Okay so I'm NOT in Phuket. In fact, I was there for all of about 5 minutes, but it follows the route we took so I'm doing a quick catch up from here. Currently in Singapore at the moment actually... but that's another story! I'm limited to 15 mins at a time on the airport internet so this post may end abruptly if I get logged out!
So! wow, what a busy week we've had. I'll finish up with our last night in Singapore... The free tour? on the scooters (yeah the ones kids have!)? AMazing. So much fun and we got to see so much of singapore I've never seen before. At first I was abit wobbley (they are vehicles you know!) and we were on ROADS. Big ones. But I actually got the hang of it and mananged not to crash into ANTYTHING. Mircles do happen. There were about 10 of us and our lovely guide Micheal. It was so hilarious we were like a scooter gang charging down the streets! Made some really cool friends on this one, and ended up going out to Clarke Quay afterwards; which is the craziest collection of bars and clubs ever. There's this one that's called Clinic, where you drink you're cocktails through a drip! It's all set up like a hospital; bar staff ni scrubs and everything. Brilliant. Never be allowed in the UK that... But it is SUPER expensive, and seeming as we had no money left (courtesy of the shopping spree, oops!) we were reduced to drinking on the 'bridge'. literally, you sit on this bridge with hundreds of other locals/tourists/young uns, and drink stuff bought from the 7Eleven. Great fun. We then got a hilarious rickshaw/cyclo ride home with our friend Amber. Our driver was a hoot! He let Amber have a go driving and had speakers blasting out music! We made it to bed about 4am that night...

And up fresh and early for our journey to Ko Phangan (Co-pan-yang). This one was an epic... Door-to-door travel time - 20 hrs. Modes of transport - 8! (new record! including; MRT, plane, taxi, bus, minibus, boat, tuktuk and 4x4!) We were proper proud of ourselves with this one. When we got to phuket we wangled our way onto a plublic bus to Surit Thani (dirt cheap) and then somehow managed to catch the night-boat to Ko P. which we didn't even know existed! The night-boat was something else... reminded me abit of the slave ships you learn about in history. Minus the shackles and dysentry (well...?!). You have about minus one metre of personal space on the giant beds they put on the floor. Luckily we were sharing with a couple of lovely Brits (Pangan 41 & 42, no names, just our bunk numbers! I was 40, Nai 39) who we played Uno with to pass the time. Not much sleep was had, by me at least, but we arrievd at 5am on Ko P. as promised. We actually had no idea where the accom. we had booked was, so we spent awhile sitting in Haad Rin (Partytown) as none of the taxi drivers had even heard of where we were staying. Tad worrying. But eventually a kind lady rang the number I had and a mysterious 4x4 came to collect us. Up and up and up we drove this bumpy dirt track, I was having some doubtful reservations at this point. But the journey paid off big-time. Amaresa Resort is set up on the hill over Haad Rin, away from the hustle and bustle. Incredible views over the bay. I can't describe how picturesque it was. We had our own little wooden cabin on stilts. It over looked a secluded rocky bay of turquoise waters; which turned out to be full on coral and fish. After our crazy overnight journey from Singapore, I swung in our hammock on our verranda, listening to the waevs lap the shore and the ciccadas in the trees. Pretty much blissfully euphoric.

So Haad Rin is the place everyone comes to party at Full Moon every month. We arrived on Monday and full moon was due on the Wednesday. Being a little out of the main village was nice, it gets abit crazy down there (pretty much 24/7 music and partying) so it was nice to be able to choose when we joined in. But of course we did... Our first day we met the other girls staying at Amaresa. Immediately hit it off with them (two canadians and one aussie). So we headed off to the beach for some buckets! The beach party is amazing. There are fire-throwers/dancers/eaters/skippers(?!) and huge UV boards and thousands of tiny stalls of locals selling drinks, all shouting at the top of their voices for you to come to their bar. You get pretty necklaces and rings made out of recycled straws, which everyone wears with pride (the more you've got the more you've drunk!). The sand to so soft and white, and the sea tantalisingly close. You will end up in it at some point during the night. You will lose your flipflops (again!). We all kept loosing each other and bumping into new and old friends from travelling; our Texan friend from Vietnam, Dave (actually called Will, but we renamed him). I think I was rugby tackling people in the crowd (nothing new there then, way to make new friends El!), and this was two nights BEFORE full moon! hahah. We had another great night on actual Full Moon too though. It's such an amazing atmosphere, it's so.. tribal. And making it till sunrise on wednesday was definately worth it. So beautiful. I also got to swin with some phosphorescent plankton (which anyone who I've ranted about Fraser Island to will know about!). Most of the time in between the partying we mainly recovered. I went to the beach, Nai shopped (these became our default activities during our travels).

Time for a new one I think...

El (now minus Nai! :( )