See...you may have to wait a while for a new blog...but then you are rewarded with 2 in one day!!

So...we left Ao Nang and taken by minibus to Ko Lanta, with a short stop first at a travel agent who insisted on booking us some overpriced accommodation of course. That's just how it works here, you want to go somewhere, they pick you up from your hotel, take you off to an office in the back of beyond and then start showing you brochures for places to stay, all of which pay them a commission for taking you there. It's a real tourist trap but pretty unavoidable...still, paying an extra couple of pounds isn't the end of the world.

Our trip to Ko Lanta was actually pretty luxurious...as we had a whole minivan just for us!! And it was a fairly new one too, good stuff!! It was only a couple of hours including a couple of short ferry journeys, then after our driver took part in a quick drag race (!) we were deposited at our new digs. The best thing about where we were staying was it had a huge pool which was sooo nice to lounge by during the day, in fact, that's pretty much all we did for 5 days, lie by the pool and get even more tanned!!

We were staying right next to the beach, we could hear the waves crashing from our room which was rather nice, and we could look through the palms onto the sea from our veranda...lovely. Ko Lanta was nice for a few days of relaxing after all our recent outings for snorkelling, diving, boating etc, there is nothing to do there so that's what we did - nothing!

It is a bit hippy-ish, lots of Bob Marley playing and the staff at the bar were smoking some rather dubious looking cigarettes...but still, very friendly of course!! The restaurant served up some really good Thai dishes, however at a little cafe out on the main road (basically the only other shop/cafe place around for miles!) I discovered they served an amazing Full English breakfast!! Sorry to sound like cliched 'Brit abroad' - but this was so nice and I haven't had a proper brekky for months!! Asians generally don't do sausage and bacon etc much justice, but this was yummy, in fact it was so nice we returned the next day for me to have another!!

Good food aside, we enjoyed our few days of nothingness and have now returned to Ao Nang for a couple of nights before our final port of call in this part of Thailand - Phuket. The beaches on this coast are beautiful, really gorgeous everywhere we have been, clear blue sea and white sand. It is technically low season here now as the monsoon season starts in May, but we are yet to see any rain, hopefully it will hold off for another week! Then it can rain all it likes as we will be up north in Chiang Mai!!

Hope you are all enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend, and I'm very glad you all received your postcards ok!!

Righto...going to upload some pics now too...really spoiling you!! xxx

Just a quick one from Nixon: Being here during low season has really worked in our favour it seems, the tours we've taken have not been overcrowded, the hotels not overpriced and what's been especially nice has been on the beaches where we've been able to pick from literally anywhere to lie. As Cooper says, it's all dead lovely, but all the nicer for a bit of peace and quiet too!

xxx