Today we got up early and had breakfast in the restaurant area with a beautiful view of the sea over towards the Gulf of Thailand, as little green and blue over-staffed fishing boats chugged past dropping and raking in their nets.

We rented motorbikes from the staff and got a map of the island to head down to Bai (beach) Sao on the South East side, about a 20 kilom ride. The red clay roads threw dirt up at us as we bounced around over all the pot holes and navigated the sheets of iron thrown loosely onto wooden beams to make the bridges across rivers. The road was extremely bumpy but it made for a fun ride, and with jungle to the left and palm trees lining the shore to the right, just a few metres from the road - it was lovely.

Our directions were "down the road, turn left, turn left, turn right". Easy peasy, and one of the roads along the way had a thin strip of tarmac running along it which made it a bit of a smoother ride. The final road down to the beach itself was the rockiest and bumpiest. Therefore I thought most fun.

Sao beach had a little cafe/restaurant area crammed full of Vietnamese people, but then the beach itself in front of this was completely empty. We found a nice little spot a short walk away from the cafe and set up camp for the day.

The water was really warm (we heard 30 degrees later on) and was shallow for aaaages before the sand dropped away below your feet, it was so nice to bob around in to cool down from the scorching heat. I've never felt heat like it, incredible, all of us dripping with sweat, easily downing a litre and a half of water at lunch to replace all we'd lost.

Lunch was noodles of course, then back to the sand and swim and sweat and sun.

As the sun started its descent in the mid afternoon, we hopped back on our bikes and rode home. Julia had a little incident with a local getting a little close on his motorbike and she ended up in the dust with some impressive grazes and a rather battered motorbike (the people at the hostel didn't get too arsey about it thankfully).

Once home and showered, I set to work on Julia's injuries, transforming them into neat, clean scratches, perfectly dressed with surgical precision.

We lounged around in the beach club for a couple of hours and then head an early dinner and started ordering in the Vang Dalat. A few bottles later, after a few card games and a good long lounging session on the cushiony area, we went to bed to sweat away the night. So hot.