Aaaaand relax :) we finally put down our bags for 5 whole days woohooo! Since arriving in Thailand on the 10th we had pretty much been on the move every day, so when we found a place to stand still we were relieved to say the least.

On the boat ride over to Koh Lanta from Phi Phi you are straight away joined by a very friendly sales man trying to convince you why it would be an oh so fantastic and a totally unmissable chance to stay at the amazing and wonderful hotel that he works for, this is pretty standard now so we take it all in, listen to what they have to say and then make a decision on whether to take the chance or go solo, once we looked at the map we kind of realised that we needed to make a decision on where to go just because everything was quite spaced out and the island itself is one of the bigger ones. After talking to some other travellers on what they were doing we decided it would probably be best to book a room as it also included a free taxi, it wasnt a bad choice, the hotel was nice and it had a fancy pool and was right next to the beach but it was miles away from anything else, not even a local shop. On the day we arrived we decided we would hire a bike out and go and investigate other areas on the island and accommodation, just what Damo wanted to do after a whole morning travelling!

Whilst on our little adventure we found the main town, loads of shops and bars and also a tattoo studio....and the rest is history! No ok so we went in and met the staff, spoke to them for quite a long time about what we wanted and we both had a good feeling about the place, it was big and modern and smelt like dettol so thats always a good sign! So after some umming and arring we both decided this would be the place and booked in. Not exactly productive accommodation hunting but we still managed to hunt down a lovely place to stay. The bungalow we stayed in were in a quieter part but still had a lot of restaurants and shops so not totally isolated and it had a pool which was amazing, such a novilty, we didnt spend a single day on the beach.

We spent most of our days playing by the pool and getting in some suntime, its so super hot here that you really dont want to be doing very much else, although we will have to get over that one quick once we get to Malaysia, I have read its much hotter and muggier and no beach in sight for us, hard core, sweaty, cultural tour for 10 days :)

We took a bike out one morning to go and explore the island, we had a very sexy pink bike, its Damos favourite to date, he says its because its a bigger bike and faster but we all know he just loves the colour pink! :) We found a tiny cafe on the top of a hill/cliff that did the most amazing mix fruit shake and had a pretty incredible view too. I have to remind Damian sometimes that he is not at home on his super bike with his leathers and no he cant get his knee down on the bends and yes if you made us fall off both our mums would kill you! The funniest is when we are poodeling along at a speed im happy with (concidering we have no protective gear I think its quite fast enough) and someone is coming up to overtake, jeeze its full steam ahead then, hold on tight because there is no way Damo is letting anyone past him, especially a girl!!! hehehe

We made it our mission to eat at all the restaurants whilst we were here, we went to a few ones but we soon found our favourite, a lovely thai man and his daughter ran it, he was the chef and he was amazing, everything we ate was just delicious, amazing curries, noodle soups and spring rolls. Spring rolls mmmm now we are pretty much spring roll experts, we have sampled them in almost every place and country we have been in and these particular rolls were definatly of the best we have tried. Next aim is to learn how to make them, Damo is determined to get in a cooking course both in Malaysia and when we return to Thialand, so play your cards right people and you could be invited to Thai/Malay banquet!!

Tattoo day was exciting, I hadnt yet decided if I was going to get mine with bamboo or machine, we were both getting a version of the same type of buddest yantra tattoo and its traditional to get it done in bamboo so I really didnt have much of a choice. They say bamboo is 70% less painfull, I say b******s, its a needle and it still hurts, you could just feel every single stab that he made rather than the constant burning from the machine. Mine was ok up until the end and all I wanted to do was punch the man in the face, glad I didnt though because I really like it now, again, sorry mum :) Damian went after me and by the time I had gone on about how much it hurt he was pretty scared, this is a guy who has spent over 30 hours in the chair with the machine and he was bricking it, he says he wasnt but I could tell, I wasnt helping by asking him are you scared every two seconds! The guy doing the bamboo for us had warned him that his could take up to 4 hours so that really didnt help. He soldiered through though bless him, I would look up from my spot infront of the tv every now and then to see him wincing away, luckily though it only took 3 hours. Well worth it though they both look really good, well we think so anyway :)

So we are now off to Koh Lipe, pronounced 'leepay' I spend a whole day correcting Damo who keept saying 'lip' and was convinced the only way it could be pronounced was 'lipe' like 'ripe' yeh we were both wrong and the lady who booked our ferry there found my pronounceation rather amusing! We wanted a final little trip before going to Malaysia and we found out that from Lipe we could cross into Malaysia through an Island called Langkawi which is next to Lipe so it made sense. We are currently sat on a very noisy 'speed ferry' more like 'rusty tin' Damo is playing his candy crush again....oh how I love candy crush! and Bev if you happen to read this blog then you ought to know Damo is constantly gloating about how far ahead of you he is on candy crush, so please please please if you have any love for me can you please hurry up and get past him and shut him up!!! heheh

Oh and how could I forget to tell you of the latest in Sophie illnesses and alements, Damo now likes to call me pink eye sausage finger, yep the eye is still pink and then I woke up one morning with a giant finger, some kind mosquito decided to bite my finger, if you could see the size of my bites just on my legs you would understand why my finger has blown up so much :( always me, never Damo!

less than 4 weeks left sad face :( happy face :)