Hello England

Following on from Ko Samui, our last nuight there was fantastic. We said we wouldn't drink as our transfer was due to collect us the following morning at 6am....so around 3pm it was raining, dull and we had time to kill...we headed to the shop, rounded up some drink and played drinking games......until 3am!!! We were dancing on the beach, attempting the fire throwers....and still we had the little kids running around us asking to play connect4. We managed the 6am wake up call....but we all had such dry mouths!! That will teach us from the buckets.

We had a two hour journey up to Koh Sok, more mainland. The ferry journey felt like no time at all and so dfar we have had a different style of ferry each time! The girls were reading....Beth is on her fourth book already, such a quick reader and some sleeping, to the point where you feel so tired you can feel your head keep jolting and yuou wake yourself up again! We got the ferry from Ko Samui back to the mainland, Surat Thani. From there we hopped onto a bus to take us part of the way to Koh Sok, this was a journey in itself as the bus/coach was this old fashioned granny frontroom designed thing, we had frilled pink curtains, T.V that was playing old school 80's music videos and not much room at all for all the people on there with our bags, this took us an hour and dropped us off at some deserted snack shack in the middle of nowhere, where we had to wait just over an hour for another bus to take us straight into Koh Sok (An obvious ploy to make us spend more money...which we did and when we asked for a tuna roll...we got kethup in it!!!). On the bus we met some lovely girls who ended up staying at the same place as us, called the rainforest resort. We had a large house for the 6 of us, it looked like a little house on the prairie, very spacious and clean, yet had loads of creepy crawleys in the shower!!

The idea here was to experience some of Thailands nature parks, so the following day we booked ourself onto a half day trek in the Koh Sok rainforest followed by tubbing (headed out on the donut rings along a freshwater lake) The trek was amazing, we started out early at 8.30am and our tour guide was called 'sexy man'. It was just the 6 of us and sexy man which made it more enjoyable as we could just concentrate on the surrondings instead of making conversation all the time. Lucky we had sexy man with us, he had eyes like an eagle....we saw a massive spider (I know this sounds poop, but seeing it situated in the middle of this huge spiders web it looked really effective against the vast green background) we also saw giant lizards, squirrels and a monkey (we all took about 15 minutes to see this god damn monkey....we kept asking wehere it was and sexy man just replied 'in the tall tree uop there" well every tree was a bloody tall tree!!!. We stopped off at a waterfall and we all got in and had a swim. At some points the current was so strong it would just naturally pull you along. Around this time of year the water level is low so we didn't get to see the larger waterfalls, but still it was beautiful and the sound of the running water was so calming. We were so hot from the humidity that the water felt amazing, really cool and we were having great fun jumping in. This was around half way into our journey and on our way back we saw the largest tree in the rainforest, it was amazing, the roots were as big as a human body and the pattern and detail on the tree was really interesting to look at. We then headed back to our hotel to freshen up for tubbing. On the way back the heat picked up and we were going up and down, up and down and our feet were getting sore by this point. The trek lasted for 3 hours and for the journey sexy man made us each a hat, from the larger leaves in the rainforest, we all looked like right wallys but we felt we had to keep them on for him and it was a lovely gesture. Along the way sexy man kept opening up certain leaves for us all to smell as it supposedly gives you more energy. We would definately recommend this trip, the national park, Koh Sok (the name of the rainforest) was amazing. Very quiet, fresh smells, calm and strangely relaxing.....but wear comfy footwear.

We had about an hour and half break to eat, then we headed to tubbing followed by the monkey temple. The girls we met came along to this too, and we had a South African couple and Italian couplt too, so a good group number. We headed on a half jour journey then got out at the area you enter the water. We walked through some caves with our rings then we jumped into the water as we came out. There were millions of fish around....and sexy man had some sneaky fish food!! so he was randomly lobbing it into the water and the fish went crazy, all us girls were screaming as they were scurrying round our bums and it was such a weird sensation. For the next 10 minutes we were all as stiff as cardboard, laying over the ring like a flat skateboard, trying to keep our bums out of the water. We had about 45 minutes in the water, two guides pulling us along, we got told the current would be 'meduium speed'...more like a sunday driver...we were crawling along at snails pace, the poor guides were pulling us along....the air at the point still felt very hot, but whilst we were tubbing., we had a terrential downpour, this was an experience!! Jodie and Cheryl were enjoying the ride but Chloe and Nikki were dreaming of being in a dry warm place, tucked up in a warm dressing gown watching a disney movie (Aladding or the little mermaid to be exact). Beth and Hayley were having a great time, they were in a little world of their own. Straight after we headed to the monkey temple on the open truck style taxis...when we got there, due to the weather there were NO monkeys so we had to head back....hahahaha We have to laugh here as so far this is just about our luck...the poop weather had stayed with us all the way so far. Collectively we have had about 1 whole day worth of sunshine!

Nevertheless we headed back, played a few games of Jenga and dominos and had an early night ready to travel again the next day.

Following day we headed to Krabi via taxi. When we arrived it was around 3pm and it didn't look that great where we got dropped off. Quite, out of the way, not many people around, so save us spending one night there then having to travel again, we just headed staright to Ko Tao. We had a taxi take us to the car ferry, it was a 2 minute boat ride (literally) across to a mid way island, then another 2 minute car ferry journey across to Ko Toa. We couldn't get any accomodation organised in time for Ko Tao to kept our travels a bit flexible..........well that night we all ended up staying in a TENT for the night as there was no accomodation. We were at the Ting Tong bar and the barman 'Toffee' kept the drink a flow, so we managed to stay up drinking, meeting new people until about 4am! So we didn't really need the tents. We tried a mushroom shake at the bar (sorry mums) we only had one to share, it tasted a bit like banana and coconut...but had a soily taste at the end...we had a giggle. The next morning we felt dirty, we stunk to high heaven and we needed an ice cold shower. We ended up staying at the place next door called Fullmoon, basic but done the trick. Hayley and Nikki found a seperate twin room just a few doors along at 'nice and easdy'...they had luxury accomodation with air con AND a fan. Ours was fine though, just the little lizards get in everywhere!

We didn't actually do any excursions on Ko Toa but the island itself was vey peaceful, older people, more for couples and there was one long main road that ran from one side of the island to the other, so very plain, yet the views were beautiful. We had a nice time here, a bit of a chilled out time to re charge, again reading, listening to music, discussing our likes and dislikes....a good group bonding time. We then head to Ko Phi Phi on the 11th, where we will be until the 15th Jan, which we are all so so SO excited about!!

Things to remember in Koh Sok:

Thailand is not as cheap as you think

When it rains in Thailand...it is like a terrential down pour

The thai chocolate tastes like cardboard...actually thats being polite...it's like a dry puff of air

We want to kidnap a little Thai child as they're so cute

Learn a language

Bring playing cards

Get a tour guide

Try a cocunut shake, they're amazing!!!!!!!

You can NEVER find salt & Vinegar crisps anywhere...you get the odd odd occasion where they will have some S & V kettle crisps on the ferries, but they are so exspensive....they do every other flavour but S & V (even seaweed!)

Things to remeber in Ko Lanta:

Drive a mo ped

Food is never served the same time in Thailand, half of you will have finished your food before the others are even served theirs

We now love Samsong

There are millions of dogs and cats wherever you go...we only thought we would see the odd one or two the entire journey

Learn to play an instrument

Everyone is 'hooter happy' here

Muchos love

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