BACK AT THE BEACH - THAILAND 

Just a brief journal from the beautiful beaches of Thailand as we are obviously far too busy being very lazy again to write nice long journal entries just to make you lot jealous on a dark winter day at home in Blighty...

We are currently in Kata, Phuket which is a fairly standard nice holiday resort (apart from all the working girls and a few lady boys) from where we visited the gorgeous island of Ko Phi Phi. We liked it so much we stayed a week in yet another of those huts on the beachfront that they seem to do so well in Asia. The weather was absolutely boiling, really unbelievably hot (a little too hot dare we say?!) but if that's the worst thing that you can say about a place then you know you are on to a winner... Ko Phi Phi was apparently hit quite hard by the Tsunami but it is pretty much up and running again now and looking at the white sand and turquoise ocean at Long Beach where we stayed it was kind of hard to believe that something so devastating had happened somewhere so perfect.

Oh and as if it wasn't enough that it was breathtakingly beautiful, it goes totally and utterly mental on a night in the centre of 'town' (reachable from our resort by taxi boat) - we had a cracking Saturday night out there, which was a strange contrast to our other evenings watching the sunset/ having dinner and a few drinks and generally being very chilled indeed.

One more thing, just to tip you over the edge, was that we also visited 'The Beach', as in the one used in the movie... this is on the next island to Phi Phi Don where we were staying. The beach itself is very gorgeous although smaller than we though it would be and therefore gets a little hectic with tourists like us all wanting to do the same thing!

We travelled up to this part of Thailand from Singapore where we spent 3 days, summed up as: Shopping, Botannical Gardens and Raffles for Singapore Slings obviously! We seriously enjoyed Singapore, it was such a delightful and clean contrast to India, plus we stayed at a brilliant hostel (Traveller's Rest in Chinatown). After recharging our batteries there we travelled via Kuala Lumpar, where we spent a day, summed up as: Walking around like dirty zombies
having got off the overnight bus at 5am, Watching Casino Royale (brilliant!), Going up Petronas Towers...

After Phuket and Ko Phi Phi we had planned to travel to the East Coast to take in Ko Samui etc however the tropical storm that caused terrible damage in the Philippines a week or so ago affected the weather quite badly in that area, hitting those islands on the East side of Thailand on the day we were planning to take a boat out there, so we couldn't get there as planned. Never mind, we will just have to see them next time - oh yes we will be coming back to the beaches of Thailand!!! We leave tomorrow to catch the night bus up to Bangkok - you just know it's going to be interesting!