Phucket - which is less than lovely. Full of old, fat, European and burnt package holiday goers - the males of which seem to be strolling around with Thai girls 1/4 of their age. A strange atmosphere.

Still the accommodation was good & we still had to rock the James Bond Island Tour - again the gods didn't shine on the weather & sadly the tour was as dull as the sky .......time to head to Ko Samui.

The trip over was interesting - we were picked up at the travel agency late, by a driver who drove around in a circle for 1 hour before returning to the hostel we were staying in!! This after being told no one could pick us up there.

 We waited there stewing in the heat not knowing what was going on for an hour. We eventually got the ferry  and then headed to our accommodation. We finally settled on some jungle huts by the beach and decided to go & see the town.

A lively little place with a 7km beach & lots of restaurants & bars 

.The next day - after splashing about in a bath like sea (with a wave machine) we went in hunt of Thai boxing. Sadly we didn't find it & ended up in a field with a pool, a bungee jump & a quiz show.

It was here we had our first taste of Thai Whiskey Buckets - they basically give you a large bucket full of ice, then present you with a bottle of whiskey, 2 bottles of coke, some straws & then leave you to look after the rest......I still felt rough 2 nights later - a lesson learned.

The next day we hired bikes and headed off to see the island. Sadly the images I had of me looking like Tom Cruise in Top Gun / Arnie in Terminator were dashed slightly by the fact the motorbike / scooter had a basket on the front.....well, I was wearing boardies and flip flops. Tomorrow we head to Ko Pha Ngan and the delights of the Full Moon Party - not sure if I can be bothered to go to it - but 'when in Rome' I guess.

When I last wrote we were heading to Ko Pha Ngan for a week of not doing much and maybe seeing the Full Moon Party. Sadly KPN had just been hit by a small monsoon (Lonely Planet telling us another lie - Dec and Jan are dry seasons apparently! The waters were still very choppy - the trip over was poor - but not as bad as the boat the night after us - it sank killing 4 people. The Full Moon was cancelled as there was no beach + 2 girls died in the water the day before. We spent our time in 2 places - Hat Yao on the north west and Thong Noi Pan Yai on the north east - both would have been great if the water was calm - sadly the beaches were a bit ruined - so lots of reading done.

From Ko Pha Ngan we had to get a 4WD, a boat and a coach to Bangkok - Luckily this day was made a lot easier than it should have been by a very funny couple we met and spent the day with. We could have done with them on the night coach as it was a nightmare...actually, you need to be asleep to have nightmares and I wasn't. The first 4 hours were spent listening to drunk Finnish guys shout a lot. Then one spent from 12am - 2am coughing up his guts, then just as I got to sleep, two old Thai ladies behind us decided to start a long and loud conversation at 4am!! I wished them instant death, but it didn't happen and I crawled out of the bus at 6am an angry man.