Greetings from Ao Nang, a beach town in Krabi. Its been a brilliant week since our last blog entry.

It started off with an epic bus journey from Bangkok to Phuket. It lasted approximately 23 hours. Our longest bus journey to date. We were supposed to arrive in Phuket at about 9am and we actually arrived at 4pm. Far too much fannying about by the bus driver.

We went straight to a beach town called Patong and arrived to the beginning of the Thai New Year. On the 12th and 13th of April we participated in the 'Largest Water Fight in the World' It was the best fun ever. Hundreds of people out in the streets with water pistols, buckets of water, hoses just drenching each other. The roads were filled with Pick up trucks filled with people throwing water over people on the road. One street which had mainly bars on each side was absolutely crazy. Opposing bars would war against each other and it was all you could do to keep your eyes open as there was always someone shooting you in the face. Shooting water into open car windows was extremely satisfying. We could fill up our pistols at various bars with huge bins filled with water, although some touts on the street were selling ice water for 10baht. We squirted these people. Anyone trying to sell us things (which happens a lot) got squirted aswell.

We stayed about 5 days in Patong, our longest stay, and it felt like a long time. The beach was lovely and the drinking was good. It was a sleazy town however, many people offering massages, go go shows and the like. These were avoided in favour of Aussie/Biker/English owned bars.

The last couple of days we have been in Ao Nang, in Krabi. This very small beach town is a vast contrast to the busy, sleazy and over-developed Patong. Ao Nang is very quiet with a few tucked away bars and restaurants with not a high-rise hotel in sight. The view across the bay is spectacular with tree laden cliffs hugging the beach and dotting the horizon. The beach, although fairly thin was soft and the only shade was provided by trees and not hundreds of umbrellas which littered the beach at Patong. The sea was bath temperature and wading out for about 10 minutes until you are brushing shoulders with tourist laden boats will get you about waist deep. Krabi has a few crabs.

One of the highlights was discovered as we were taking a stroll down to the end of the beach towards some rocks. Upon arriving at the rocks we were greeted by at least 30 little monkeys either running about, fighting or just lazing around. Monkeys are amazing. We have a few pictures and videos which we will upload.

Tomorrow we are off to Ko Samui and the Full Moon Party. Hooray.

Anyway now we are off to have a few beers and see if we can find some monkey burgers.

Love JDJ