So now it was time to travel onwards to the paradise like islands of Thailand and landed in Phuket. We met up with Katy, Marike and James at our hostel and discovered that our first island of choice was the Benidorm holiday destination for Australians. We were only here for one night so decided to embrace it and ventured down the 'strip' for dinner and a few drinks which turned into drinking games and watching our first ping pong show with a group of English boys. The ping pong show was without a doubt the most disturbed yet intrigued we have been this whole trip.. it started out rather tame with a few metres of ribbon and maybe some razor blades being pulled out of places that made my eyes water. The show was broken up with extremely pretty Thai girls performing rather risqué dances in their underwear and then came the hard stuff… Older Thai women venturing out holding bowls of water underneath them so that fish, and sea turtles, yes sea turtles, could land safely in the water below. If you are holding your hand over your mouth at this point, you might not want to read on. After the next interlude, another lady came out holding a cage. We all looked at each other confused until all became clear… the lady the reached down, and pulled out a live canary, a yellow one. This proved to be the highlight of the show with only ladies smoking cigarettes and bursting balloons with darts shot from their lady bits, nothing else could compare…

Our next destination was the island of Phi Phi, a much more tropical yet still quite touristy island. From here, our new family spent our first days relaxing on the beach. Bliss. From this island we decided to visit another island where the film 'The Beach' was filmed. We spent a whole day snorkeling in the beautiful crystal sea feeding the fish our lunch of egg sandwiches so they would swim right around your face. Maya beach also lived up to its expectations of white sands and incredible views, shared with just a few other tourists… It was on this island that I decided to have my tattoo that I had planned since arriving in Thailand. After a few much needed cocktails, I built up the courage to go for it. I had decided on a Buddhist symbol for protection (cheesy but beautiful) on my foot, with a few alterations by me, done by the traditional method of bamboo. After a few days on this party island, spending our evening watching the incredible fire shows on the beach and drinking far too many buckets, we were ready to move on towards the calmer shores of Koh Lanta.

We spent our next few days, island hopping from koh Lanta to Krabi, hiring mopeds to investigate the area and relaxing on the beach, we wont rub in too much how idyllic it has been…! We are loving spending time with Katie, James, Marike and Rosie, it completely changes how you feel about a place. From Krabi, we caught a bus, and a boat onto Kho Tao, and island we had heard great things about. The journey there however, we could definitely have done without! After a 4 hour bus journey (this is nothing now) we had to board our night ferry onto Kho Tao which was to take about 8 hours. The only downside to this trip was the weather, torrential rains and storms. Not idea sailing weather. After James dramatic clamber onto the boat, and nearly falling into the sea with both of his bags on, we made a space to sleep on, on the many mattresses on the boat. Once again another time that we are thankful for our silk liners. I was sharing my mattress with Marike, an experienced sailor from Holland who felt it necessary to explain to us that as these boats had flat bottoms, if a wave hit us from the side, it was likely that our boat would topple over and we'd probably drown. Excellent. For me, there was only one option to prevent myself crying through being terrified and that was to sleep. For Carly, it was to make sure she had her passport in her back pocket and to spend the night thinking of escape routes for herself and how to save me from a sinking ship. Needless to say, it was not the most fun journey!

Once on Kho Tao, we quickly forgot our traumatic experience and enjoyed the beautiful island. It was here that Carly had signed up to complete her 4 day PADI diving course which she was so excited to start. She would come home everyday with the biggest smile on her face and excitedly tell us of all the complicated things you have to do and all of the beautiful fish she had seen that day, then get on to revising for her exam. (see its not all relaxing on a beach…). From Kho Tao, whist Carly was enjoying herself under the water, the rest of the family and I visit an island called Nanguan. This was definitely the tropical paradise I had been searching for since our arrival to the Thai islands. It was absolutely stunning. In total we spent 10 days on Kho Tao, definitely our favourite of the islands.

It was now time to venture onwards to Kho Phangan for the 'full moon party' planned for the 17th November. Our hostel was regrettably a little further from all the action of the parties preceding the full moon party, but it more than made up for it with its atmosphere and on the night of the Full Moon, provided us with neon paint and a pre- full moon party to get us in the mood. We had arranged to meet up with the boys from Vietnam, Rowan, Ash and Ben at 'mellow mountain' (no explanation needed here)and spent the night dancing on the beach, arriving back at the hostel at a reasonable time of 7am.

Just the island of Samui to complete now, probably the most touristy of the islands, mostly filled with Russians and Australians then on to our final country before Australia, Malaysia. Very, very excited!