Hi everyone, hope you are well. The last blog I wrote was just as we arrived in Koh Phagnan. We stayed at a place called Boom's Café, which I'd highly recommend. It was quite cheap for an aircon room which was right on the seafront and the woman in charge was brilliant (we called her Mama Boom). She was extremely friendly and her Thai food was top notch.

Koh Phangan was definitely a party island, although from Boom's Café you were out of the way, so if you didn't want to go out you wouldn't know a huge party was happening down the road. The main party area was Haad Rin, and we spent a few nights there before the famous full moon party on July 19th. We had heard mixed reports about the full moon party, but I thought it was excellent. The party didn't get going until around midnight and there were apparently 15,000 people on the beach. At about 2am it started to rain but that almost added to the night, people just carried on dancing until the early hours.

On July 21 we checked out of Boom's Café. For the 6 nights we had been there the final bill came to 80 pounds each, which included the accommodation, meals, laundry and drinks. We decided to give Koh Samui a miss because people said it was a bit like Benidorm, so we went to Koh Tao instead. This ended up being one of my favourite islands. Whilst the boat trip there was badly organized and really crowded - something you come to expect in Thailand - it was worth it. We had another beach side hotel, which was on Chalok Baan Kao bay. The beach was beautiful and had the warmest sea water I have ever been in, which was a problem when you wanted a dip to cool down!

The food on Koh Tao was equally as amazing as the beach. One of the better restaurants had seafood on ice and could you simply pick what you wanted and they would BBQ it for you. They had some incredible salmon, snapper and tiger prawns, all of which came with plenty of garlic. We had a few relaxing days on Koh Tao and the weather was very hot for the time we were on the island. We had met up with our Dutch friends and played a game of beach volleyball in the afternoon. I'm sorry to report that England lost.

We only went to the main beach on Koh Tao, called Sai Ree, on the final night. We went to a bar called Fizz which was owned by Sven's friend. You could relax on the beach whilst having a few drinks. There looked to be a good number of bars and restaurants on Sai Ree so if anyone is heading there next, I'd recommend having a look.

After Koh Tao we went to Bangkok on a long bus trip which I'd like to forget about (the first of many!). The boat ride from Koh Tao to Champorn was like riding on a roller coaster, plenty of white faces when we got off! Our stay in Bangkok was only for a few hours as it was a stopover to fly to Chiang Mai in the North. Bangkok looked like a lively place but we really on saw the airport, which was brand new and very impressive.

We arrived in Chiang Mai on July 25th and stayed there for 5 nights. I really liked Chiang Mai as it wasn't quite as touristy as the other places in Thailand that we had visited. Our hostel there was excellent and probably one of the best we have stayed in yet. It was called MD House and it was close to the city centre. For only 5 pounds a night each we had aircon, a TV and swimming pool. In Chiang Mai we did a tour of the temples around the city, all of which were spectacular. I purchased two suits and two suits, which will hopefully be making their way back to England as I type!

There were plenty of things to get up to in the day in and around Chiang Mai. One day we went on a trekking experience where we walked around the jungle for a couple of hours, rode with elephants, visited some tribes and did some bamboo rafting. We also went on 'The Flight of the Gibbon' one day, where you do around 11 zip flies and abseils around the jungle. One evening we went to watch Thai boxing, which was great until they starting rigging the matches so that the bookies could make some money. At the end of the night they got hens in the ring to fight - that was our que to leave.

On the 30th of July we left Chiang Mai and headed for Laos. It was going to be a long journey - 2 days in total - as we opted to go on the slow boat. We had heard a few horror stories about the fast boat and we weren't in a huge rush to get to Laos. The slow boat itself wasn't too bad as you had enough room to get up for a walk and the journey through Laos country side was quite spectacular. The boat made a few stops so that local kids could get on and sell us some drinks/crisps etc.

We finally arrived in Luang Probang on August 1st. It was a small town but had a good feel to it; there was a market in the evenings and a good number of restaurants. Whilst we were there we went to see a huge waterfall called Kuang Si which was amazing. We stayed there for 2 nights and yesterday got a mini bus to our current destination, Vang Vieng. There isn't a great deal to do here apart from tubing down the river, which is what we have penciled in for tomorrow. Everyone we have spoken to said it's good fun. Our accommodation here is just over one pound each per night which is incredible.

Our current plans are to go to Vientiane on Wednesday. We fly from Vientiane to Hanoi on the 11th and have around 12 days in Vietnam, which I'm really looking forward to. From there we go to Cambodia before finishing the trip in Bangkok. I've already started to look for some 4/5 star hotels in Bangkok to end the trip in style! Anyway I will try and update you again before returning to blighty in a month or so - time flies!