The night ferry from Ko Tao was basically a dormitory on water. All the beds were pushed together, and extremely short and narrow, which meant us getting pretty cosy with random people in a very hot and sweaty room. An experience Amelia and I hope not to relive!
5am we arrived at Surat Thani on the mainland. Feeling very tired and wobbly we were taken by tuk tuk to a cafe/office. Here we were able to freshen up and grab something to eat and drink, whilst waiting for a minibus to take us to 'Hat Yai'.
We've had some cramped minibuses during our travels around SEA, but this one was possibly the worst. We were literally hemmed in and up to our necks with rucksacks for 6 hours!
In Hat Yai, the fourth largest city in Thailand, we had just over an hour to have a look around and have some lunch before our next bus. We were glad not be staying long - since 2006 Hat Yai has seen a series of bombings on shopping malls and restaurants popular with tourists, the most recent bombing occurred in 2012.
The next minibus (not as cramped), took us two hours west to a pier in a place called 'Pak Bara'. From here we boarded a speedboat to 'Ko Lipe' (pronounced lee-pay).
The speedboat took an hour to get there, we disembarked on to a big pontoon about five hundred metres from shore. Because there is no pier, you have to get a long tail boat to the beach which cost a fair amount considering the distance, but unless you swim you have no choice!
We didn't have any reservations, as most of the places we found online were too expensive, but we knew there were cheaper places to be found. After spending a couple of hours looking and trekking from one side of the island to the other, we found a fairly cheap little clean bamboo bungalow tucked away just off the main strip known as 'walking street'. The bungalow had all we needed, including a little balcony. We had a much needed cold shower and took a stroll down the main strip. We made sure dinner was cheap that night after spending most of our daily budget on travel!

We had heard from our dive instructors on Ko Tao that Ko Lipe was a good place to see manta rays and maybe even whale sharks! But after speaking with a local dive shop on the main strip, we got the impression the current conditions (due to the moon cycle) were not great for seeing these gigantic fish, so we opted to save our money for somewhere else. Breakfast was a picnic on sunrise beach - Amelia had a dragon fruit and for me, a yoghurt and banana cake. We let our food digest before going for a snorkel just off the beach. The current was fairly strong so we didn't stay out too long, but we saw plenty of fish, including some needlefish, clownfish and even a jellyfish (jellyfish season). If we weren't snorkelling, we were relaxing in the shade (too hot to lay in the sun) reading and getting to know the local stray dogs.
For lunch we went back inland to walking street. Whilst looking in a menu we heard an American voice shouting "zip-lining". Amelia and I both thought it was a typical over enthusiastic American looking at a poster in a tour office or something, but then we heard it again... It turned out to be the two ladies from our zip-lining trip in Laos! None of us could believe it. Ko Lipe is a small island ( how big*** ) and not that well travelled, so to see them just shows it is a small world after all!
Watching the sunset was the only thing on our agenda for the rest of our day, so after lunch we slowly wandered over to the other side of the island and spent the time before sunset reading and drinking a coconut. Sunset wasn't the best we've seen.
Afterwards we went back to the bungalow for a freshen up before dinner. Having saved a lot by just enjoying the beach and snorkelling, we decided to 'treat' ourselves for dinner. We had a bbq'd tuna along with fried vegetables and rice, all for a reasonable sum of 400 baht (£8). I was craving something sweet on our walk back to the bungalow, so we stopped by a food stand selling fruit shakes and pancakes. The stand was called 'YooHoo Thai Pancakes' and all became clear as we walked closer. The lady there would continually repeat, quite loudly "YouWho!". She was very friendly but definitely a sandwich short of a picnic. I had a pineapple Thai pancake and back to our bungalow we went.

No breakfast on the beach as it was a fairly overcast morning. We went to a nearby restaurant. I had rice porridge/soup with chicken and Amelia had a fruit salad. We had a similar morning as the previous day, enjoying a new beach (Pattaya beach), snorkelling and making friends with another stray dog, which decided to take over Amelia's sunbathing spot - a sarong.
In the afternoon we went back to sunrise beach, but to the other end we hadn't seen. It seemed this other end was quite posh, a wedding had even just taken place on the beach. The snorkelling around this part was fantastic, I've never seen so many clownfish (nemo) before. We must've seen at least fifteen! Other than the abundance of clownfish we saw, parrotfish, jelly fish, bannerfish, moorish idols and some very aggressive damselfish! One even drew blood when it bit me. Making it to the shore without being eaten alive by damselfish, we went back to our bungalow to freshen up. Seeing an Indian restaurant (across from our bungalow) cooking fresh naan breads in their tandoor each evening was a bit of a tease and something we had to try on our last night! We had a delicious garlic naan along with some tasty curries, all for 250 baht (£5)!

We handed in our passports at the immigration office and boarded a boat at 11am to Langkawi, Malaysia.....