Well, we didn't leave for Krabi the next day…but we finally managed it the day after! And with our change of scenery came the renewed vow to get back to our budget. We'd splurged for a few weeks, but now was the time to tighten our belts and be sensible - after all, how else are we going to be able to afford to visit all of these new places we keep adding to the list?!

Krabi was just a stopover to break up the journey to the East coast islands (Koh PhaNgan & Koh Tao), there wasn't a huge amount to do and it was quite quiet, but we managed to find some cheap accommodation and plenty of cheap food. There was one thing we wanted to do while in the town though, and that was to climb up to Tiger Cave Temple - a gruelling 1237 step climb up to the top…the views were absolutely stunning, but my word was it hard work! Getting down was a bit of a struggle too and once we'd made it back down onto flat ground, we couldn't walk properly as our legs felt like jelly! The temple conquered, time to move on.

Enjoying being 'back on the road' we decided not to go to the East Coast islands, instead opting to head to the East coast mainland (Gulf of Thailand) and work our way up the coast back to Bangkok - at least this way we could try and escape some of the tourists and inflated tourist prices..

We found a little town called Prachuap Khiri Khan that sounded quite appealing from the guidebook, so set about trying to work out how to get there - not very easily if you want to take local transport/cut costs/arrive before midnight. None of the buses/train options matched up and we would have had to shell out for overnight accommodation somewhere. Weighing up our options, we chose to just get the 8hr bus direct (it was actually the bus to Bangkok, but they kick us out on the way!)…fuelled with plenty of snacks from the 7Eleven (our new favourite place to pick up weird and wonderful snacks!) the journey passed relatively painlessly and before we knew it, we were standing on the side of the highway with no clear signs to any town…so we headed East towards the sea.

We found a lovely little guesthouse overlooking the sea called Maggie's Sea View guesthouse, nice and quiet and relaxed - also the only place we've come across where there's a sign telling people that if she's not there and there are rooms available on the board - then check yourself in and she'll catch up with you later! Anyway, this was home for the next 3 nights. As it was a Saturday night, there was a 'Walking Street' market (everywhere seems to have a 'Walking street' - some permanent, some just pop up over weekends) so we went off to hunt out some dinner. On the way though, we had to make the most of a few of the cheapest beers we've had in Thailand so far - half the price and more of what we were paying on the west coast! These night markets are amazing for just grazing your way around, plenty of food on sticks, unidentifiable meats, rice, noodles, curries - mmmm! We are getting pretty good at eating most things, but I tend to give the offal a wide berth…And the bugs - haven't tried any bugs yet. We did have some wonderful sticky rice with crispy shredded pork served on a banana leaf though - yummy!

Anyway, enough about food.

We met an older retired couple from Wales in our guest house who were cycling on a tandem (one of those ones where the person at the front is sitting down with legs stretched out to pedal with the back bit being a proper bike) around Thailand and Myanmar for 11 weeks. They have been doing cycle trips for the past 3 years and they seem to have it down to a fine art - up before sunrise when moving from place to place to avoid the heat. The bike is dismantled and is light enough to go in the hold, we were very impressed! So, feeling inspired, we rented a couple of push bikes and cycled to a nearby beach that we'd read about. Quite interesting as you have to cycle through a military base to get to it and then cross over a runway! It was a nice enough beach, but after about 2pm, the sun is hidden behind the trees that line the beach…well, plenty of shade for those that don't want to be in direct sunlight. After some lunch, we decided to cycle to the other end of the bay (we'd walked part of the way yesterday and it was quite a long way)…and it was a long way. And we are not used to riding bikes - the saddles are not the comfiest! This bike for me was a slight upgrade to the one in Hampi, in that my feet gripped the pedals a bit more and it wasn't so heavy and cumbersome. However to say there were any form of brakes would be a complete lie…just as well the roads are nice and quiet here!! It looked like the other side of the bay had a beach and we could see some lights in the evenings, which we assumed meant there might be some kind of beach shack selling cold drinks…never assume. Thankfully we were loaded up with water as there was nothing there but a few fishing boats and a visitor centre for a nature trail. As we had just seen a snake slithering across the road on the way over, I decided that I didn't really fancy going up to the viewpoint (the view was just as nice from where we were sitting!) as if there was a snake crossing the road - what on earth would there be in the forest?!

After a quick rest, we saddled up again and headed back the way we'd come, agreeing that we deserved a treat on the way back (the iced coffee here is fab and, if you can get one at a reasonable price, so are the fruit shakes!). For some reason, my bike seemed a lot slower than James's one (and no, it wasn't just me not pedalling hard enough! I was pedalling twice as fast and losing ground about as fast!)……and then it happened…..my front tyre let out a pop and a hiss….just a well we hadn't ventured too far.

Having failed the previous evening to find the night market, we went back to a random little collection of food stalls for dinner - some sort of meat (apparently pork) noodle soup, very tasty however there were some suspicious looking balls of meat…it took us a while to work out that they were just steamed sausage balls…you can probably imagine what we thought they were!

We're appreciating living on a budget again though, especially when we have money left at the end of the day for a little treat. The other day, we went into the 7Eleven after dinner and spent our last 56B (just over £1) on sweets - we were like little kids counting out our pocket money to see what we could get. But it's worth it if it helps the money go for longer! (Don't worry parents, we're not wasting away…we're still eating well!)

Time to move on again, heading further up the coast to Hua Hin, which, according to the guide books has a lovely beach and although it's quite touristy, it's a nice place to spend a few days.

…..Oh how wrong they were.

Hua Hin. Hmm, kind of like a Thai version of the Costa Del Sol (well, what we imagine it to be like, having never been there ourselves). Full of high hopes for a few nice days on the beach, we went in search of somewhere to stay. Probably because it was a bit more touristy, prices were slightly on the higher side of what we were looking for. So when we found a room for 300B (£6) we were thrilled - until we saw the size of it! It would have just about fitted us in, but with our bags on top…we decided to keep looking. About an hour and a half later, we decided that it was our best bet so went back to check in, only to find that it had been taken. Bah. Hot and bothered, we had a pit stop, found some wifi and tried a different tact of finding a bed. Except the one place we found online - we couldn't actually find on foot! Randomly we passed a budget hotel and booked a single room (with a double bed - go figure!?)…one night should do us. We were not enjoying out time in Hua Hin and in hindsight we should have just got on the first train back out, although we couldn't quite put our finger on what exactly we didn't like about it. There wasn't really anything to do in the town, all the sights were outside - well that wasn't too much of a problem. It didn't really feel like it had much of a soul, well a nice one anyway, it's our first experience of the seedier side of Thailand - we later found out that we'd actually been walking around the red light district while looking for accommodation! It just wasn't our kind of place, not much culture, but plenty of bars and clubs with overpriced drinks...Nevertheless, we tried to make the best of it - we donned our beachwear and headed towards the sea. The beach was packed, but less so with bodies, more with beach umbrellas, loungers and restaurant tables. I should have taken my camera with us just to get a picture of it - there wasn't anywhere really to plonk a towel down and the majority of the beach was in shade thanks to the many many umbrellas!! We probably should have kept walking to find somewhere, but after walking around for most of the day trying to find 'something' we gave up. Went for a beer, had an early night and got a train out the next day as soon as we could (even that was delayed by an hour!).

We are currently in Phetchaburi, a much nicer little town about 100km from Bangkok. Our guesthouse is perfect and there are more Wats (temples) here than you can shake a stick at. Just what we were looking for.