Hi y'all

We arrived in Koh Samui after a super quick flight with Bangkok Airlines of just under 30 minutes. We were first to collect our bags, which made a change, we then headed to the hotel transfers desk and got ourselves onto an air-conditioned mini-bus. All good as the England-Slovenia game was due to kick-off at 9pm local time; we were on the mini-bus at 8:20pm. Unfortunately, we (along with two others) were still on the minibus 25 minutes later, we hadn't moved from the car park and everyone else had gone! We were then told to move to another minibus, which had no one in, before departing. No reason was given. Needless to say Mark was fuming as there was no way he would see the start of the England match. As we transferred to our hotel, Mark asked the minibus driver to stop as we heard roars from a few of the bars. The driver stopped the mini bus in the middle of the road so we could see a replay of the Jermaine Defoe goal. Not ideal. We finally got to our hotel at about 9:30pm and ended up watching the rest of the game from our room.

The hotel - Lamai Wanta - was well located on Lamai beach with a good pool and a nice breakfast which comprised of juices, tea, coffee, fresh fruit, ham, cheese, eggs etc. However, not content with this, Mark would opt for the curry option each day......as a breakfast!! There wasn't too much to report for the first couple of days......chilling, chilling and more chilling probably best sums it up.

On day three, Mark spied a couple of corn on the cob vendors on the beach. A few of these were consumed during the next couple of days although there was clear rivalry between the vendors, which came to a head when Mark tried bartering one down but couldn't so went to the second and got the same price, but two bananas and some coconut thrown in. All good except for the "corn on the cob vendor" argument that ensured as the first vendor walked over while the cob was being cooked very disgruntled and up for an argument with the vendor and Mark. We had ourselves a turf war!!!

The rest of the day consisted of relaxing and then hitting the bars. We also decided to have a Thai massage. Lisa asked the women to go easy as she had pulled her back lifting the rucksack, but within a few minutes she was bent double and after numerous groans and "go softer, not so hard" shouts it was clear that the message wasn't being received by the Thai masseuse. She completed the "massage" by walking on our backs!!! Lisa hobbled back to the hotel 200baht lighter.

The next day, we booked to go to the Full Moon Party on an island a few miles away called Koh Phagnan. For those who haven't heard of this, it is basically a full-on beach party that happens once a month attracting up to 30,000 party goers. We got collected from the hotel on time and, with a number of others in the back of the tuk-tuk (including a great couple from England who were living and working in Doha, Qatar), we were off to the pier to catch the boat. When we arrived, we were given tags to show for the return (on the hour between 2am-6am) and were pointed to the beach. About 20 people for our boat were already there. No sooner had we arrived the heavens opened and there was a terrible storm with thunder and lightning. By this time, there were about 35 of us now all on the speedboat looking at each other rather nervously. We sat there for 45 minutes before the weather got really bad and we were all told to get off. As we looked on the horizon, we could see that Koh Phagnan had suffered a black-out. Sitting in the bar we were considering our options. A B52 shot followed by a Chang beer certainly helped. As we were finishing off the beer, we heard shouting and everyone was running for the boat......soon after we were off on the speed boat and it only took 25 mins to get to the Full Moon Party. On arrival, we hit the beach and the party was mental. People were tearing it up on the beach, standing on platforms that had been erected, and also dancing in the bars. Just about everyone seemed to be holding a bucket of cocktail; Sangsom (the local 80% proof rum), coke and red bull - a killer mix - or the similar, but with Vodka as the spirit. Most people had fluorescent body paint and the party was in full-swing. We met the couple from Scotland again (William and Rosalyn - the ones we did the elephant trekking and kayaking with in Krabi) so they thought it was a good idea to paint our faces in keeping with everyone else! William, after copious amounts of drink, disappeared at about 3am and Rosalyn, clearly the worse for wear, disappeared about an hour later. We hope she did not head towards the sea as most of the guys had turned it into a makeshift toilet even though there were toilets to use for 20baht (40p). As bodies lay shrewn across the beach, we headed back to the pier to get the return boat. It arrived 40 minutes late and by this stage tempers had become frayed with an Irish guy having to be pulled from a local. We got to bed at 7am on 27th June after going straight into our hotel breakfast with painted faces looking the worse for wear.

Mark woke up and decided to book our onward journey leaving 28th June to Chiang Mai with a tour operator.This consists of a transfer to the port in Koh Sumui, a ferry to Don Sak on the mainland, a bus transfer to Surat Thani train station and then the 12 hour sleeper train to Bangkok arriving at 08:50 on 29th June. This will then be followed by a flight at 12:50 from Bangkok to Chiang Mai - arriving 29th June.

During the time he made the reservation, he was told about the boat crash on the night of the Full Moon Party. Two boats were travelling in opposite directions, one without its main light on. Both hit head on and capsized. The result - 39 in hospital, 2 critical, with a further 2 missing (injuries ranged from cuts and bruises to a fractured back and the loss of an arm). Fortunately, just about all had life jackets on - not the case with our boat - with many people apparently waking up after being unconscious floating in the sea!!! Had we booked with a different operator, we may have been on one of the boats involved; there but for the grace of God.

During our stay we visited some rocks shaped like male and female genitalia (this is the description in local literature and not just our view), another massage, a good Mexican (a new restaurant had just been opened by a Frenchman with his Kazakhstani girlfriend (both of whom spoke no Thai)) - all a bit surreal, a few drinks, and a lot of disappointment as England got knocked out of the World cup by the Germans.

We thought it couldn't get any worse until Mark dropped the bath towel in the toilet on the last day......time to leave and head on to Chiang Mai in North Thailand; our last stop before crossing the border to Laos.

Chiang Mai blog update coming soon !!!!