Again it has been a while since our last update - here is a summary of the last month or so!

After Phuket we headed down the southern coast to a place called Phang Nga. It was a small village with a lovely night market where we discovered 'Mango Sticky Rice' - sweet sticky rice cooked in coconut milk served with fresh mango and coconut juice. Zoe is hooked! The only other reason people visit Phang Nga is that from here you can catch tours of James Bond island (the island out of "The Man with the Golden Gun".

We took this tour the next day in a traditonal longtail boat - just imagine an extremely wobbly, noisy wooden canoe! Motoring through the archipelago (had to fit that new word in somewhere) was a truly memorable experience. There were limestone karsts rising up out of the sea literally everywhere and the white sand beaches hidden amongst the cliffs were surrounded by dense mangroves which were the homes for crocodile-like monitor lizards.

The main attraction at james bond island was the one limestone rock that is just off the little beach. It is really thin at the bottom in the sea but really top heavy. It looks like it might fall over at any moment. The tour included a trip to a cave filled with big stalac(m)tites and lunch on a tiny beach. We also stayed overnight in a floating muslim fishing village.

The next day we made our way to a place called Railay - described in the 2007 lonely planet as "Thailands next superstar". We agreed that they were right! It has the feel of an island because it is cut off from the rest of the area by limestone cliffs and is only accessible by longtail. There were three main beaches on Railay - one called Sunset beach, (some of the sunset photos we have are amazing from here). One called sunrise - the backpacker part of the island as the beach is mainly mangroves and accomodation is cheap. The other beach at the south tip called phangngan was the nicest - it had an island you could swim to and amazing views. The accomodation on this beach was a little over our budget (55000 baht a night - over $1500!!). We frequented this beach fairly often throughout our stay and made the most of the man selling perfectly cooked, buttered and salted corn on the cobs!!

Despite the wonderful beaches, we didn't remain entirely inactive for our stay here. We took a trip up to the viewpoint from which you can see the entire area. There was also a lagoon in the cliff. The climb to get to the lagoon was really really tough, at parts we had to abseil down on ropes. Unfortunately (we regretted it later) we chickened out near the bottom as it was like rock climbing without safety ropes! Railay is of course famous for its rock climbing so we had to sign up for a go. We did a crash course and by the end of the day both Zoe and I were climbing up cliff faces 26 metres high with overhangs and everything! We loved it and will definitely do some more in Borneo.

We could have easily stayed in Railay for another week or so, but our Visa was getting low and we had to get moving. Our next stop was the national park of Koh Tarutao (the setting for that old TV reality show Survivor). The boats do not run here very often this time of year because the sea gets dangerous in the monsoon. It was indeed a bit hairy! We had to get ourselves and all our luggage off the ferry and onto a longtail off shore because the ferry couldn't go into the port due to conditions! Surprisingly I didn't get seasick and we made it without getting wet.

Koh Tarutao was a wild and untamed jungle island. On our first walk up the hill we saw loads of dusky langurs - black monkeys with faces like they have been covered in war paint. We saw monitor lizards, great big hornbills, sea eagles and lots and lots of big ants. Of course the naughty macaque monkeys were always around too. Unfortunately my foot and ankle had swollen as I had managed to get some mossie bites infected so we had to leave the island the next day to get to a doctor. We left in a speedboat with loads of Thai tourists and arrived on the island Ko Lipe shortly after. As we pulled in to the beach some guy was waving at us. I said to Zoe "Doesn't that look like Deniz" - an Argentinian guy we had travelled with back in China. It was him!!!! He left the island as we arrived.

We spent 5 days on Ko lipe. It was a paradise island. The snorkelling was great and we befriended a Thai couple and the husbands little brother and sister. He was a chef so he cooked for us for free and we went to the end of season island festival with them all crammed into their motorbike sidecar. We taught them English and they taught us Thai!

After that we headed to Malaysia. More to come soon.....!

Thanks for all the messages and encouragment, miss you all lots!

Rich and Zoe