Day 13

We had two flights today. One from Hanoi to Bangkok and then Bangkok to Phuket. We arrived into Phuket late afternoon and as we hadnt already arrnagemd accomodation, we booked 1 night on arrival at the airport. The people that we booked with were very helpful and will try as best they can to cater to your budget, however is it high season here so prices are quite a bit higher, also the area we wanted to see 'Patong Beach' is very commercial so you always end up paying slightly more anyway. The Room we booked for our first night was in a perfect location for what we wanted to see, and a couple of minutes walk from the beach. Patong Beach is so lively, there is bars and shops galore. The main strip of Patong along the beach is quite expensive to eat but if you take a wonder down into the side streets you can get a lot more for your money. Something we did notice about Patong (in fact fairly obvious) was the amount of older white guys with young attractive Thai girls!!! We did expect this in Thailand but we havent seen anywhere like this until now.

Found out today that Mum & Dad have a potential buyer for the house so will be moving to Chessington most probably while we are away. Congrats to them and sorry we left you with all of our stuff to move ;)

Day 14

Hottest day of our travels so far.. And we decided to walk to our new accomodation.. M & K Guesthouse. Our previous hotel had internet so we were able to look online for a better deal and found M & K for almost half the price of the first night. It took us about an hour and a half to walk there with our backpacks in the blazing sun (think it was about 33c today - no wind either). The walk was worth it because the room was really nice, it was a bit further away from the main area but it had a balcony so we could get some washing done. The guesthouse also had a microwave etc, so when we popped out later on we found a supermarket and picked ourselves up some bits for dinner and brekky.

Leaving Phuket tomorrow for Koh Phi Phi Island. Overall have enjoyed Phuket, however 2 days was plenty. Patong is just so touristy, if we had a little more time here we'd have liked the opportunity to explore some of the more isolated parts of the island.

Day 15

Today we caught a boat accross to Phi Phi Island. The boat was so full, and after reading some horror stories on how there had been occasions where boats have sunk due to overloading passengers, we were feeling very cautious! Anyway.. we made it there in one piece. What we didnt realise was that we had to pay 20 Baht (about 45p) to get onto the island - nor did it seem that anybody else on our boat new this - although not much, we were lucky we had some money on us. The island is lovely, However our room is not. To date we have had some interesting rooms, plastic pillows, toliets with no flush, no toliets at all, but nothing seems to have beaten this. The place we are staying is called 'Phi Phi Don Chukit', we had a fan room which generally is fine as you get what you pay for, however this room also had no hot water, no flushing toilet and a large towel as a bed sheet :) Don Chukit does have some nice rooms but as this was one of the more expesive places we had stayed so far, we had expected slightly more from their standard room. Thank goodness Phi Phi is such a lovely place, we didnt really care about the room, and a bed is a bed after all.

We plan to stay on the island for a few days now, think we will find another place to stay though! The beaches here are dreamy and the sea is so nice and clear, so we plan to have a few lazy days before we head onto Koh Phangan for the full moon party.

Day 16 & 17

There are 2 main beaches on Phi Phi, we were staying on Tonsai Bay, and the other beach is called Loh Dalum. There are no cars or roads on the island, just pathways, which is strange after being in Bangkok and Hanoi! We did find another guesthouse to stay, and got to relax a bit on the beach before the rain came!! We did have some really big down poars which the locals said were there to stay for a couple of days :( in the odd dry hour, we were able to take a walk up to the island viewpoint where you can see the whole island. It took us around 30 mins to get to the top and got bitten to death by mosquitos, however we did get some really nice photos. We also managed to meet up with some friends (Lisa & Iain) we had got to know in Vietnam so enjoyed a night out with them. We watched a fire dance show on the beach, then went to watch some Thai boxing in a bar. Was very random as the ring was in the middle of the bar but a great laugh.

Day 18 & 19

Left Koh Phi Phi for Koh Phangan. Have really enjoyed our 3 days on Phi Phi and so pleased we decided to come. Would deinfetly come back again! Our journey to Koh Phangan took us through Krabi and Surat Thani, and we travelled via ferry, bus and then a another ferry and overall took around 7 hours in total. We arrived at our hotel 'Coco Garden' late on the 18th so couldnt really appreciate how good the location was until the next morning. Our room/ bangalow is right on the beach and we awoke to the sound of waves on the shore, drew back the curtains and had the most amazing view. We are probably about 10 steps from the sea. 2 days now until the full moon party, were off to warm up our kidneys in preperation :) :)