As usual, determined not to spend long on my own, I met a girl - Marianne - at Hanoi airport to chat too. It turned out, I was much more experienced at travelling than her, as she had been studying at the uni in Saigon and had just gone up to visit friends in Hanoi. We stuck together, before and after the plane, when we arrived at Bangkok. Thailand is obviously a little concerned about its image to tourists as we were all handed bags full of lychees as we arrived - breakfast - sorted! I was supposed to be meeting Justine somewhere on Sukhumvit at 5pm so I had ages to find a hostel. I'd heard good things about Soi 1 guesthouse, so we caught a bus and headed there. It was ok, but by the time I'd checked email etc, Marianne had discovered she had a friend giving her a bed so she was off. It was probably a good thing, I already felt I had to look after her and didn't need that job right now! I spent the day sorting myself out and then headed down to Soi 25 on the Sky train to meet Justine. It was awesome seeing her again after 3 months, and we just sat in a coffee shop gossipping for hours. Later on we went out for dinner and to see the more crazy side of Bangkok, before finally getting a tuk-tuk driver to take us home - it took some bargaining, but I was very happy to be staying far away from Khao San road!

The following morning we headed off to do some cultural things with Greg and Octavio - a couple of guys Justine had met. We went via the MBK do some essential shopping and important eating at the amazing food court. after which we headed for the Royal Palace, which I had yet to see. It was pretty cool, if very expensive and very difficult to dress appropriately for! After this we went to Wat Po (I'd already been) to see the reclining Buddha before the worst ever taxi ride back to Sukhumvit - it took about 2 hours! I'd checked in to the same hostel, given the ridiculous saga of getting two stops from the tuk-tuk driver on the way home the previous night. We had a very relaxing night, firstly eating at the lovely Italian restaurant next door. It is owned by Luigi, who used to live in Sardinia and who was very attentive to us, giving us two glasses of wine for the price of one and then giving us both a mirto and limoncello free. He had an amazing pannacotta on the menu and also a "goodnight kiss" which was pizza base with nutella and banana on it - amazing! After this we just went back to Justine's room and watched badly dubbed films and news!

The next day we (and Alex, the other American girl doing Justine's volunteering in Ko Tao) set off for Khao San road. I managed to book my tickets down to Ko Tao and we then went for a massage and pedicure in between various errands. We managed to avoid the stupid taxi ride back of the previous day and got a taxi just to the sky train back. They had an introduction dinner with their team, so I entertained myself and ate street food (something Justine refused to do!) before hitting the sack early for my 6am bus!

The bus down to Ko Tao was not fun, but I made friends with a couple of Dutch/Germans who were headed to Ko Phangnan. I arrived, as seemed the norm, exhausted on the island, and ready to accept any place offered to me. Luckily, it was a dive centre with an attached hostel that approached me, so I booked 2 dives for the following day and a nights accommodation in one go. They took me to the hostel, where I had my own room, TV and bathroom and then I head to the beach, for the last hours of sunshine, and watched the cutest puppies ever playing in the sand - wondering if Justine was soon going to have to take them in! It was a bit of a lame night, as Justine and Alex were arriving the following day, but I caught up with the World, watched bad films HBO ad caught an early night, ready for diving and partying the following day!

The diving was great, not the best I've done, but the water was clear and we swam through crevasses in the rock and spotted a few interesting fish like yellow box fish. I was buddying with the dive master as I was the only one on my own, but he was cool. My mask started leaking in the first dive and I spent nearly the entire time clearing it, no problems though. After I got back to shore, I went to the beach to enjoy one of the last beach days of my trip! The others arrived just after lunch, so I met up with them, only to find they were both sick from dodgy food - not street food, as Justine would like to have me believe, but Subway! They had found out they weren't allowed to come to the Full Moon Party, and especially as they were sick, they didn't want to! I went and bought a ticket for the "party boat" on my own -scary!

I turned up at the jetty alone, a bit worried I would be on my own all night, but finally met Claire and Jamel, who I had randomly given advice to about Cambodia the day before! I stayed with them and a group of people they'd met and it was all ok after all! When we got to Ko Phangnan I tried to find Lauren, a friend from Cambodia I'd half arranged to meet, but after going to her hostel and wandering up and down the beach alone I gave up and found Claire and Jamel again. We sorted out the body paint - my peacock on Claire's back was obviously amazing - Peacock because in Dumfermline(where she's from), peacocks roam free! We then headed for the beach with our buckets of disgusting Samsung. It helped that it was disgusting - it meant I drank less! I was already sick of the Chang and one bucket in I was sick of the spirits too - I turned to food! - the pancakes were amazing, as was the corn and the chicken! We spent the night walking between the fire skippers, the fire hoop jumpers, a few of the bars and the first aid tent, where one of the girls we'd been with was too drunk to sit up. She went on to say it was an amazing night, when she was pretty much unconscious for 6 hours - hmmm... By the time we had to go back to the catamaran - 4.30am, we were pretty much ready for bed and all half dozed all the way back, waking up briefly for the beautiful sunrise. It was a really fun night, but I was exhausted, and having no where to sleep and not wanting to wake Justine at 6am, I slept on her bench on the balcony for 2 hours before she went to work - leaving me her bed!!

My last day on Ko Tao was pretty sleepy! I managed to get to the beach for a couple of hours before heading to the catamaran and catching that and the coach back up to Bangkok. It was really sad to leave Justine - again! - but it had been great catching up again! The boat was inevitably delayed, so I ended up back in Bangkok at 2am at the Sukhumvit Soi 25 hotel. I was given a rubbish room with the loudest fan in the world, which I had to switch off and boil instead in order to get some sleep.

I've realised, despite being moody after little sleep, I'm often at my most productive in this situation and the following day I head off for the Chinese Embassy to collect my visa, booked two flights to and within China, booked a night train to Laos for that day and generally shopped and organised my life! amazing! Feeling incredibly smug and organised I treated myself to another dinner at Luigi's, including Pizza, wine and a "goodnight kiss"! I then head off for the night train to discover I had to wait for them to put my bed out before I could sleep in it, but finally was able to snuggle down for 12 hours undisturbed sleep - bliss!