My 2nd entry.

Near death experiences: 0 - Number of new injuries: 2 (all consumed within a few hours of the last blog and yes i was very drunk...it was new years eve) - Number of mozie bites: just a few new ones, covering nicely from phi phi - Number of manhandlings: lots of new year kisses

After writing the last travel blog i thought it was time for a beer, a couple of cheeky ones later, I headed back to my hut where Suzy was waiting for me on the balcony with a chilled beer, ready to start celebrating the new year. For those that don't know me very well I'm not a beer kind of girl...vodka is my poison, but the singha beer here is beautiful on a hot day. By the time we finished getting ready to go out for dinner I was already on my way to being drunk. It was very obvious when one of my friends went to use the toilet opened the glass doors to our hut... you guessed it, I didn't know that she had closed the doors behind her and I smacked my nose on the door as I tried to go into the room to collect my bag. I know you are all laughing right now... get it out of your system. I was lucky... I didn't have black eyes to follow! After dinner we headed to the hippies bar which was really quiet had a drink there and moved on to the Ibiza bar. As a promotion they were doing 2 for the price of 1 on buckets of Thai whiskey and red bull. We got our first drink and went looking for chairs to sit on. No such luck however we found a table, well more like a bench. But I decided to stand on it... I wanted to take pictures to show how busy it was and have a dance. I was doing alright until I was half way through my second bucket and Suzy cursed me by saying 'this bench has a 2 bucket limit' the next thing that happens I fell off...got some beautiful bruises and scraps all down my right leg. I remember talking to a girl that I met in hippies bar earlier and starting to drink my 3rd bucket and it has gone passed mid-night. I remember getting lots of New Year kisses and I also remember some of my friend disappearing. Apparently that was 3 am... the next thing I remember was Suzy phoning me on my mobile telling me to walk into the sea and I could figure out why until I saw her with some bloke that apparently i was speaking to earlier that evening. Suzy went to the bar and brought back beers and passes one to me as I looked at my watched and saw it was 8 am in the morning. I lost 5 hrs, Thai whiskey buckets are evil!!! Suzy said that I was having a good time! I got home about 9.30am as a Brazilian doctor walk me home and was a true gentleman. No I didn't sleep with him.New Years day - I got woken up by noises coming from the bathroom...Suzy brought back a fella (I didn't even ask and I don't ever want to know). Most of the day was spent by the pool chilling out.On the 2nd Jan... we said good bye to Phi Phi and got the ferry to Phuket. By the time we docked at the port there were reports of 2 people throwing up and over a dozen people looking green (I was one of them). The sea was so rough! Half way cross the sea Suzy realised that she had left a bag behind. We arranged for the bag to be put on the next day ferry. So unfortunately that night we had to stay in Phuket town. Not a lot to do there. As we walked around we had a taxis driver trying to tell us he would take us to where ever we wanted to go for cheap and recommended a fresh sea food restaurant, he said that all the Thai people eat there. We agreed to book him and he picked us up and took us there. Not sure where it was and you would not find it on your own. He drove us down an alley way for a while and it brought us out by the sea (so I think it was round Phuket bay or near the ferry port). The taxi driver wasn't lying about it being fresh... you had to pick what you wanted from the tanks. I've never tasted prawns like it before in my life. They were so tasty and tender. We arranged for the taxi driver to pick us up the next day and take us to Karon beach which is on the west side of the island.We got up in the morning to find that the driver hadn't turned up. So the girls waiting by the hotel whilst I went off roaming the streets to haggle taxis drivers on prices. I eventually found one after 20 mins which was a reasonable price. We went back to the ferry port to picked up Suzy's bag and headed over to Karon beach.We checked into Karon Guesthouse. What was really nice was the staff remembering me from when I stayed there last year. This was a good thing because we got our rooms cheaper. The rest of the day I showed the girls around Karon beach and went to the travel agent I used last year. We picked up a load of leaflets so we could decide on the tours we wanted to do. Later that night we booked 3 trips. The first we did the following day (4th Jan).The first trip was to adventure round Ao Phang-Nga national park, canoe around some caves off Hong Island and visit the famous James Bond Island which featured in the movie 'Man with the golden gun'. Pom was the man in charge and was our guide for the day he had us laughing all day long. This has to be one of the most entertaining trips I've ever been on. The first stop was a beautiful island with golden sandy beaches, lovely bluey/green waters and hardly anyone on it. In fact our tour group was the only ones on it besides the locals who look after the islands within the national park. Our second part of the trip was canoeing through caves. As the boat stopped loads of Thai men came from nowhere in canoes to collect us. Our canoe man was called Salsa. We didn't stop laughing from the minute we got in the canoe to when we got out of the canoe. When we went through the caves and they were too low for us to sit up, he told us to lie down. He would hit the cave ceiling with a stick and say 'sorry, sorry that was my head'. My friend Suzy is a big lady and he would be cheeky with her asking her how many kilos and saying we were on a sinking ship. We would bump into other boats and the canoe men would say 'oh my god! Up your bum!' When the canoe men found out that Suzy and Michelle were from Oz, they would shout out 'ozzie, ozzie, ozzie, stick a singha on the barbie'. Every time we passed someone in a canoe the people on my canoe (me) would just start water fights with them. By the time everyone got back to the big boat everyone was wet.The 3rd stop was JamesBondIsland. As we approached the island you could instantly see that it was the island they used for 'the man with the golden gun'. It was stunning. It was a shame that it didn't have white sand, but it didn't matter.The 4th stop was canoeing at HongIsland, but at a different location. Salsa shouted 'oh my god, up your bum' as he picked up us. The cave we went through was very dark and the ceilings were very low. After 10 mins we came out to stunning open area where we canoed around and in between tree roots surrounded by high cliffs.On the way back to Phuket the staff put on some entertainment. One of the boys dressed up like a lady boy and danced around. It was so funny watching the men on the trip trying to sit further back into their sits trying to avoid him.

