Mon 17/9
Pick-ups love being early in Asia! We were meant to be picked up for our tour at 9am but they turned up 20 minutes early! We were up so thats a start! First they gave us breakfast, Cam was happy coz he got seconds! We got to hold and feed a baby monkey which was sooooo cute! Then we had another elephant ride, much the same as the last one but I liked the surroundings better here! This time we got to feed the elephants at the end, they can be a bit slobbery! Then we saw a snake show with different pythons and cobras, the guy was crazy!! He wound the snakes up to make them pounce at him, he kissed the cobras and put another snake in his mouth and down his trousers. Think i did well to sit so close to snakes without a cage or glass between us!lol. Had a chance to get a photo with a massive snake but they were charging extra for it so we didn't bother. Next we saw a crocodile show which was along the same lines as the snake show, this time the guy was putting his hand and head inside the crocodiles mouth and he finished the show by dancing with it. We did a trek to a waterfall and visited the chinese temple before heading to mae haad beach, we were meant to have lunch first but ended up going snorkelling as it looked like it might rain. The snorkelling was more enjoyable than in vietnam because we had really good quality snorkels and masks. Luckily the rain never came and we had a nice bit of relaxing on the beach before going for our final activity! For some crazy reason we chose to do the zip lining rather than quad biking even tho i have a massive fear of these sort of activities! I do like to test myself! It was great fun, the zip lining itself was no problem because I felt quite safe but it was walking across the rope bridges and the like that I didn't enjoy because they would swing all over the place and I felt like I was going to slip and fall! At least I had done similar activities at Landmark so I knew what to expect which made it a little easier! Pretty knackered by the time we got back, went down to the beach to relax for a bit before going out for dinner! Think it will be early to bed tonight!!
Tue 18/9
We were gona rent bikes today and go for a run around the island but Chiara who was coming with had Muay Thai training so we decided to go tomorrow instead! Went down to the beach and had a relaxing day listening to music and reading. Went for a swim to cool down but after going as far out as possible it was never really deep enough! Sat and relaxed in the water instead! We rented our bikes in the evening (you get them for 24 hrs) so we could go to the night market for tea, had some really nice food at really low prices!
Wed 19/9
I love our hostel here in Koh Pha-ngan!! It must be the friendliest most social hostel we have been to on the whole trip! Its starting to get busy again for the half-moon party at the weekend! We headed out on our bikes with Chiara and two dutch lasses who arrived last night. It was great fun touring about on the bikes, stopped at a random resort and although the tide was in there were huge rocks out in the water that we swam to, Cam really wanted to jump off it but the water wasn't deep enough (seems to be a running theme here!) Had a drink and some fruit at the resort and they totally mixed up our order! They came with 4 plates of fruit when we only ordered 3 and none of them had the right combination of fruit! Then when we went to pay they tried to charge us for the extra plate which no one ate!! We paid for what we had and got out of there sharpish coz they wurna happy!lol. Headed up the coast to Mae Haad and had lunch at a restaurant on route, relaxed in the water for a bit, i tried to swim across to the land on the other side but half way my knee hit what i thought was one big rock but then scraped my foot and stopped and stood up to realise the water was less than a foot deep, cant believe i ran aground in the middle of the water! Got annoyed and headed back! In my head the water should get deeper the further out you go not shallower!! Chiara left us to go back for training and the rest of us headed to paradise waterfall which ended up to be quite an adventure!! As we were leaving we saw our second real snake in the wild, a meter long by about an inch round snake went across the road right in front of our bike! Glad we were on a bike and not walking!lol. When we got to the waterfall we followed what we thought was the path to the waterfall but it disappeared real quick but we kept going anyway coz in these countries paths are not always obvious! We ended up climbing through the rainforest, i got attacked by biting ants and we clambered up rocks to a view point. Not the waterfall we were looking for but at least we ended up somewhere!lol. Think we managed quite well on our adventure considering we were all in flip-flops! Was a bit on edge after seeing the snake but luckily they are not a common sight and we saw no more! We got great views from the view point and relaxed for a bit with a cool drink in the reggae style cafe which was there (very random in the middle of nowhere!lol) We decided to go for the easy option on the way back and follow the path rather than get lost in the trees trying to get back to our bikes! Set us back a bit because it was a much longer walk than the short cut we had taken and it resulted in us nearly missing the sunset! We were heading to the Amsterdam bar which James recommended to me for its great view but we ran out of time and had to stop by the edge of the road to catch the end of the sunset! Stopped at the food market on the way home for dinner and were pretty knackered by the time we got back! Had been planning to go to Hat Rin in the evening since we hadn't made it that far yet but still had bags to pack for leaving tomorrow so didn't bother! Think we made the right choice!lol.