Villa Verdee - The name of our luxury 4 bed detached villa with an open plan kitchen-diner & lounge not to forget the ensuite swimming pool. This was another one of Simon and Beck's kind favours which we are truly thankful for. It was high in the mountain and forest area, all secluded; it really was a beautiful setting.The pad was something from MTV cribs!! With only a 20 minute walk to the local village (Ao Thong Nai Pan Noi), not too far out nor too close, Simon and I decided to head down and higher a Motorcrosser. We left the 4 girls (I mean Jamie, Bennett, Beck and Fay) back at the Pad and went to pick up some supplies… BEER! Simon riding the crosser and me on the back with a crate of 24 bottles of no other than the finest Chang! Well we've seen the Thai people carry cows, chickens and allsorts on the back of mopeds so how hard could it be! Well we made it all but 30 metres away from the apartment when the monster hill got us…. Dropping down the gears to 2nd we thought we could make it, how wrong were we… the bike made it up half way and decided to stop, then with Simons only free hand working the front brake the bike started to slide back down the hill, with me and 24 bottles aswell! Then the bike went one way and I went the other… bang… luckily that was the sound of Simons foot hitting the ground as I went into my circus mode and balanced the crate of bottles in one hand and caught my balance with the other. Safety was the main aspect for the beers… and they were. I walked the rest of the way with the crate and we all made it back in one piece! "We saved the day Betty"

Rain poured for 2 days solid with only an hour of sun breaking through each day if we were lucky. The apartment had a TV, Cable and Wifi so we there was things to do, not forgetting the 24 beers we brought back. We were able to keep ourselves entertained and dry for 2 days and prepared ourselves for the full moon party. On our 2nd night it was the night of the full moon, the heavens had opened - it had rained allday but then from nowhere the weather cleared for us. Smiles on our faces and our glad rags on we all got into the open back truck/taxi and scathed the one hour journey to the beach party. The party itself was amazingly organised and set up. I was really impressed. With entrance fees, t-shirt markets and 100's of stalls selling buckets of mixed drinks! That's where it all started… we decided to be sensible and have a bucket between 2 people, then the fun came… fire throwers, jugglers etc and then Fay and Beck found florescent body paint, they had the sassy crusader look painted around their eyes. They then convinced Simon and I to participate and before you know it the buckets had been drank and laughter was in abundance. Jamie then gave in and Benny shortly afterwards, so all of us had florescent faces. Another 2 buckets each and everyone was dancing saying this is my favourite tune!! Jamie did however come across some lady boys… they tried to steal his wallet, luckily didn't and we knew what to look out for. There were so many of them doing it. We kept our cool and partied the night away. Come the end of the night we staggered back to the collection point where we all got back into the "wagon" this time more bumpier and in pitch black darkness. We must have driven about 10 minutes before Benny needed to stop…. However the driver didn't really understand and so pulled up outside the local minimart to much surprise of remains of bucket drinks dribbling down his rear wheel… Benny bless him, the flood gates opened and he began chundering again but this time there was a crowd of people exiting the minimart… what a picture!! After that we all got back safely and Benny felt a whole lot better. Think a hangover day is in order!

And that it was… a whole day of doing nothing but feeling sorry for ourselves, everyone of us hungover. We did venture out that night to the local village for a nice meal, where we reminisced about the night before.We also convinced Simon and Beck to stay on Koh Phangan instead of going to Dubai a decision they were contemplating due to the bad rain we had but after checking a few weather forecasts Koh Phangan was brightening up so decision made, we all stay for 2 more nights. We left the villa and headed to Coral Bungalows, Haad Rin (where the party had been a few nights before) with a good price on the rooms we had made a good choice as normally they charge triple cost on fullmoon week. We finished the day by sunbathing around there pool and as usual I never forget about Chang time the normal 3pm drink!

We set about the next day of sunbathing by the pool and Jay, Benny, Fay and I wandered to the Haad Rin beach and it was all cleaned up, you would never have guessed that 20000 people were partying away on this beach only 2 days before… one of the nicest beaches we have seen! We checked out Mushroom Mountain from a recommendation however it didn't open until the evening so we had an afternoon Chang up in the Kangaroo Bar looking over the beach - gorgeous views. That night we all ventured into town to sample the local Thai cuisine.

After another day of chilling by the pool we headed next door to Rainbow Bar Bungalows for some evening drinks. The bar looked out over the ocean towards Koh Samui. The sky started to dance with lightening striking over 10 per minute and it lasted for hours!! It was amazing to see, I'd never seen anything like this before. Then the rain started and we headed back. This was our final night with the gang before they head to Bangkok and we head to Koh Lak.

Once Simon, Beck, Benny and Jay left Fay and I decided to stay one more night so we could book/arrange accommodation for when we return in April to meet up with Jade and Simon. We found some really nice places but most if not all accommodation was fully booked or well over priced! The continual monsoon rainfall prevented us from venturing further afield so we decided to wait until we return next month and book something then, as there will be cancellations etc. That afternoon we booked a coach and boat ticket to Koh Lak but our collection time was 6am the next morning, so we set our alarm at the crack of dawn to get packed before we left. The taxi collection never turned up and we missed the boat! With angry faces we asked for a room to stay in all day and some free internet time which they gave to us. The next boat time was the overnight ferry at 10pm so we changed the times on the tickets and caught that one. As luck would have it gave us some extra time to search for accommodation for the following month. We managed to find somewhere pretty decent at a good price. All was ok with the ferry journey, better than expected with sleeper beds on top deck and wasn't even that busy however, bad luck comes in 3's and I picked the only bed out of 80 that water leaks onto if it rains… IT RAINED THAT NIGHT AND DIDN'T STOP!! I can laugh about it now but it wasn't pleasant sleeping in the wet patch.