The 2nd trip we booked was to the Similan Islands (5th Jan). Michelle was sick and couldn't make the trip. We were picked up at 6am and it took about 1.5-2hrs to get to the speedboat. From there it took another 1.5hr to get to the Similan Islands. The sea was rough and a lot of people took sea-sickness tablets. Not me i thought that i'll be alright. The speedboat dropped 8 of us off at the dive boat, whilst the rest of them were taken off to snorkel including Suzy and Gemma. We were given our first dive brief and started to get our kit ready. I was allowed to dive with the advance padi divers as i have a SSI open water certificate which is almost the same as the advance padi certificate. Whilst diving round the Similan islands it broken my heart to see the damage done to the reef from people and boats not respecting the sea and whats in it. There was hardly any colourful coral, however there were lots of colourful fish. After the 1st dive I was on the boat all of 5 mins as i started to feel sea sick. I layed down at the front of the boat and felt ok. it didn't feel that long before lunch arrived. I managed to eat something, but had to do it laying down and still as this stage was not sick. The boys in my dive group started to look concerned at this point and gave me tips on how not to throw up. About an hour we got ready for the 2nd dive. The currant was so strong i started to feel sea sick under water (this has never happened before to me!) I battled on! I had to fight my way through the corner of the reef where 2 different currants met. I have never been so tired from diving before, i almost got taken by the currant my dive buddy had to hang onto me. Before we had to assend i saw a white tip shark. Got back on the boat got the diving equipment off went up on desk to do my dive logs. The boat seemed to be rocking a lot worse than before, so i laid back down on the desk. I was really impressed with myself for not being sick. Then the speedboat arrived to take us back and just before i left the dive boat, apparently i turned very green and then fed the fish...which then sent other people green. i did managed to say thanks to the dive masters before laying down on the speedy boat and all the way back to land i kept my eyes closed. 1.5hrs later we reached land when i got off the boat my friends were laughing at me as i kneed on the floor and kissed the ground. Thanks for everyone that gave me money and made it possible for me to dive round the Similan Islands it was worth every penny!!!

Gemma and Michelle booked themselves into a 4 star hotel with swimming pool and aircon, whilst Suzy and I stayed in the guesthouse. After dinner Gemma and Michelle went back to their hotel and Suzy and I went for a massage. On the way home we found an Ozzie bar called Kenny's Bar and thought we would stop and have a couple of cheeky ones before going home. God only knows how many beers i had before I was pole dancing with the Thai girls. I think we left about 2am.

The third trip was to Raya Island (6th Jan)...this time i took sea sickness tablets as it was a speedboat journey to the island. I'm glad i did as the sea was rough again. This trip was more of a relaxing trip we went to the beach and chilled out for an 1hr before heading off to do some snorkeling. After an hours we went back to the beautiful white sandy beach. As we heading up to the restaurant to have lunch we saw big lizards (i think they were monitor lizards). There was at least a good dozen and when the biggest one decided to move somewhere else, the littler ones would shift very quickly. After lunch we chilled on the beach, did a bit of sunbathing for 15 mins. The sun was too hot to sit in so we spent most of the time left on the island in the lovely clear blue/green sea.

This was Suzy's last night... Michelle and Gemma didn't want a late night. Again Suzy and I went for a massage and then headed for kenny's bar. Suzy wanted to have a few beers and say goodbye to the girls and kenny. That night we danced with the ladyboy next door, played bowling on the Wii (i almost broke the handcontrol), served drinks to the locals, became the local djs and I was offered to stay with the thai girls at their house and work for kenny behind the bar. Kenny gave us a little travel thai phase book so we can learn thai which starts off nice and handy and then towards the end of it, it becomes very rude. We left Kenny's bar at 6am in the morning Suzy's taxi to the airport was at 6.30am. We went back to our guesthouse where Suzy's fell asleep and i had to kick her out of bed because the taxis driver was knocking on our door.

Another 3 days on Phuket, 2 of them were just chill out days, lazing around the pool and looking round the markets. Gemma got a tattoo... she will have fun when her mom sees it. I should get the blame for that as she was umming and arrrhing and i convinced her to get it. oooppsssss!!!!!

The other day was spent going round phuket island. We went to Phuket Zoo, i wouldn't normally go, but you could get your photo taken with a tiger or feeding the cubs. We went round Wat Chalong and then up to the Big Budha. i found this very spiritual as i felt carm walking round. I also was blessed by a monk which hopefully will help me to stay safe on the rest my travels. Heres hoping!!! The other things we did was lunch at the bottom of the island, took photos from the view point and then stopped off at the Regga bar for a drink on the way home.

It's the 9th Jan and my last night on phuket. Heading off tomorrow back to bangkok. Gemma and Michelle go back to Australia and I meet to new victims from England (Gina and Nicola) to travel up towards Chang Mai. I will be stopping in at Kenny's bar to say goodbye to my new friends.

Hopefully it won't be as long for me to update my travel blog next time.

Take care Tan