"Pew, Pew, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub"


-- Ecclesiastes, 2:17



I'm aware that I spent most of the last entry complaining about the Kho San road, and then the rest of it slagging off the Devil Wears Prada. All I can say in my defence is that I like complaining, and the Devil Wears Prada really is the worst film in the entire world.

Anyway.

The Kho San Road being what it is, it came as only small surprise that I should bump into someone I know - namely Gavin, an old school friend. This was a fortuitous encounter, for we were planning on leaving the day before but discovered that there are still places that allow twenty four hour drinking - much to the cost of our health.

In fact on that subject, hats off to Catie who, at around 9pm, declared she was going back to bed so she could be bright and early for our 9am rendezvous the following morning. It is with great embarrassment that the remaining three of us then went on to drink until 5am, leaving Katherine the unenviable task of collapsing back into her hotel room and saying "we're not leaving tomorrow after all, but we've got a really good excuse".

So Gavin joined us for some drinks that evening, but despite the high level of banter we were all thoroughly well behaved and were in bed by midnight.

Next morning we caught the train south. We were planning on heading to Koh Phi Phi, but decided to go to Koh Tao instead. This was because To get to Koh Tao you have to stop at a place called Chumpon, or Trumpton, as one of our maps declared. As reasons for doing things went, this was one of our more thought out decisions.

Katherine and Catie joined us as they were heading south too, and lets face it - we're great company, as Adam the American is constantly attesting to.

We had a rather annoying experience with Trumpton. Firstly, the entire fire brigade didn't meet us at the station and provide a roll-call of their names. And from there it just went down hill. After buying tickets for a night boat that couldn't be bothered to sail, we had to stay in a hostel we hated, pay more money for a morning boat, and despite being reassured that we would be getting a wake up knock on the door at 6AM, it later transpired that the staff didn't arrive until seven thirty. And then our six thirty taxi that we had been guaranteed didn't arrive. So we had to run through the streets, cursing the name of everyone we could think of, bribe a passing bloke with a mini bus, and got onto our boat with two minutes to spare........ good times.

Leaving the light on in our room and forgetting to return the key were only small victories.

Koh Tao's great though. The pictures we've uploaded don't quite do it justice, because the sun went in and we couldn't be bothered to wait around for it to come out again. Just imagine it a little brighter, and that's what we've got. The water is warm, the sand is white, the palm trees are waiting to drop their deadly coconut cargo on passers by, and the sharks are mating. Or so we're told.

We're not really sure what the next step is, although we're in secret negotiations regarding our passage to Australia.... we very much intend to arrive in Oz without flying, despite (and a little because of) our critics.

We shall see....