Greetings we have returned!!

Have no fear people we have not been abducted by some hippy tribe (although judging the clothing around here there are alot of them around) instead we have been residing on an island where the electricity is sporadic and the internet non exisent, especially on a cloudy day (i.e one cloud in the sky). We have been chilling out for the past few days and we have loved it!

We arrived on the east coast of ko pha ngan via a death ride taxi (no form of transport in thailand comes without a fear of losing your life or a limb) down a serious dirt track with pot holes the size of meteor craters as the road no longer exists once you move three meters either side of the ferry pier. We arrived at than sadet shaken (and a little stirred) to be greeted by a man wearing a purple sarong (we later realised purple is the trade mark colour of the hippy) and we were then led by a small girl, who insisted on carrying our bags, along a few planks of wood that could be loosely described as a bridge. When we got to our bungalow we were very pleasantly suprised and instantly suspicious of the price we were going to be charged (we seemed to have alot of bungalow for 4 pound a night!). We had our own bathroom with a pebble floor, yet again a double bed (we are getting quite used to this now - we even have our own sides!) but the best bit was our very own balcony which had a orange tied dye hammock that looked over the sea. We were in a great little spot because if you walked over around 6 stones you would get wet due to landing in the pacific. We dumped our wordly possessions and headed for the resturant on the beach and waited until 6pm for the electricity to come on so we could have the best meal we had eaten in a very long time (it was stunning!).

We returned to our bungalow that evening to find we had no electricity in the bungalow so we whipped out the torches to instantly find we were not alone. In fact quite a few little critters had taken up residience in our bungalow and they were having quite a party, there were nibbles and all (possibly the cause of said party, and naturally in no way due to our stupidity/lack of common sense). A number of cockroaches had taken fancy to Claires shoes and some big ass hairy spiders were viewing this from the side lines. Needless to say we freaked out a little and reacted by running to the bed screeching and tucking the mossie net under every millimetre of the mattress. This was the point Claire began her role as the Chief insect spotter and carried out a microscopic investigation of the room under torchlight from the safety of our netted prison (this took quite a while). Eventually we decided to employ our tried and tested method of dealing with unfavourable situations - we closed our eyes and just hoped it would all be gone by the morning.

The next day Claire repeated the ritual from the following night and refused to move anywhere until a full spotlight inspection had been carried out (as you can imagine getting ready in the mornings began to take quite a while). Once the inspection of the room had been carried out she moved ninja stylee into the bathroom where she was greeted by our biggest. hairiest and most unwelcome visitor a bloody huge spider who decided he quite liked our bathroom and decided to continue his residency until we departed ourselves (we dealt with this by washing in shifts - one person would use the sink whilst the other would stand watching under the sink for any signs of activity of the spidery nature).

After all this stress and strain we rewarded ourselves with a breakfast of fresh fruit (pineapple, papya, melon, mango and banana), museli and warm yoghurt topped with a few crunchy flies and some fruit smoothies (to which we formed quite an addiction). The rest of the day was spent sunning ourselves under the tree whilst covered head to toe in factor 50. It was whilst sunning ourselves that we realised all the other guests were in fact in couples and we realised we looked like a pair of raging lesbians (dont worry nat I have not broken her defences yet, and believe me I have been trying - the nights are long here).

That evening we decided it was probably best to remove all food from the room and thankfully we were insect free (except for the hairy b***** in our bathroom). The next day we did nothing except sun ourselves and eat (good how we loved the food there). That evening whilst trying to explain wales to our waiter we gained some friends a lovely couple called Mark and Laura who were travelling for 6 months from Sheffield. We swapped travelling stories (theres were far more entertaining that ours as they had already been travelling for 3 months) and we even indulged in a singa beer, even though it was way passed our 9 pm bed time.

After a few days of sitting on our blindly white arses we decided we better move on before we became obese recluses (not that we would complain) so we headed off to party central, haad rin. We instantly decided we hated it here and had made a stupid decision leaving our secluded little cove. After a few drinks (out of beach buckets) we decided this place wasnt so bad after all, we had a lovely night but instantly regretted it in the morning (we would love to fill in a few more details here but our recollection is a little hazy - surely the photos say it all). Our days in haad rin were spent in pretty much the same way as they were at than sadet - sitting beside the seaside (beside the sea). There really isnt anything for us to write about because we did absolutely nothing and we were both so chilled out it was lovely.

We should have guessed that this relaxation wasnt going to last long and our fears started to grow when we were all issued with colour coded stickers after getting the ferry back to the main land and all seperated and driven away in tuk tuks. There was one group of about 15, then our group of three (including us) which was quickly whittled down to two (thats us) when the other woman got driven away (she later reappeared only to dissapear again). We pulled up outside a cafe where we were told to get out and our tickets were taken off us to be replaced with a white sticker bearing the abreviation BKK (this did not seem much for our money). By this point we had began to regret our decision to go with a private bus company as oppposed to the goverment buses, nevertheless after much fretting and paniced expressions (of us and the other people who also got kicked out of tuk tuks at various points during our 3 hr wait) we arrived in bangkok safe and sound at 6am. It was dark and we were very sleep deprived so we took refuge in a maccy D's to wait for sunrise when we would brave public transport. A short tuk tuk ride (and a 70% increase in the chance of us developing lung cancer) we arrived back at our good old faithful YHA hostel in bangkok. We spent the rest of the day completely spaced out from a lack of sleep and chose to go shopping (if you end up with rubbish pressies when we return you know why).

Tomorrow we head for the jungle for two days, we are not sure of the internet situation here (we are pretty much assuming it doesnt exist) so again dont panic if you dont hear from us, we have not been eaten by bears. We are off to bed now so please carry on leaving us lovely messages (we enjoy the illusion of popularity) and speak to you all soon, much love xxx