To get to Ko Samui, we had to spend longer on a bus than we did on the plane to get to Thailand which didnt exactly thrill either of us, but apparently we were getting a vip bus, which imagined Air Force One on wheels, but when we got there it was more like a 1970s Ulster bus Goldliner but with fewer seats, but sure a tenner for a 12 hour bus journey what can you really except. The bus was through the night so we had hoped to sleep through the most of the journey but apparently everyone else had other plans, first of all we were forced to watch Bad Boys 2, in Thai at 100 decibels and then we had some guy behind us trying to drown out the noise of the movie by snoring even louder.

Starting to think we should have flown.

Although there was food included in our ticket so hopefully after that things would be better. Wrong again, supper was cold rice soup (basically they dont have a rice strainer, so they just dont strain the rice once its cooked. UMMMM), with mystery meat for flavour. Next option large packet of BBQ crisps, delightful!

We arrived on Ko Samui fine, but i did find out that it ws now the year 2055, at this point I am not going to question this statement, just accept it. But now we are randomly stuck at a Bus Depot (big clearing in some trees) with loads of taxi drivers asking if we wanted to go, really we should have said yes, but for some reason we say no and stand beside our bus enjoying the silence. Luckily enough for us a random Italian guy, I named him Bruno (Charlotte thought he was French and named him Pierre), offered to share a taxi with us to Lamai, we siad yes it it meant we didnt have to make much of a decision. Once on our way Bruno said he would tell the taxi driver to drop us off somewhere nice, as he was staying with friends just outside the town. Luckily enough the taxi driver didnt have a big sword and ask for all our money and he did drop us of somewhere.

So being the great travellers we are (tried mainly) we asked to look at a bungalow, it wasnt nice, it was quite expensive, so we took it and then cried a little. Things became better when we went and got something to eat and we sat in the heat and looked at the beach and the sea, it was pleasant.

For the rest of the day we decided that our main objective was to find somewhere else to stay, somewhere where we didnt feel like we were intruded on the wildlife. That place was called Sea Breeze and it was made of concrete so we were happy. (I think we decided we should ease oursleves into the whole backpacking thing a lot easier and slower!)

Ko Samui is definetly different from Bangkok, mainly because we are able to notice (even more) how white and pasty we actually are, now this is only real downfall of leaving the UK in Feb, your skin hasnt seen the sun 5 months. The only advantage of this is, in the even of a power we wouldnt have to search for our torches as our skin would be able to light up the room more than our poxy light did.

For day we decided to take a trip to Ang Thong, the inspiration of the movie The Beach. The first stop on the trip was for snorkelling, which I thought Charlotte wouldnt be to keen on and when we saw how many fish there where I saw it as a definte no to the water based activities, but fair play to her she jumped in, little toe first to try and find Nemo. We both failed in our quest, but we did find Vincent the Zebra fish and Barney the Rainbow fish. During my hunt for Nemo I accurately smashed my foot of some coral, twice. I thought it was rock so I was a bit peeved, but I was informed it was coral, was slightly happier as it would make a better story. Next stop on our whrilwind adventure of And Thong (as i called it) was the Emerald Lagoon. This was the main part of the Park, to get to the top to view the Lagoon, we had to a bit of off beat trekking, in the leaflet it said bring sturdy footwear for this bit. So our guide set off bare foot so we followed in flip flops, probably how Leo did it! We got to the top, it was a pretty spectualar view, not going to bother to try and describe, you can just look at the photos, they are the ones of the lagoon that has emerald green water. Also this was the day that Northern Ireland played Bulgaria, the reason why there are so many pictures of me with my flag. Next stop was lunch, lucky for us as we were very close to melting! After lunch we where taken to a near perfect secluded beach, where we got to go kyaking. Now neither myself or Charlotte had been kayaking before so we thought it would be fun, it was until we got in the Kayak. Well Charlotte and I arent quite matched physically to be a dynamic pair for kayaking and I think we would just lose out to a blind man and his dog for the mixed UK kayak team. But, we finally got a rythm going, separte rythms, everyother stroke resulted in a twang of oars, which only resulted in both of us getting more and more frustrated, which lead to us to collided with massive rock we were going around. We finally reached our finishing point and were informed that we could stay out on the kayak a bit longer, we kindly declined.

The rest of our time on Samui was spent lying on a beach trying to stop our skin being so illuminous. Although while lying on the beach i did pick up some Thai, 'No thanks, maybe an other time', means 'yeah sure, go ahead, peticures for everyone'. Well at least my toes look good!