So we arrived on Ko Samui in, wait for it: THE RAIN. Absolute tropical storm. We got off the ferry to find no kind of bus and were told we had to take a taxi (rip off). He was on commission with some bungalows and decided to not take us straight to our destination but first help two thai people who'd also got in our cab to find some accommodation. They were really annoying in the car, all speaking Thai and laughing. We also witnessed a road accident on the journey (surprising, as we've not actually seen many) which was a guy knocked off his scooter. This didn't fill us with confidence as we wanted to rent scooters at some point! Finally, we got dropped at our hostel.

We arrived to find the 'fully-booked' dorm was empty of people. We had a lovely nap in our cushty beds and woke to find we had friends! We went to dinner with a couple from the Isle of Wight, Zack from Canada and two Portuguese guys. We went to a VERY expensive 'lonely planet recommended' restaurant which is probably the most we've splurged on a meal and to be honest we've had much nicer food from the local street vendors! None-the-less it was fun and nice to meet new people as we'd spent a lot of time with the same people who followed us to Lanta from Phi Phi.

The next day Lissy woke up very ill and thought she was going to die but she soon got over that because we were about to be very brave - we hired a scooter!! We got it from our hostel so that we weren't handing our passports to random strangers and they provided us with helmets too thank gawd! You'd think our first time driving would be on a nice quiet street but nopeeee. Our hostel was on a busy road! The guy showed me what to do so it made sense that I drive first and Lissy be the passenger. To be honest I think she had it worse 'cause she had absolutely no control over her life and I was a total newb! We had a shakey start, especially round corners but eventually we got the hang of it. After an accidental diversion to the north we went to the south of the island. We knew that the waterfalls we wanted to see were near an Elephant safari park and as luck would have it we spotted an elephant on the back of a truck...not even kidding. We decided to follow it! We actually lost it after a while which is a bit embarrassing and tells you how slowly we were going at first if we couldn't even keep up with a truck weighed down by an elephant!

The first waterfall we found was a bit underwhelming but the second which we had to walk through the elephant safari park to get to was pretty cool! We had to take a 4x4 truck off-road up to the actual falls and we were allowed to sit on the top of it, on two seats above the driver's cab. We were such daredevils this day! We had amazing views!

After the waterfalls, it was Lissy's turn to drive and she was a natural! I genuinely felt really safe on the back. We went to visit the mummified monk who was sat in a glass cabinet across the street. He is 30 years old and his eyes have rotted out so to prevent the public being disturbed they have put a pair of Rayban sunglasses on him...it was pretty hard not to disrespect the monks there by laughing at this situation! We were called over by one of the monks to make a small donation and in return he blessed us with holy water and gave us a bracelet each for good luck - which we appreciated!!

From there we went to see some rocks which were meant to look like the private parts of two old people and are called the 'grandma and grandpa' rocks, but they didn't really...bit underwhelming again. We then scooted on back home at 60mph because by this point we loved scooter life! This was one of our favourite days!

In the evening the girls from our dorm went to a beach party whilst the boys went to Thai boxing and we were to meet up later. We played pool (finally) with a beer and then met some very rich australian guys who were renting a mansion and bought us shots. Later we met the boys and found a free bar!! This was probably the worst timing EVER because we just weren't feeling up to going out after our hectic day! First and last time a free bar has been turned down I think!

The next day we went to visit Lissy's family friends in the North of the Island: Izzie, Del, Pete and Sophie. It was really nice because they had an amazing villa with a pool and it was such a nice change to have a bit of luxury! They looked after us really well and fed us beautifully (Thai green curry)! Their beach was also nicer because it was so private but we didn't like all the dingo type dogs about haha. They let us have possibly the best shower to date which we much appreciated and Pete gave us a lift home.

Back at the hostel it was Valentines day and a Kiwi girl from our dorm was having her first single Valentines in 8 years so she was keen to go out! We had a few drinks with her and a new Aussie boy in our dorm called Ryan who had tequila in his bag! We hit the beach where we bumped into a very drunk Liverpudlian (who we thought was foreign) and a good looking but boring Aussie. We all went to a few bars and met some crazy dancing Aussie girls. We all ended up at the big club here 'The Green Mango' which was expensiveeeeee. Me and Liss decided to ditch (standard) and went to get copious amounts of food at 7/11. We tried to boil water in a rice steamer in the kitchen of our hostel so I could have a thai pot noodle but I didnt realise they put wasabi paste in as a sauce - my tastebuds have just recovered.

This brings us to this morning when we woke up at about 11am and slowly got ready and decided to leave at about 1pm to go to a better hostel (we'd gotten used to luxury after yesterday). The French guy who runs the hostel, who is normally very relaxed, decided to charge us a 50baht late check out fee (he never told us check-out time) -we were livid! He wasn't exactly overrun with guests wanting to check in and the other day he even turned up to work late because he was too hungover so we felt his sudden change of attitude was a bit out of order and we were glad to be leaving. We are now at a place called iBed which is lovelyyy. The beds are big and comfy with tv's at the bottom and the showers are amazing and there's even a hairdryer! We went to the beach and had a bit of an explore earlier and had some lovely Massaman curry off a street vendor at a sort of outdoor food court -suchhh good value! Ate two courses for less than two pounds!

So we've finally caught up to the present. Lissy's still a bit ill but she's just skyped Daddy Thomas for his birthday and she's just gone and got me a sprite from the shop so all's well! :) Tomorrow we travel by Ferry to Ko Phangan for the Half-moon party. We've decided to go to this famous party in the jungle rather than the really big Full moon party which is like 30,000 people on the beach. Mainly 'cause we're not that bothered about it and the Full moon cuts it a bit fine to the time our Thai visas run out!

Hopefully we won't leave it so long until our next blog because remembering all that so far back was a struggle!

Lots of love to all! Cathy and Lissy xxxxxxxxxx