We awoke to cool morning air, well rested and ready for the day. We left at 9.30am for what Tom called 'The coconut island.' The long tail boats took us on a 20-minute ride to one of the islands and we hiked to the top - the cool morning air now a distant memory. He showed us around a local village with chickens, dogs, ducks and children running around freely. He explained that approximately 200 people lived on the island, most of them Burmese, and had jobs collecting the coconuts to sell in the bigger cities and for export. They made 10 US dollars a day - the Thai minimum wage. We walked around and took in their simplistic lifestyle. They might not have had very much, but all looked content and peaceful.

We came across a monkey chained to a climbing frame. Tom explained that it was one of the local monkeys that had been caught and trained by one of the villagers. He was the only person it listened to and would bite anyone else. His name was Johnny. Tom told us about the coconut trees and explained that a palm trees life span was about 30 years. It produced approximately 100 - 150 coconuts every year depending on the fertility of the tree. Johnny was trained to climb up the tree and collect the coconuts for his trainer. He did not do this with any sense of urgency and it was not a fast process by any stretch of the imagination. He loosened and dropped 8 coconuts in total before climbing back down the tree to his trainer. We could get a photo with him if we wanted, but we all opted out as he had some serious fangs on him we did not want to become acquainted with.

We continued to walk around the island and collected fruit from other trees to try later. It was a beautiful place; there was no doubt about that. We enquired as to why there were so many tree stumps sticking out of the lake in seemingly random places. Apparently, in 1984 the local government decided to build a dam to generate electricity for the area. The land that is now lake was originally a river with farms and the people who lived on them were moved to higher ground as it started to fill up with water. 31 years on, tree stumps are the only reminder that the lake is not a natural feature of the area.

We got back to the House Boat 35 minutes later - it had been moved so was further away than when we'd left. It was in a very beautiful area and we all jumped in to cool off and take in the scenery. We had some lunch, which included French fries, and then retreated to our room for an afternoon siesta.

2 hours later, the House Boat started to move again and we meandered to the communal area with our pack of cards to play some rummy. I got tired of Edd beating me - convinced he had cards hidden somewhere - and decided to blog for a bit instead. We'd had no Internet all day, but I didn't want to fall behind on our daily adventures. Happy hour came and we ordered our daily Mai Tai's, I'd become quite addicted to them, deciding they were officially my favorite cocktail.

We had dinner and went to bed quite early, it was one of the other guests' birthdays and all of the Danish people stayed up with her to celebrate. We didn't understand what they were saying most of the time, so opted out. We decided to rearrange our room in an attempt to get a good night sleep. We moved the foldout couch right up to the balcony and opened all the windows (I was quite concerned I'd fall out in my sleep as they were to the floor, but Edd assured me I wasn't small enough). We opted out of the bug net and I layered up on mozzie spray instead. Settling in for the night, the cool air lulled us to sleep with the sounds of Mambo Number 5 drifting down the passage from the communal area.