Trip so far in one sentenence, hot, mosquito bites, bed bugs and rain, oh and ELEPHANTS!

ok its been a lttle while since i updated this but i will try and cram it all in as quickly as possible.

Ok so from Koh toa i headed across to Koh Phanang, we ended up buying our tickets from a man called mister J. An extremely odd individual, who we think was chinese not thai but what ever you bought from him had a strange story or something free to go with it. As we got there someone was buying a room for the night and he said "ok now room...you have free pepsi, free chocolate and free book, now go.." very odd we thought. We thought this was fantastic and couldnt really see how he made much money but he seemed quite happy just sat at his little desk amuzing tourists (or pherang as they call us, which is also insidently a deep fried smelly fruit!). We bought our tickets to koh phangang and he said "right now for tickets you have free bananas, good breakfast, good breakfast, you have four!" It honestly seemed a great way to do business but not really much chance of repeat custom. Althoughj worryingly there were several signs in bad english for "mr Js homemade condoms", i hasent to add i did not buy any. We stayed in haad rin which was aparently the party capital of Koh Phangang, but there was certainly no party to be had. It was like a ghost town. But it meant that we managed to get very cheap accommodation which im all for in a nice hotel with aircon. Good times. We then explored the island a little and went to the north where it was peacefull and laid back, no one really hastled you to buy expensive little buckets of booze which was good. There are some pictures of a little wooden shed that we stayed in, it was great just a room with a fan, a matress and a very basic bathroom. It was nice we had a private beach, a pool, and a nice restaurant all for 150 bhat (3 pounds) a night. Bargin.

In total we spent four days crusing around koh phangag which was nice, its a lovely. I did get to stop and see an elephant and a baby elephant which was great. I was able to get close to it and stroke it which was really nice, also i fed it bananas. mWe seemed to have a good understanding, i'd feed him bananas and he wouldnt eat my sunglasses but as with everything in thailand we had to barter first until we reached an understanding.

Ok so from Koh Phangang we decided to avoid Koh Samui and head straght for Krabi, which is mainly a stop over port and journy on to other places. We got to Krabi late at night and took a 5minute taxi to Ao Nang, which is a horrible place, it really is the Costa Del Thai/pherang. You could really mistake this place for Majorca or somewhere equally distressing. As its the down season there are less tourists about but walking past some of the bars there were lots of young thai "girls" trying to becken me in, it was actually quite frighening, trying to obviously be polite and british about it, but it was like running a gauntlet though the streets, people grabbing at your arms and trying to ply you with cheap beer, i was glad rosie was with me, i have to confess to being quite cowardly and using her as a human sheild to bash the small thia "girls" away. Qiuite exciting.

As I didnt really like it there i decided to move onto Haad Rayley. Not a lot can really be said about rayley, its a small thin peninsular so theres not a lot there. After doing our usual tour of most of the hotels asking for the cheapest room and looking disgusted at the price hoping theyll lower it before we skulk on to the next place, we found the YaYa resort. Fro the outside a quite pleasant wooden fabrication with lots of 4 story wooden blocks containing little rooms with a balcony. I think the first warning sign should havce been the interesting aroma from the bath room. If you never cleaned your bath room, then allowed small animals to deficate all over it in the hight of summer you'd be getting close to the smell that came from this room. One night we thought just one night, oh and its got a mosie net, atleast we wont get eaten alive. Oh how wrong i was, not from the savagery of the mosquito but bed bugs! yes bed bugs. This is my first fracas with the bed bug and i certainly hope my last. I have big dark red/ purple swollen patches on my feet. Not a great way to start the day at all. And they have been itching like you would not believe for 3 days now.

The only upside to this whole bed bug debauchery is that when we booked our boat out they didnt say anything about paying. so with ticket in hand we quietly skulked off into the night. Although as karma should have it the travel agents got there revenge. A trip that was supposed to take 3 hours took 6 and a half. we got dropped off at bus stop after bus stop and just told to wait, and we waited and we waited, every time asking how long, the standard reply was ten minutes, which in thai is aparently 1 hour 35 minutes. It worked out for the best though we have met a nice group of guys and girls from all areas of europe who we have been travelling with, and bullying taxi drivers and hotels into giving us a discount. It has been quite usefull and good to go out at night and share travelling nightmares and interesting places with people.

I am off to Koh Phi Phi next, the weather is not good at all at the moment but i have been a little sunburnt so i have been grateful for the rest from the sun.