We spent a couple more days on Phi Phi Island since I last wrote then we caught a boat to Phuket Island where we planned to spend one night then catch a fly to Chang Mai. We managed to get a ticket for the flight as soon as we arrived, then went out in Patong Town for the night. It was absolutely crazy. It was Songkran Festival (their New Year's) which is a huge water festival to celebrate the coming rainy season. The streets were choc-a-bloc full of Thais and tourists alike throwing water at any and everybody. The biggest water-fight Ive ever seen! Everywhere people would shoot you with water-guns or simply throw buckets of water over you, some where ice-cold. Brrr. There was no way of staying dry. We were totally soaked through, I don't think I've been wetter in a bath. It was good fun. Everybody got drunk and got even wetter through the night. We did a bar crawl, armed ourselves with some guns and got carried away with all the festivities. It was great fun to shoot at the faces of all the dirty old pervy men with the young Thai girls - HA! The next day things hadn't calmed down at all. We caught a tuk-tuk into the main town, this took about three times longer than the previous day. The roads were even more full and the traffic was practically at a standstill, people were hanging off the backs of mopeds shooting or throwing water or standing in the back of trucks also attacking you with water. All our bags were totally soaked as was I. Actually I ended up lying flat-out in a pool on the floor of the tuk-tuk. Somehow in the mayhem me and Nikki had managed to lose each other! I stored our stuff in the room of an English guy we'd befriended and in-between enjoying the madness we spent the day looking for Nikki. Me and the guy even hired a moped and whizzed through the crowds who were attacking us - getting even more water thrown over us, they also covered us in talc - not sure what that was about but I certainly looked like a wreck by the end of the day! I didn't find Nikki until that evening which meant we'd missed our flight to Chang Mai! oops! I guess it was bound to happen at least once, quite surprised we'd actually made it all the way to 11months without missing one flight! Anyway after tiring ourselves out with all the celebrations and finally drying ourselves off we got another room and stayed in for the night. We ended up there for another 2 nights. It was awful. After the festivities were over with it was evident how blatantly seedy Patong really was. Full of dirty Western men with their Thai girls, but not just a few as we'd seen elsewhere- everybody, everywhere! It was horrible. I mean there are probably a few which are genuinely together or whatever but it was pretty obvious that the majority were paying. These poor Thai girls with these old, overweight, ugly men. How desperate they must be. And the men were acting as if its perfectly acceptable and even normal, some with more than one girl. I found it really draining and depressing to be around. We tried to go out one night but couldn't deal with it. We couldn't find another cheap flight so in desperation we got a boat out of there as quick as possible. We went to Lanta island which was much more peaceful. We stayed in a quite nice resort. The first night we attempted to stay in one of their wooden bungalows, which were cute but full of huge gaping holes. I was a bit worried about the mossies - which still seem to love me, and we could handle the cow at our doorstep but we freaked out when we heard about the rats in the night and moved to a concrete building. The resort had a pool and was by the beach but there wasn't much to do there, you couldn't swim in the sea because it was too rocky. So we decided to explore the island. We each hired a moped. In hindsight it probably wasn't such a good idea as Ive never driven one before and Nikki cant drive at all. But we'd seen all these kids who couldn't been much older than 10 driving them so we thought we'd manage just fine. Hmm. Bit of a disaster. I was pretty scared and not confident at all on it. We drove for ages trying to get to the other end of the island. We passed little villages and forests and even saw elephants along the way. At one point I had to do a U-turn. I discovered this is not at all like turning around in a car and as a result I was the first to fall. As Nikki sped off I tumbled and found myself on the road under the bike. Luckily a guy was right behind and stopped to help lift it off me. Actually I was v.lucky and came away with only a few bruises and scratches I was a bit shaky but managed to get back on and start again, mainly because I didn't know what else to do. We stopped for a while at a nearby beach and had a swim. Then carried on. Soon the road turned into a very hilly dirt-track. It was extremely steep and bumpy. I'm not quite sure what we were thinking but we decided we could do it and went for it. BAD IDEA. Screaming and wobbling all over the place we made it up and over the first big hill. Then the next one which was even steeper, Nikki got stuck half-way up. I couldn't stop because I would've got stuck too so I sped past bobbing up and down, wobbling all over the place and screaming my head-off and somehow reached the top. I ran back down to help Nikki and we attempted to push it up, but she put the accelerator on too much and next thing I knew it was speeding up dragging Nikki on the floor beside it! As she held on she pulled on the handle even more. Obviously now she realises she shoulder just let go. Her leg was badly grazed and cut-up. A couple kindly helped us bring the bike up to the top but then the problem was we were stuck there. We either carried on and then came back (being the only road on the island) or we just turned back right then. After seeing several 4x4 trucks struggling with the road themselves we decided on the latter. But we were both too scared to go back down the hill. Eventually we stopped a guy who managed it on his bike who agreed to ride Nikki and her bike down then walk back up the hills in the scorching heat. But he drew the line at doing it again with my bike so, shakily, I  followed, V.slowly. On the way down I saw the guy taking a break half-way up huffing and sweating rather a lot he was saying something about struggling back to the top - but I couldn't stop to talk or even say thanks I just sped past screaming with a look of terror on my face which seemed to cheer him up no end! Once back on the paved roads again it was fine. I actually enjoyed it. Although the rental place was not too impressed with the state of Nikki's bike. She had to pay a small fine. Definitely was time to leave that island.... We left for Koh Phangnan the next day, the journey was long again. It took around twelve hours. It seemed as though we changed bus a thousand times, sometimes a little mini-bus, sometimes a big coach and sometimes just the back of a pick-up truck, and two boats. Spent a couple of days in a resort not far from the port mainly because Nikki's leg meant she couldn't go far with the bag. Today we moved to Haad Rin where all the backpackers will soon be arriving for the legendary Full Moon party! Yay!!! Cant wait. I'm also enjoying the food so much here that tomorrow I'm doing a Thai cooking course...yum!