at Monkey Cave where there were more free roaming monkeys, a huge reciling Buddha inside a cave, a Monk concentrating deeply on a game of Sudoku (seriously!) and some bats flying around an impressive network of caves.

Now we're in good old Bangkok again where we have collected our passports (so glad they didn't make off with them!) and Vietnam tickets and visas, and spent pretty much every last baht we own on dinner. We fly tomorrow morning to Hanoi in Vietnam. Apparently it's Vietnamese New Year in a few days so we're bracing ourselves for a very hectic couple of weeks in a very busy but hopefully beautiful country. See you all there!