We left Cambodia to get back to Bangkok on the 17th December, it was a relatively painless 6 hour journey (walk in the park compared to the other journeys we have done). Our first destination was Koh San Road, where we met up with Matt, who was sitting in a pub waiting for us. However, here was the catch because of local elections throughout Thailand, there had been an alcohal ban throughout the country for 3 days. We arrived on the Sunday the same day as the Man Utd v's Liverpool match and the Arsenal vs Chelsea match - so we saw Matt sipping on a fanta instead of his usual Singha beer, it was a very strange sight.

Our first priority was to get some accomodation for one night only as the next night we had already sorted out accomo in advance, so that Tilesh and the rest have somewhere to crash out and stay as soon as they landed the next day. Seeing as it was the Xmas period prices had shot through the roof every where we looked, the lads wanted to settle for the first place we saw regardless of the price but i was determined to spend no more then 2 pound per night, and after 20 minutes i found something for 1.50 each. Perfect. I'm getting good at this backpacking, stingy malarki.

That night we hit the sports bar to watch the footy matches, drinking Fanta, water and coke because of the drink ban. Once again it felt strange not drinking booze when the footy was on. Despite the ban however, we managed to persuade the bar ladies to sneek us a few drinks on the down low, where there's a will there's a way! Funny what a bit of money can get you.

The next money the boys made there way down to the islands and we promised we would meet up with them on Xmas eve and Xmas day. As soon as they left the Tilesh adn the girls arrived. We all got up at teh crack of dawn to welcome them and we all talked for ages over tea and coffee. As our new guests were not tired at all we decided to show them Bangkok. We did all the tourist things straight away including the Golden standing Buddha, the Central Temple, Golden Mount (which was high up on the hills with amazing views of all of Bangkok), Grande Palace and the reclining / sleeping buddha. As you can imagine everyone slept like a baby that night.

Seeing as we had covered most of bangkok on the first day, the following two days revolved around shopping, drinking and chilling out. As you can imagine, i was quite fed up of Bangkok, in total i had no spent a week in the City so i was ready to do what i had been dreaming about for ages, hit the beach. So we all decided to go to the beaches sooner then planned and headed down to Koh Samui on an overnight bus and then a morning ferry.

Unfortunately we had booked our accomo on the island in advance, which i was very relectant to do but did not say anything at the time. Big mistake, when we got there we found out, it was so far away from the main town and in the middle of nowhere and to make matters worse it was very expensive also. As you can imagine i was pissed off and kicking myself for not saying anything when we booked it originally. I decided to take it onto myself to cancel this accomo and look for new accomo in the center of town. Tilesh said we would come with me whilst the rest stayed at the hotel waiting for us to find new accomo. Me and Tils walked for 30 minutes in the hot midday sun with all our luggage. We finally say a taxi and it took us to the center of town. Once we got there we spent another 30 minutes going to every guesthouse looking for a good deal. We finally found good accomo for 1/3 of the price of the other one and right in the middle of the city. I really am getting good at this backpacking malarki.

We spent a total of 3 days in Koh Samui and we really had a good time because of the location next to the beach and the restuarants, bars etc. It was all worth it in the end and looking back i really did enjoy the island, but i know if we stayed at the first hotel, i would have hated it because it was so far from civilisation.

I would have liked to spend more days there but we had to get to Koh Tao were once again we had booked accomo in advance over Xmas. I only hoped the accomo would be better then our pre-booked Koh Samui accomo.

The guys had only been with us 5 days and already they had seen Bangkok, Koh Samui and now we were whisking them off to Koh Tao, they obviously were loving the experience and surprisingly did not compain once about the state of accomo, toilets and all the travelling. Looks like the next 2 weeks with the guys wouldn;t be as difficult as i thouht!