After a 12 hour overnight bus journey, in which itwas impossible to get any sleep, we finally arrived in Phuket, and headed for our accomodation in Kata. First impressions were not good, The beaches were so crowded and sun loungers spread the entire length of the beach in rows three deep, and behind the beaches were huge holiday resorts and hotels, and it was so busy, we may as well have gone to the Costa del Sol.

Anyway when we arrived at our guest house, we found that one small blessing was that the bed we had was absolutely massive and had the softest pillows, it was like heaven after such a long journey.

After a nap that turned into a 5 hour sleep, we decided to at least make the most of it and head into Patong for a night out. Grabbing a couple of beverages from a seven eleven, we made our merry way towards patong. However when we got there we were told that none of the bars or restaurants were allowed to sell alcohol for the next 48 hours as it was election weekend!!! We swiftly made our retreat from Patong! We spent less than 24 hours in Phuket, and randomly picked Koh Lanta as our next destination.

As soon as we arrived in Koh Lanta we could see that it was a completely different island from Phuket, it was so much quieter, no large resorts, high rise hotels or Hiltons, and the beaches were much nicer, this was more like it!

The bungalow we stayed in the first couple of nights was half the cost of accomodation in Phuket. The beach was a lovely long strip of golden sand with calm and clear water. The first few days we decided to spend just getting a bit of sun worshipping in and didn't do much at all except bum about and have a few drinks. On a bout the 3rd day we decided to explore the island a bit and hired out a moped. Despite the fact they had a selection of mopeds to give to us, we can only assume they thought it was quite amusing to give us the gayest one they could, pink with a soft toy key ring and hello kitty handles. Anyway we had a fun day exploring the islands beaches, while Ben looked like the fairy Queen of Koh Lanta. Later that evening Dani thought it would be a good idea to learn to ride a moped in the dark, and was doing pretty well until she decided to try and brake while holding the accelerator down, falling on her arse with the bike on top. Luckily all the damage done was a few scrapes and bruises.

We moved to a different guest house which was even cheaper, and was set back from the road almost in the jungle at the bottom of the hillside. However it was also conveniently situated next to the islands mosque, and as it was the week in which muslims travel to mecca, we were woken up at 5 in the morning by islamic chanting vthrough a loud speaker, it turned out to be a right pain in the arse and some days carried on all day!!!

The rest of the time was just spent sun bathing and swimming in the lovely sea, we stayed in Koh Lanta for about a week, and then decided to head for Koh Lipe for christmas.