Christmas on Koh Samui was great. We met up with Karen, a traveller we had previously met in Chiang Mai and she has been with us ever since. We spent Christmas Eve on the beach where there were firework displays and it had a really magical feel so we decided to set off a lantern with a message on it for Andrew who is on our minds even more at this time of year. It was lovely to see it glide off into the night sky. We woke up early christmas morning and ate a hearty full english breakfast before returning to our room to exchange our secret santa presents!Kay was my secret santa and was given a voucher for an hour massage and a pedicure from a local salon. mmmmmmmmmm. After we'd exchanged gifts the heavens opened and it rained ALL DAY!! We couldn't believe it, it was just like home!!! So I decided to get out of the rain and have my massage that afternoon and was the best massage ever! We ate a traditional turkey dinner at Tropical Murphy's (an irish bar of course) and it was delicious. There was non of my mums home made apple sauce or Gills cauliflower cheese but it was still pretty good. After our meal we were shouting requests at the irish singer on stage and he asked one of us to get up and sing. After two failed attempts by Rossy and Karen, Steven reluctantly stepped up to the stage. After a minute or two he was in full swing and the bar was thoroughly entertained!! The rest of the evening was spent getting very very MERRY and Boxing day was spent sleeping off our hangovers!!

In between christmas and new year we took the opportunity o hire bikes and explore Koh Samui and get away from the hundreds of tourists in Chaweng Beach. We found a waterfall in the middle of the island with an amazing viewpoint across the dense jungle. As we were leaving the viewpoint we noticed a monkey tied to a tree that was working for a thai coconut farmer. Steven thought he'd see if he could get close to it and if it was tame enough to gve it a stroke. However the monkey had its back turned and when it turned around to find steven sneaking up on him he went baserk and leapt at him with teeth and nails at the ready. If it wasn't for the rope that tied the monkey to the tree we would have certainly been taking him to hospital that day!! It aimed straight for his neck!! The look on Ste's face was pure terror and he was a very pale greay for 10 mins after!

Matt and Camilla arrived on Koh Samui on the 28th December. We went to meet them at the airport and took them to their hotel for the night. Matt couldn't wait to give me my batman suit present he'd bought from the kids section at woolworths (for himself...who are you kidding matt?!!). We then headed to the pub for a well earned drink and a catch up. It was so good to see familiar faces from home because its probably the hardest time of year for us all to be away from friends and families.

The next day Matt and Camilla were able to experience the pleasure of the 'Seatran' ferry from Samui to Koh Pa Ngan. Camilla's seasickness combined with a hangover meant that it was a very uncomfortable 2 hours for her!

Our accomodation on Koh Pa Ngan where we planned to spend new year was a bit rough around the edges but was in a brilliant location just a stones throw away from the beach! The weather had started to improve too so we lazed around on the beach, played in the rough sea! In the evenings we went to all the 'pre new year' parties on the beach. When New Years eve arrived the weather turned again and it rained all day AGAIN! Luckily it stopped in time for the HUGE full moon party to welcome in 2009. There were an estimated 30, 000 people attended from all countries in the world! It was a sight to see!!!

On Jan 1st 2009 steven, Rossy, Kaye and I had to leave Thailand and travel to the Burmese border in order to renew our Thai visas. We set off at 8 pm and didn't arrive back on Pa Ngan till 10pm the following day!When we finally got back we arranged a bus and boat to take us to Phuket the next day. We wanted Matt and Camilla to have a taste of travelling and to see as much as possibe. However the journey was hurrendous. We are used to Thai time (which is usually 3 times slower plus 2 hours for good measure) but Matt and Camilla had to spend the whole day being taken to random cafe's, being picked up in rickety tuk tuks then rickety buses then being dropped in the middle of nowhere. I hope it hasn't put them off!! When we arrived in Phuket I realised my tent had been stolen from my rucsac .It was strapped on the front for 4 months and I had never even used it! We were planning in using it in Oz to save money!! I was slightly miffed to say the least!

Our first full day in Phuket was spent exploring the huge island on mopeds. The roads are really developed so it made getting around really easy. We visited the gibbon reabilitation centre in the islands National Park. It is a volunteer run organisation set up to rescue gibbons from people keeping them as pets or using them as tourist attractions on Thailands beaches. Many of the young gibbons were rehabilitated successfully and released into the wild again but the older ones or the ones with diseases like HIV had to stay at the centre because they were a danger to the already protected population. The gibbons had no contact with humans (except the volunteers) in order to increase their chance of rehabilitation.

The National Park also had an ice cold waterfall that we took advantage of on this scorching hot day! It was suprisingly deep and perfect for a midday dip! We then took the mopeds to a remote beach on the north west side of the island and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. The same evening we took a taxi to Patong (the main toursit area on Phuket). It was a sight to see with sex tourists, ladyboys and bar girls everywhere! Its a crazy place designed for tourists but worth seeing once!

We left for Phi Phi a couple of days later which was an easy hour on the ferry. Phi Phi is the closest thing to paradise I've ever seen. Words cannot justify its immeasurable beauty. The sea is so blue it could be mistaken for ink. There are sheer cliff faces around the island that are so dramatic they literally take your breath away!! Even photographs do not do this epically beautifulplace justice. There is no backpacker accomodation on Phi Phi so we have stayed in a little bit of luxury for 3 nights with a swimming pool overlooking the bay.

Our first day was simply spent realxing on the beach, you can walk out over 500 metres because the water is so shallow and there were tropical fish swimming around our feet. The first night on Phi Phi we managed to find a bar on the beach that agreed to put on the Burnley Tottenham football game and steven was in his element after going cold turkey for 4 months! We watched it on a giant screen so it was doubly painful to see them lose!

Our second day was action -packed. We hired kayaks from the beach and kayaked around the head land to 'monkey beach' where the wild monkeys from the jungle played around on the beach all day. They happily took bananas from my hand. We also saw more coral and tropical fish and some very weird looking jelly fish. That afternoon we took a long boat taxi to Maya Bay where they filmed the beach. We took propper snorkel masks and went snorkelling for a couple of hours. It was amazing, we fed the fish bread and there were hundreds of them around us.

The next day we went on a game fishing trip with Mr.Sak. It was so much fun.We first went fishing for some live bait to use for the bigger fish. They worked because we caught a 20kg Malin we named Marlon. It was huge. It took Matt half an hour to reel it in. When we got back to Phi Phi that night the driver of the boat cut off seven portions of the fish and we took it to a local resteraunt to cook for us. It was delicious. The fishing trip and amazing meal really rounded off Matt and Camillas time with us as they unfortunatly had to leave for Koh Samui at 9 am the next morning!

We were so gutted to see them leave but are so grateful that we shared our last couple of weeks in Thailand with them. They reminded us how much everyone back home means to us and how much we mean to them.

Our visa for Thailand runs out on the 15th January so we plan to leave for Malysia around that date before our flight to Australia from Singapore on the 26th January. Bring on the next chapter of our travels!!

This blog is dedicated to 'Nick the buttock strutteck and Camilla the powerhouse scouse!!

Thankyou so much