Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from Thailand :-)

Hope everyone had a wonderful christmas....I was fairly homesick on christmas day I have to say. There wasn't a lot about Koh Lanta which reminded me it was Christmas day at all!!! Still can't complain I spent the day diving with customers and had a lovely time. After work we all had a beer to celebrate and then Mike, Gene and I all craved english styley food (which is hard to find on an island inhabited with Swedish tourists believe it or not) and found ourselves a place to have some red wine and a mixed grill....ok so it's not strictly English Xmas dinner but it was close enough for me!

Lots has been going on...after spending 3 weeks doing nothing but being a beach bum suddenly the island got busy with Christmas tourists and I have spent the last 2 weeks doing nothing but working as a divemaster guiding customers around. It is official everyone - I have the BEST job in the world. Every day is different, I work with lovely people, see some amazing fish underwater and learn new things every single day. The biggest thing for me since I started working was diving at Hin Daeng last week with my customers and seeing a baby whaleshark which was approximately 5m long!!! The most AMAZING thing ever, since I started diving in 2005 I have wanted to see one and now I finally have!!! Anyone who dives will realise what an honour it is to see one up close. No Joke I got to the surface of the water after that dive and screamed with excitement until the people on the boat asked what, what did you see and I excitedly told them a whaleshark!! The boat boy jumped straight into the water fully clothed to see if he could see it too. It was my friend Per's first whaleshark too so we had a massive bear hug in the water to celebrate - we are now known to each other as our whaleshark buddy!! Then get this on the way home we went past a huge group of dolphins and the Captain stopped to let us watch them swimming near us. Very cool day for me.

Then 2 days later we went back to the dive site hopeful of seeing it again and unfortunately no sign of it. However on the boat home the Captain spotted Devil Rays (like Manta rays but smaller) at the surface and stopped the boat and insisted we all go snorkelling for 10 minutes - it was hilarious I have never seen people move so quickly to grab masks and jump in. It was awesome, Gene saw 2 but I got in a little later and only saw one but it was amazing nonetheless to have such a big thing swim so close to you!!

Today I am working in the shop hence being able to finally update this blog!! I have a cold and have asked for a few dry days so I can get my hearing back and have no more vertigo in the water!!

New Years eve tonight and we still don't have a plan. I think we will head to the beach bar and sit around the bonfire with cold beers and chill to begin with anyway with close friends, then move to the party further down the beach. Lovely lovely Mike bought Gene and I a bottle of Absolute Vodka Vanilla so we plan to attack that tonight too. Roll on liver pain tomorrow morning I fear. Hope everyone at home has a fun night too...though hopefully without the pain tomorrow.

What else has been going on....not loads as we have had a fairly quiet month to save some money while we start thinking about where we will go after Koh Lanta. We did our visa run to Penang which was good fun, we stayed with Gene's friend who has a lovely apartment right in the centre. It was a nice brush with western life again being there - I ate McDonalds, KFC, had proper cocktails, delicious food of every possibly kind including lots of doughnuts etc too and proper coffee. Bliss. We also did an afternoon tea session at the Eastern Oriental Hotel which is Malaysia's equivalent to The Ritz I guess. So Gene and I rocked up in our smartest gear (which included flip flops for me...) and ate as many salmon sandwiches, scones and little cakes with earl grey tea as we could possibly fit in!!! Oh and had photos taken too....our little treat to ourselves before our 12 hour bus journey back to Koh Lanta! It was also nice being in Penang as they had shops full of christmas music and decorations etc so it felt very festive which was a good thing for me. I also had my pic taken with Father Christmas too :-)

Sayang is growing big now, almost resembling a proper cat!! Her favourite thing is crying to go outside and then climbing trees everytime it is time to come in at night. We've started letting her out on her own in the daytime and she loves it. She ran away one night and I was convinced she was hurt or wasn't coming back. I was inconsolable and realised just how horribly hard it is going to be to say goodbye to her when we leave at the end of the season. We woke up at 6.20am the following morning to her screaming to be let in.....thank god. Thankfully the Thai family who live next to us have children who adore her with all their hearts and she loves playing with them too and we have decided we are going to ask them if they will look after her for us. Will be so sad but not thinking about it too much for now.

Having lots of fun here but also equally excited about the places we hope to go to after the season ends. We will go fun diving somewhere like Pulua Way in Indonesia or else the Phillipines for a week or so to chill out, then over to Borneo to work as divemasters at Scuba Junkie (hopefully on the island not the mainland town Semporna which I wrote so horribly about in previous blogs) for a bit, before going to Taiwan maybe to make money teaching English to summer camp kids, then the exciting bit - going to Mexico to learn Spanish before travelling around South America working our way around as divemasters or teaching English. All good stuff!!!! It's all subject to change but it sounds good for now.

Starting to miss people at home a fair bit now so it's lovely when I get to speak to you on the phone!!! Hope everyone has a really good night tonight and speak to you all again soon.

Lots of love xxx