After a very long day of travelling, which ended with us being dropped off an hour's walk away from our hotel in the pouring rain, we arrived in Koh Samui. The half-moon party was the following day on the next island along, Koh Pha Ngan, so we booked a pickup from our hotel. Although we were sitting outside reception for about an hour before the pickup time we somehow managed to miss it, but it didn't really seem to matter, since the boat didn't leave Koh Samui for about an hour after we finally got to the port. I somehow ended up sat next to a pretty scary Scottish guy with an unbelievably thick neck who spent the journey opening beer bottles with his teeth, and insisted on buying each of us drinks when we got there, and we didn't even see him again until we tried to leave on the last boat in the morning. That was a bit of a disaster... we arrived just as the boat had pulled out, and there were still about 20 people sitting on the pier waiting to go, and one guy who was supposedly in charge. He didn't even have a phone though, so had no idea how long it would be until the next boat, seemed to find the whole thing indescribably funny. But an hour later, we finally left....if I ever go again, I'll definitely stay on Koh Pha Ngan next time, cut out all the transport issues!

And then the following day was Yom Kippur, and it seemed like the whole of Israel had decamped to the Chabad centre of Koh Samui for the £4 all you can eat buffet beforehand! Really weird spending Yom Kippur somewhere hot, not needing to wear a coat or tights...

We then went to Krabi, on the other side of the mainland, and did another island hopping tour, stopping off at the beach from the Leonardo di Caprio film (absolutely beautiful, despite the dozens of tourist boats parked along the beach) and spent a morning kayaking through the limestone cliffs around Krabi. So all in all, a really relaxing few days after bustling Singapore.