Happy new year everyone, best wishes for a happy and successful 2008!

Well, we've had a busy week or so, starting on Koh Tao where we tried scuba diving. Jon was very good, and enjoyed saying hello to the fishes and looking at all the coral. Unfortunately for some reason I couldn't manage to stay under the water, and spent most of the time on the surface, trying very hard to make it under the surface. It was basically a very expensive form of snorkelling. The following day we went on a snorkelling trip around the island which was lovely, we saw lots and lots of colourful fish and coral. The only negative part was seeing just how much of the coral reef has been destroyed and is no longer colourful but murky brown, with some fish looking hopefully for food.

After all that excitement we treated ourselves to a few drinks on New Years Eve and met some very nice Swedish people who shared a bucket of Sangsom (very dangerous Thai whiskey, drunk with red bull) with us. We missed home a lot on new years day, but soon were on our way again, off to Bangkok.

This turned out to be one of the worst journeys we have taken. As the boat arrived we watched the passengers disembark, the first few looked OK, the next lot were quite green, then came a few people in tears and a couple being carried off. It turned out there was a very bad storm with 4 metre waves. So we took some sea sickness pills and braced ourselves for the journey. We then spent the next few hours gripping our plastic chairs and trying not to scream as the boat crossed the sea as if it was riding a very angry bucking bull. We were particualrly worried at the points when we could see the sea from the right hand window, and the sky from the opposite window. Still, we arrived safely and were herded onto a very comfortable sleeper bus to Bangkok.

4am in Bangkok is perhaps not the best time to arrive, so we spent a few hours drinking coffee and watching people returning from their nights out, then found a room near the famous Khao San Road, which can only really be descrived as a 24hour carnival. Food and drink is plentiful, there are hundreds of stalls tempting you to part with your money and various music competes with each other along the road. We'll be returning to Bangkok in a few weeks, as we didn't get to see much of the city because we were sorting out visas and flights.

Hope you all enjoyed the new year celebrations,

Sarah and Jon

xx