Loving Koh Tao! Very relaxed atmosphere, lovely beach. We arrived, grabbed a pizza and a cocktail and had a random dance on the beach. Today we started our padi open water course! This involved sitting down to watch a 3 hr video and answer a series of questions on the theory. Tomorrow we head to the pool to start practicing :) before our lesson we had a wonder around town, grabbed a nice sarnie and then chilled out on the beach for a while, the tide was up though...

It's 10 to 7 and were in bed, with a cup of tea watching a random film following a hot shower! Bliss following our 24hr bus trip from North to South Thailand! It wasn't too bad to be fair, I've heard much much worse stories about long haul bus journeys in SE Asia. Ours went to plan we were in a comfortable VIP coach with air con, fully reclining seat, blanket, tv/entertainment in the headrest in front, even a hostess came by every now and again to give us snacks...

With one full day in Pai we set an alarm and were up early to make the most of it. We took a wonder into town, from our guesthouse this took us about 10 minutes even though someone told us last night it would take us an hour! Maybe he was trying to scam a taxi ride from us. We grabbed a light breakfast at a cool little cafe and a good English breakfast tea! Full up and ready to start the day we went to a enquire about cycle hire. Everyone in Pai rides scooters or...

The flash packing is well and truly behind us! Last 3 nights we've been staying in a hostel called Tipsy Manor at 3 quid a night. It was a cool little hostel, fairly clean and with a nice lounge social area equipped with flat screen tv and a pool table, only problem was the rock hard beds that weren't really mattresses at all but a tough piece of polystyrene. The hostels named after their dog, she was such a little cutie and had a big part to play in us enjoying ...

We had an amazing day at the elephant nature park today. It was recommended to us by 2 girls from our tour in Africa and we were able to see first hand the wonderful work they do and got to spend some up close and personal time with the elephants. It's a sanctuary set up by a woman called Lek, who takes in and rescues abused and injured elephants. The bus came to pick us up from our hotel early doors so we got to spend the whole day there, on the hour journey up ...