There was a young couple on the ferry to Phi Phi who spent pretty much the entire journey arguing with each other... well actually the woman was a complete witch and if he'd lobbed her into the sea i'd have been the first to applaud him but that's beside the point. What im trying to say is that I can pretty much guarantee that as soon as we arrived on the island their anger was replaced with pure calm. It is impossible not to be in a permanent state of childish glee every second spent on that island.

Probably the most obvious contrast with India (apart from the fact that we no longer shared a bed with cockroaches) is how easy it is to organize anything in Thailand. As soon as we landed on the island we were approached by a woman who immediately arranged a dude to come meet us with a cart and take us and our bags to a backpackers villa. Of course in a way this takes a lot of fun out of doing all the organizing yourselves like in India - after spending that extra 5 minutes arguing with the man at the counter for a ticket at which point the waiting list of 287 people miraculously disappears and there are all of a sudden 2 seats going spare.

It turned out our hut was at the top of the highest hill in Phi Phi so by the time we reached the top we were red faced, disheveled, sweaty and almost crawling into reception. The guy who had pulled both our big bags all the way up the hill on the other hand looked like he'd just returned from a light stroll and took great pleasure at the the western wimps he'd just produced to his parents (who later turned out to be Mr and Mrs Hotel). The hut was pretty sweet - the bathroom turned into a meeting place for a couple lizards and a frog at night time. The other great thing about staying at this villa was that it allowed us to meet Alex, the legend from London with a love of facial hair so obviously formed an instant bond with James and they spent an unnecessary amount of time discussing football and facial hair! So we had a few awesome nights, James and Alex bonded over their beards and we became pretty well acquainted with the nightlife on the island. We watched some fireshows and checked out the thai boxing in bars (which surely is an idea not too clearly thought out as they encourage the boozed up public to fight in the ring... don't worry Mrs Deighan - the only competitive sport James played was connect 4 with the barmaids!) Our nights out in Phi Phi were usually pretty eventful - one night I tried to go home and have an early night but ended up persuading a sweet little thai lady to allow me to cycle her to a nearby club she was heading to - of course she failed to mention it was at the bottom of a massive hill and the bike had no breaks. So I pelted down the hill completely oblivious to the sheer terror on her face, ricochet off a few ditches and came to a sudden but suave arrival at the club. On another night I bonded with some English dudes who I somehow managed to convince that it would be a great idea to go on an exploration and we ended up finding a tiny island, collected a lot of massive shells and a LOT more cuts from those pesky sea urchins. By the time i arrived home i was greeted with the sight of James sleeping soundly on the porch in his hammock with his new friend Bernie The Stray Dog. One morning we took a hike up to the Viewpoint area where it suddenly dawned on us that our "3-months-and-we-haven't-killed-each-other" anniversary was just around the corner so we planned a camping trip to maya bay to celebrate. That trip was so much fun - did a spot of snorkling before canoeing to the bay where "The Beach" was filmed. The first two girls we met that night were from aberdeenshire so it was my turn to get overly excited about having something in common while James poignantly stroked his beard and reminisced about Alex who had left that morning. The next day we took a boat to Krabi - we were covered in cuts and feeling slightly fragile from one bucket too many but so lucky to have experienced the bay, the buckets, our buddies and of course our favourite flea ridden stray dog Bernie.Krabi was a sleepy little place where we spent a couple days watching boat races and just had a general exploration of the town. Booked a stupid o'clock bus for our final day in Thailand which took us right down to the border.Jo