ok so where were we... ahh yes Haad Rin in Koh Phangan. Our last couple days in Haad Rin were spent 1. in a bar watching friends with a few beers while it lashed it down outside and 2. on the 'amazing reggae magic boat trip'..only without the amazing or magic parts! not the best trip we've been on as it involved spending lots of time at bigged up waterfalls that were more of a trickle and 45 mins on the boat through a storm to snorkle in a very choppy sea, BUT, we did visit Bottle Beach as our last stop and it was that nice we decided to go back and stay a couple nights. So the morning after we got back to Haad Rin from the boat trip we checked out of our bungalow and headed to Bottle Beach on the north part of the isalnd. The boat taxi men wanted way too much to take us straight to the beach (as its only acessible by boat) so we got a taxi up the middle of the island to the next bay along from bottle beach as our taxi guy said we could get a boat here across no probs. We were dropped off at the pier and found a boat guy straight away who said he would be leaving for bottle beach soon but just needed to wait for one more passenger. We were just outside a cool bar right on the beach with a stunning view of the sea and it was turning into a blazing hot sunny day, so we were more than happy to wait with a cold beer. Whilst drinking our beer we came to the conclusion that everything on these islands is connected. The taxi guy in Haad Rin knows the barman at the pier and drops his passengers off right outside so they'll get a drink while waiting for their boat. The barman knows the boatmen and organises his customers to go on his boat in return for him delaying the boat leaving so webuy more drinks in his bar. The boatman knows the staff on bottle beach and has more passengers ready when he drops us off to bring back from bottle beach, and so the cycle goes on... Four beers later we realise we were actually heading somewhere and we dont have any accommodation booked yet, and considering theres only 4 places on bottle beach we didnt want to end up in a shed. So we asked the boat guy what was taking so long and he was just waiting for a minimum of 4 passengers to get 400 baht to go across, so we just agreed to pay all of it to go after we'd finished our beers. About 20 mins later we arrived at Bottle Beach and it was just as amazing as when we'd been the day before. Its quite an enclosed, white sandy beach with cliffs covered in palm trees on either side and 4 accommodation places with bungalows and a large beachfront restaurant bar each. We found a bungalow, dumped our stuff and headed back out to the beach and pretty much straight into the sea to cool off. After a couple hours jumping around in the water like kids throwing a ball around and competing for the most impressive dives we had swallowed far too much seawater and headed back to the beach and the bar for drinks. We had a pretty chilled out night after our afternoon drinking sesh and headed to bed after watching return of zorro at the next bar along and a few cocktails looking out at a pitch black sea. The next day we were both feelin a bit rough after not a great nights sleep but the day was cloudy anyway so we just chilled out reading and playing games etc. That night the families that run the bungalows were throwing a big party on the beach for one of their birthdays and we had a big BBQ, bonfire and thai dance show etc. The families serving all the guests looked like they were having as much if not more fun than us, mind you they were guzzling buckets of whiskey and by the time the last green curry was being served they were practically hysterical. The next morning we checked out and headed to back to the pier in the south of the island to get our ferry to Koh Samui at 11am. It was only a short ferry across and beforew we knew it we were in our new place in Chaweng, the busiest part of the island. We'd already decided after a hot and sticky bungalow on bottle beach that we were going to treat ourselves to a nice place here, plus everywhere is generally more expensive here anyway as it is where most tourists come aswell as backpackers. We got a really nice, coooool room with air con, fridge, TV, nice bathroom and swimming pool and bar right on the beach, all for 8 quid each a night, extortionate i know! Our first night we went to a thai boxing match which was cool and we've just spent the last couple days here chilling out by our pool in gorgeous sunny days and playing pool drinking cocktails on the not so sunny day. We're checking out now and heading over to Bophut where we are going to be staying in a really nice hotel with Chris' folks who are arriving here this afternoon. We're off to meet them at the airport later then tomorrow we set off for Koh Tao which is meant to be amazing for diving which we'll be doing about ten days of and im doing my PADI diving course< VVVV excited :)!! ok gotta go and pack before we get chucked out at 11, byeeeee xxx