steppping off a bus at 3.30am is never a pleasant feeling, add to that the rush of local bangkok 'good guys' who only want to offer you an amazingly cheap taxi ride (for ten times the real rate) and you can imagine the groggy, tired. irratated feeling. Next, step into a metered taxi and try to get to the bus stop on the other side of town. Taxi-man drives for five minutes, stops the car, turns around and asks 'where go?'. of course, laura and I had already told him this, however we had picked a taxi driver that only spoke to words of english. we managed to teach him three more 'south bus stop' - he kept drivingm repeating to himself 'south bus stop' over and over, as if he would suddenly learn english. let me tell you right now, I felt like teaching him a few more english words when he started driving towards the airport! eventualy we got him to turn around.

It was definatly time to leav the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, I needed to get rid of my sea sicknesses (not your average kind, but one brought on by a lack of contact/sight with the great blue). Laura needed to learn to dive, so we headed to a tiny island called Koh Tao. very nice place I must say. although if your not a top notch scooter driver, this isnt the place to get your wheels. the dirt track roads certainly proved little problem skill level - close your eyes and hope for the best seemed to work well. not much happened for the next couple of days, laura dived to the bottom of the sea and I dived to the bottom of some cheap beer.

as my time is running short on the internet Im going to give a shortish version of events thus far from henceforth point.

Koh Samui, sand, sun, sea and jetskiing. not much to report from here.

13 hours worth of bus took us to Phuket. we were greeted here by Nung and Pung (I'm hoping I spelt their names right) who looked after Alans house, and we were lucky enough to be able to visit for a few nights. having a balcony that looked over the bay to Chalong and an infinty pool onto the beach only sweetened the deal. our Thai hosts certainly looked after us well, providing us with traditional tha food and a much needed translation service! my thanks to Alan for letting us stay! feeling the need for adventure we rented a car on the large island of Phuket, touring as much as we could in the few days we had. absolute mayhem - two words to describe driving in thailand, it was bad enough on a scooter but in a car its a whole new ball game! once again, close your eyes and hope for the best was the order of the day.

we had to leave Phuket as time started to run low, but not before a trip to the infamous, Patong. ladies who wernt technically ladies, go-go shows (i cant put a description of that on here for fear of younger eyes reading - miller. it was pretty horific but certainly eye opening) and oddly, many games of connect four.

we are now on the picure perfect Phi Phi, turquise waters, scorching sun shine, cheap beer and a very nice apartment should mean a nice relaxing time. perhaps i shouldnt have been fooled by the sign that said 'view point' (but it had 'beer' written underneath it!). after 236 steps I was wondering why i didnt just sit in a bar at the bottom of the hill! but after step 237 the view was certainly worth the walk. I guess when you come this far and see a sign detailing the way to 'view two' - you think 'what the heck, it cant be that far'! do not under estimate these crafty signs, they make you walk along way for the same view just higher up! and once you go that far you dont really wanna turn back, so you have to follow the sign that says 'beach, snorkling, short walk' - for two hours my life was turned into a following signs through dense jungle in flip flops.

righty ho, its time to go snorkling in beer and drink plenty of sea water. enjoy your days, and feel free to leave a message on the message board!

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