After our energetic visit to the rain forest, we felt we needed some relaxation and headed to an Island called Koh Phayam on the west coast.

We got a coach from Khao Sok national park to a town called Ranong on the mainland were we spent the night before catching ferry the next morning to the island. Our coach was first class, it even had seats missing and some poor sod had a seat that was broken so it was just reclined the whole journey(about 4 hrs), the poor girl behind practically had the guys head on her lap......we were ok though, no cockroaches and no smelly old drunken men that pick there bodily parts woooooooooohoooooooo!!!

The ferry journey to the island only took a couple of hours and we were picked up by a motorbike taxi and taken down some dirt tracks to the beach. i had my backpack on while on the back of the bike again and thought i was going to come off many times, which really would have been a sight for sore eyes and really hurt!!

Koh Phayam is quite a small island, it has one main beach and a couple of smaller very quiet ones, we headed to the main beach and found a beach bungalow which was really nice. It was about 9 pound per night and a cheaper one was available the next day for about 4 pound so we thought we would be good and save some money. Our more expensive bungalow was really nice, it had mood lighting and glass screen doors, it was actually really worth the money, we had a good first nights sleep and then packed up and moved the next day to our cheaper 'bungalow'. Well we basically went from a luxurious room to a shed! The new bunglaow was literally a wooden shed with a bed in a it and an attached bathroom which was ok but it was just so funny! We nearly changed back but decided we needed to get out of the habit of being flashpackers and stayed about four nights in our shed, it had a nice location right on the beach front so that was a plus!

We spent most of our time on the island relaxing as there wasnt much else to do, there were a few bars and restaurants. The place was really quiet and most of the bars stayed quiet, if we wanted a drink we found ourselves walking to the minimart as drinks were half price!

We did go out kayacking aand that was good, although i was having trouble with my paddle at first and just seemed to head in the wrong direction, i finally got the hang of it and was actually quite good in the end, Ben was a pro from the start of course! So we kayacked up to a little island and then round the corner of Phayam, we didnt see much just a jelly fish which freaked me out until Ben assured me that it wouldnt jump out of the sea into my kayack!!

We also decided to do a walk to the village as our Lonely planet said it wasnt too far and should only take about half an hour to get there, well we learnt one thing....never trust a guide book!!! It took about an hour and a half to get to the village along this dirt path in the boiling hot sun...it was nearly as bad as doing he trek through the rainforest!!! needless to say we got a taxi bike back!!

We also hired a moped for a day to explore the island and they only had manual bikes left so that was quite funny and maybe a little scary..Ben had a bit of trouble changing gear and we were jerking all over the place, i wish we could of seen ourselves!!! Ben got the hang of it in the end and we went to one of the quieter beaches which was really nice, there were trees in the sea which was strange, you can see them in our pics.

So apart from Chilling out for about 5 days we didnt really get up to much, it was nice and relaxing. We decided we would head to the north of Thailand after the island stopping off in Bangkok again for a few days..........CHIANG MAI BLOG COMING SOON!