well phuket was fantastic, although a bit touristy - still the food was excellent, everyone spoke english, the apartment we stayed in was really nice, the beach was cool and of course the company was brilliant (ahhh) (and v welcome after 2 1/2 months). Managed to do very little - eating, sleeping, going to the beach, it's all there is to do anyway. The day we did try and do something (visit the gibbon rehab centre) we hired a bike, it took ages with my dodgy driving and we got there too late - should have known better than to try and venture from the original plan!

Travelled to the Khao Sok national park once I was alone again yesterday. Stayed in this jungle bungalow thing (back to cold water shower and hole in the ground toilet) woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of scratching - shone my torch towards the cupboard just above my head to see a mouse head popping out of a hole in the wood (I think it was slowly eating the bungalow...) anyway it shot off across the bed probably with a plan to get more of its rodent friends - I slept in the other direction preferring them to run over my feet than my head and at least they weren't the tarantulas the owner had warned me about....

I joined a tour of germans (what is about me and the huge number of germans I keep meeting?) to trek through the jungle and a cave. It wasn't what I expected at all, we had to wade/swim across rivers, walk through mud and swamp and inside the cave there were also parts where we had to swim. Although it was pretty good fun, we didn't see any wildlife (there was the promise of monkeys, leopards, tigers etc). Its always the way on these things though,and I suppose they don't welcome you at some designated spot with a complimentary drink and a show...there was sometimes so much mud it felt like the somme - managed not to mention this to my new german friends....

Left the park this morning to come to a place called Krabi - pretty nice place, its a port for lots of little islands, tomorrow I'm going kayaking and snorkelling, probably with germans too, ya ya ya....