Wow, as we sit here on an island off the East coast of Thailand staring out at a beautiful cove with crystal clear waters that stretch out as far as the eye can see, underneath the bluest of blue sky's Amy and I realise that we haven't updated you for ages. Clearly we have been occupied filling our time doing , well, pretty much nothing! So where do we begin.....
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Well we were all in Han Oi last time we updated you and coming to the end of what was a superb 3 weeks in NAM and somewhere we want to visit again, I think Amy just wants to get another coat tailor made to order.

However as you probably gathered we have done so much already since leaving Vietnam and arriving in Bangkok on the 21st. As soon as we picked up our lugguage we headed straight to the train station to purchase our night train tickets North to Chiang Mai. Little did we know that the sleeper trains were fully booked for several days leaving us with one option, the 'crap' night train. Which basically means sleeping in plastic covered seats whilst trying to sleep under the noise of the passing raliway sleepers and freezing cold A/C, although it wasn't as bad as we
imagained but we arrived 2 hours late, this meant 2 hours extra sleep so we were all ready to go on the hunt for accomodation as well as take in the city. Unfortunately Rachel and Joe didn't join us on this leg as Rachel fell sick about an hour prior to the train departing, but they joined us the following evening after getting the day train.

The plan was to spend my birthday doing a cooking class followed by a quiet beverage at the night markets, afterall I didn't want to tell the world that I was turning 29. The plan for the day went well with Amy, Rachel and I cooking some amazing Thai food, all together 5 courses each which you also ate after you cooked it, I personally think my food was the best. After this we chilled a little a headed to the night markets which take up the main central streets in Chiang Mai every Sunday, they were absolutley packed, selling loads of food, jewelery, clothes etc. This
is where the plan went a little pear shaped, we did go out for a quiet celebratory beer, but then we bumped in to a Canadian couple we met at our cooking class. As soon as they heard it was my birthday they said they knew a great bar with an awesome band, so slightly interested by this band and slightly pissed we went to the bar. Afew minutes later I was being offered free shots of tequila, it was rude turn them down of course, then the band started singing happy birthday to me as well as all the people in the bar, before I knew it I was dancing with all these strangers, drinking out of peoples buckets of Cocktails that they freely offered me. Needless to say I did't manage to keep my turning 29 quiet.

To make matters worse all of us apart from Joe who I believe really is superman had horrendous hangovers, particularly Rachel and I. Now hangovers are generally fine if you have a day of doing nothing , we on the other hand had a day trek booked, which included an elephant trek. So with no more than 5 hours sleep we heaed off on what would feel like the longest day of our lives. First thing was the Elephant trek, now we heard Elephant Trek's weren't comfortable as it was so we
were quite relieved to find the hangover didn't make it much worse, although poor Rachel was sick before she even got on her Elephant. The walking to a beautiful waterfall didn't hurt much as we were all allowed to jump in for a swim, however the Bamboo rafting at the end was probably the least favourite, it wasn't comfortable, we got soaked in our clothes and it just didn't feel safe, on a good day however we would have loved it. Most of us were looking forward to getting back to Chiang Mai and eating that typical Thai food that cures hangovers around the world...........McDonalds!! Yes we did eat a McDonalds and it was great, cured the
hangovers nicely and meant we could have a good nights sleep before we caught a flight to Phuket, in southern Thailand.

Unless you are rich or just married Phuket doesn't have that much to offer to the humble backpacker, especially those who are coming to the end of the trip and are trying to make the money last. So we stayed one night in the old town with the idea to head to our first island Phi Phi, again we heard that you should expect it to be expensive, and the cost to get there from Phuket reflected just that. So instead we decided to head to another island Lanta, located on the lower west of Thailand, We spent 5 days here on two seperate beaches, renting a moped inbetween to explore other areas. The beaches were beautiful and sea was warm, we just chillaxed and I got sun stroke. So for a day I was out of action, don't worry parents I'm fine now, Nurse Amy ensured my road to recovery was a good one, although at some point I was certain you could fry an egg on my chest, Amy wouldn't let me try though.

Yesterday we made our way North East, straight to Ko Phangyan, where we have found a beach as mentioned at the begining of the blog. Its hard to say what we are doing as its not much, the plan is to relax before we return home to cold miserable England.

Well sorry for the lack of update, I must also apologise for the spelling and grammar, afew people have pointed it out. But then when you have a beach and sea waiting for you sometimes you just want to rush the typing, especially when I am excited about telling you all our stories.

Until next time, when the blog will probably read

Sun
Sand and
S......uch a good time

Bye all, and thank you for the birthday messages and presents