We woke up to our first morning in the hut that had seemed so cute and quaint the previous night. It was in fact an insect infested green house and we were the sweaty prey. Despite our makeshift mosquito nets, us girls were peppered with mossie bites and had experienced a hot and steamy night. We had a slight lie in before showering and sorting out our wet and mouldy belongings that were still festering from our trek.

After a dodgy breakfast of sweaty ham, half cooked frankfurters and a singular egg, we wandered into town to see if we could book onto a cooking course. Sam and Henry found a trip to some caves that maintained their masculinity while we girls found a course called Red Orchid that had spaces for that afternoon. We shared a quick lunch and some fruit smoothies before wandering back to meet our cook.

We were first introduced to a smily woman called 'Doh/Dow' who had an alarming amount of pastel coloured make up on her face. She led us back to her house/cooking workshop and asked us to choose 5 meals from a selection that we wanted to cook. I went for Panang curry, pad Thai, spring rolls, noodle soup and mango sticky rice.

We met a couple from China who spoke some basic English and introduced ourselves. Their English names were Lola and Isaac, names they had chosen themselves which was pretty funky. It made me feel like I was missing out and should maybe coin a Chinese name for myself. As it turned out, Isaac was to become the main victim of the afternoon as Doh/Dow quickly turned from lovely and sweet to super scary and bossy. English was clearly their only mutually shared language so there were several times that communication was stretched between them. Sad times for Isaac, but it became a subject of hilarity for us girls as we creased up laughing at Doh/Dow yelling 'boy, boy, hurry up!' 'Boy, boy, not now!' 'Boy, boy, come here!' all afternoon. We clearly weren't safe from her wrath as she also yelled at us for simply following her instructions. This was the closest I had come to experiencing a day in a Master chef kitchen.

Besides the fear of doing something wrong, the afternoon was amazing as we genuinely learnt a ton of stuff and ate our expertly created victuals. Charlotte and I also found a shared obsession for mango sticky rice so will have to continue making that back in England.

After the workshop finished at half 8 we were absolutely exhausted and had eaten ourselves into a food coma. Nursing variously named food babies, we walked back to the centre to find Henry and Sam. At this point the heavens opened and we were forced to find shelter under an awning. Out of all the streets in Pai, it turned out that Sam and Henry were only across the road sheltering under a street food umbrella.

They wanted to grab a few drinks so us girls agreed to walk back by ourselves and enjoy a relaxing evening of wifi and contacting our other halves. However, as fate would have it, our evening was far from the relaxing night we first envisaged.

Firstly, the monsoon had caused a tree to crash into an electricity pylon so halfway down an already dark and unpopulated road, the remaining street lights blew out and we were stranded in the spooky darkness. I immediately span around to walk back to our nearest bar, while screaming, Gemma marched on to the next bar ahead of us, screaming, and Charlotte remained glued to the same spot, screaming. We were now spaced out in three different spots, while simultaneously screaming. It was far from ideal.

Once we had collected our thoughts, we calmed down and got out our torches. Knowing we were only 50 or so metres away from our turning to the hut we decided to plod on. Rather prematurely for the evening, I felt rather proud of how we had acted, despite our initial girly reaction.

We reached the hut and moaned several times that the power cut had ruined our plans for a wifi filled evening. Instead we opted for a use of torches and candles (in a wooden hut!) and tucked ourselves into bed to read. Only half an hour later the lights flashed back on and we looked up in glee. Aaah, evening back to normal, we thought.

Gemma started fiddling around with the light switches before she let out a pretty sedate scream, for the circumstances. Charlotte and I came running in to find a f*** off enormous spider in the corner. Right where I had previously been to collect candles from the owner and to pay for our room and where Gemma had been playing around in the dark only moments before.

An hour of madness then ensued. In a typically British fashion, our first thoughts were to take a million photos, finding different angles and light to capture its sheer enormity. Our second was to call our parents/boyfriends to share our horror.

After 10 minutes of deliberation, we decided that the best thing to do was wait for the boys to come back and deal with it. But then it was right next to Henry's bag and it could jump. So we then decided to squish it. But then it may run away and hide and we wouldn't know where it was. So we then decided to capture it inside a glass. But then it may jump on our hands and bite us.

Obviously, the only clear and sensible thing to do was to fashion ourselves a spider catching outfit. Think a bee keepers outfit without the wide brimmed hat. So with Charlotte bagging the role as camera woman, Gemma and I rushed to pull on long sleeved tops, our full body ponchos, toe covered shoes and socks on the end of our hands, just for good measure. Armed with a glass (that was soon swapped for a longer bottle), an umbrella (for thwacking) and mosquito repellant (we really were taking all precautions), Gemma and I inched forward to where Boris was settling in for the evening. He didn't bat an eyelid, or several eyelids in the spider's case.

After 5 video cuts, a lot of screaming and a tin of Pringles being upended, I managed to fit the bottle over the spider and held on for dear life (I'm totally missing out the half hour of wimping out and practicing on the various other walls).

For what felt like a lifetime, I clung hold of the bottle against the wall and quickly pushed our journal underneath it. Having done the most tricky bit, I picked the wrong moment to then freeze. However, with the pressure mounting, the girls were hollering at me to move it and shove it towards the door. Somehow, with the help of Gemma creating the exit path and shouts of encouragement from Charlotte (littered with pleas of help from anyone who was listening) we managed to get Boris outside on the paved stones, still safely encased inside the bottle.

Not wanting to let him free as he may be wanting to seek revenge, I thought the best course of action was to leave him in the bottle overnight and deal with him in the light of day. Sadly for Boris, I'm naive about the wonders of the animal kingdom and definitely did not foresee an army of red ants stinging him to death over night as we awoke in the morning to find him all shrivelled up and being carried away on the back of the ants. Sorry Boris, please don't send me bad karma my way