Two Main Courses and no knickers...Krabi

Setting off from Koh Phangan at 6am, we boarded a boat to Surattani and then had a two and a half hour coach journey to get to Krabi. Oblivious to the fact that everyone else had left the cafe where we were waiting for the coach, Lodge and I were last to get on and so couldn't sit together. Now this coach was about 70 years old, smelt strongly of piss and was way too hot for my liking. As well as the heat and the stench, the back of my chair completely collapsed about an hour into the journey not only waking me up, but also waking up the poor guy behind me who ended up with me and my chair in his lap. So I spent the rest of the journey too scared to lean back for the fear of injuring any other strangers. Lodge on the other hand was having just as much fun up ahead with her Russian neighbour fast asleep on her shoulder.

We reached our accommodation'Mild Bungalows' which was really cute, had a lovely swimming pool and two really sweet dogs and a cat who would visit us from time to time. Also, and most importantly, they had a laundry service which excited us...a lot. After two and a half weeks of hand washing our clothes in showers and sinks (but not with the butt gun) everything smelt a bit damp, our whites were grey and everything was crispy. The prospect of clean clothes went a little to our heads and we literally gave them almost everything we own only to find that it wouldn't be ready until the next evening. So I had to spend a night sleeping in bikini bottoms and we had to pick up our laundry from the restaurant/reception area the next day in only our beach dresses...commando style...but it was worth it to get a lovely smelling, ironed set of clothes back.

The beaches in Krabi were amazing, despite the fact that there were crabs everywhere (which Lodge advises you can't get rid of by shaving off your pubes...not from experience!!). On the second day, we took one of the supped up tuk-tuks..basically a moped with a side car (which I banged my head on everytime I got in and out of) plus some UV lights and booming sound system...to Noppharatthara beach which was much quieter and not at all touristy. We walked through the sea to a little island which was stunning, sunbathed there for a bit but it's so much hotter over on the west coast that we left after an hour or so to get some food and some shade.

Despite the lack of tourists, we didn't get too much chance to chill out because we seemed to be the main attraction for all the local Thai children who were on some kind of school trip. It gave Lodge quite a shock when she turned around to see where I'd got to only to find me posing with a dozen or so local kids who'd come up to me on the beach and asked me to pose with them. Then they excitedly roped in Lodge to do the same...I'm not entirely sure who they thought we were or why they found us so fascinating but we continued to be popular throughout the day. At one point, I headed into the sea for a wee - now normally I'm not a fan of weeing in the sea but it's probably more hygeinic than most of the toilets here - so anyway, as I got in my fan club were there to meet me and told me that I was beautiful...aah cute, thanks I said. Then a small boy who was about 8 years old was shouting "Hi Darling" continuously at me whilst swimming after and splashing me so I had a quick chat with him, trying to understand what he was attempting to say to me...once he threw in some hand gestures, it turned out he was commenting on my "big boobs" which needless to say, made all the kids laugh, embarrassing me so I quickly exited the water, too frightened to even have my wee.

On the third day in Krabi, we went on a Longtail boat trip to four islands, Tup Island, Phranang Cave, Chicken Island and Poda Island. We had a lovely tour guide called Yoyo who was the first football supporting Thai I've met who isn't a bloody Liverpool fan but the rest of the inmates on our ship were the usual strange bunch that we attract...there was ET and her boyfriend Inspector Gadget, an Ali-G lookalike, two posing Italian girls in thongs and some Chinese people that couldn't swim plus a lady with hairy armpits (other than Lodge). We chilled out and snorkled which was more successful than our diving attempt although we did break our camera...seems its not quite as waterproof as it claims to be - three metres my arse, our diving instructor can vouach for the fact that that's very unlikely...(we have since bought a new camera, then the old b****** came back to life). We ate curry out of a plastic bag tied up with an elastic band for lunch, saw a snake and bumped into Martin Schlechter, a pilot from Lodge's work who was sitting under the same tree as us on a tiny island only reachable by boat from the mainland - crazy!

After some crazy nights in Koh Samui and Koh Phangan, we spent our evenings in Krabi eating excess food rather than drinking excess alcohol. Even sober, we made quite an impression at one restaurant...they thought we were quite odd after we finished our meal and we decided we were still hungry, we requested the menus again...I ordered a dessert but Lodge the fatty decided she'd have another main course which highly confused and amused the waiter who was most impressed that she polished it all off. We also found the most amazing pancakes cooked on the roadside on a kitchen attached to a Moped (there really is nothing Mopeds out here can't do!).

Three relaxing and very hot days later, we were leaving Krabi for Koh Phi Phi unable to believe we're three weeks into our trip already. We haven't even annoyed eachother too much yet either. My need to spread out my clothes and toiletries everywhere as soon as we reach a room and my faffing gets on Lodge's nerves a bit but it's ok because her need to have the tv on a 30 minute timer everytime we go to sleep gets on my nerves...I wouldn't mind but she falls asleep within ten minutes and I'm stuck listening to the shopping channel in Thai for half an hour!