This is the life. I'm currently on a sunlounger on a beautiful, sunny beach, where the sea is so calm that there aren't any waves, with my gorgeous boyfriend and a beer. These moments may not be the ones you'll tell stories about throughout your life-like you will about the Great Wall, scuba diving on the Barrier Reef, the full moon party or hiking a glacier in New Zealand but in your own mind they'll definitely be up there and possibly easier to imagine. The beer of choice by the way is Chang. Like all beer, if you drink it a lot (which I do) you do get bored of it (which I do). And even though it's stronger than Stella (6.7% I believe) it's not too heavy. I like it a lot, even if it does give you terrible hangovers. Don't get me wrong though, tomorrow night at the full moon party I won't be able to just drink beer, it does get too much for me after a few, especially if you're dancing (which I will be!) but it's lovely in the sun or with your evening meal.
Both Ben and I have discussed coming back to Thailand again for a holiday which I'm sure we will. I'd recommend it a lot, overall as a holiday destination it has a great mix of natural beauty with good nightlife and it is cheap compared to England. As a traveller though, you do get to see a lot more of a country. We're currently about 30-40 minutes from the full moon party destination, where the main town is on the island. Now, if I'd have known this then I don't think we would have stayed this far out and if on holiday we'd be in the action, not on this lovely, quiet beach. It cost us £6 to get from the pier to our hotel and that took a lot of bartering down from £8 with the taxi people saying 'Same, same'. They love that saying. No it's not the same and if it is give us the cheaper price! Even our hotels trip to the party tomorrow are only offering it for £8. I don't think so. So when the friendly couples from Phi Phi text me last night to see if we wanted to go for a drink (who are staying in the action at a really nice resort with a horizon pool-jealous) the thought of paying £12-16 just for transport and I'm sure it wouldn't just be a couple of drinks, seemed very unreasonable. Our daily budget by the way is £32/day between us. Minus accommodation here leaves us with £20/day. We'll go over that at the full moon but if we have a quiet day today and the day after it should even out. There are some good boat trips here but we'll resist and maybe look into it on our way back down through Thailand on the way to Malaysia. There is a beautiful national park on this side of Thailand which is made up of around 42 islands. One of the bigger islands includes a secluded lagoon on the top of a mountain, which was the inspiration for the book of 'The Beach'. Ben's set his heart on going and I'd really like to as well. The trips are snorkelling ones at different sites which we'd like to get into, Ben wants his own mask but I don't really fancy carrying one round for the next 9 months.
Anyway, this time next week we'll be in Vietnam. I'm looking forward to less of a party scene, the temptation really kills any kind of budget and I dislike the holidayers here, with their suitcases, make-up and straight hair. V jealous! It will also be nice to see more things now we've had a break. Thailand on the whole though was more beautiful than I expected and I don't think I realised how much I'd been struggling in China with food and language until getting here. A few people have asked us about China as it's not the most popular place to do on a tour of South East Asia and it's difficult to answer. We saw some wonderful things and had some great moments, occasionally even great food so I'm glad I went but I don't think I could have lasted much longer. I also don't think I'd go back.
So, this has been a bit of a reflection 6 weeks in but I might not blog again for a while. Tomorrow looks set as another uneventful day and after the full moon tomorrow night I may not want to blog in a hungover state! We head to Bangkok on the 20th for our flight on the 23rd to 'Nam. We're not sure if it'll be another overnighter or not on a coach back North...probably. Yuk. I'll be very careful at the full moon, we had our training on Phi Phi! The photo is of our view when having tea on the beach last night, it was gorgeous.