Yup we've finally made it to Australia, we had a short 9 hour flight from Bangkok and arrived in Sydney airport just after 6am. We caught a minibus to a hostel called Wake Up which everyone has recommended to us and got ourselves checked in to a 4 bed dorm room.

After a short nap we joined about 30 other people from our hostel on a free walking city tour, this guy Joe took us to all the major sights in Sydney, we ate lunch on the steps of the opera house looking out to the Harbour bridge, it's a pretty cool place here. We also walked around the botanical gardens and saw a load of historical places and facts you're never normally get to hear about.

The weather had been alright - around 20c which is good for this time of year but freezing compared to the 35-40 we've been accustomed too.

After an earlyish night we were up and ready to do some exploring ourselves. We jumped on a short bus ride to Manly beach (a big surf spot with lots of yuppy apartments) we sat on the beach for a while and watched some very good and some very bad surfers do there stuff, I can't wait to try it myself!

That evening we were all over the place, we went to meet a man who was sailing up the coast for 12 days and was taking a load of backpackers with him on his 32ft Yacht, we were going to go but changed our minds after a nights rest, we wanted to spend a while longer exploring Sydney, and being all cramped on a little boat for 2 weeks didn't impress Rachel too much.

So after all that we decided to head to Bondi beach the next day, now don't get me wrong it's a very big, very nice beach, but I thought that Manly was nicer.

The next day we stayed closer to home and decided to visit the Aquarium on Darling harbour, there were some pretty amazing fishicles in there. Eels coming out of drain pipes all lit up was like a bad dream and the Crocodile was pretty mean looking, the sharks were amazing... You do not wanna be in the water with one of those fellas!
We also saw the Gougons, there are only 1000 in the world and 3 of them were in this aquarium, they are the animals thought to have been mistaken for mermaids by the drunken sailors years ago, how they could be mistaken I do not know but it was pretty cool to see them anyway.

Next day was the beach walk, we joined a load of people and Joe (from the hostel) for another walky tour type thing, we walked from Coogee beach for a few miles to Bondi, it was really good to start with then poured with rain towards the end and we got completely soaked. We met a nice Scottish couple who had just been in Thailand too.

The day after I hunkered down in the hostel and watched films and ate cookies all day, it was raining and Rachel had gone shopping so I just chillaxed.

1st May was Rachels birthday, 22 - so old! We got up late then caught the bus to the Botanical gardens for a picnic on the grass, I had bought tickets for Rachel and I to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge that evening so we headed over there about 4ish, climbing that bridge was pretty crazy. We had chosen to do the Discovery climb which means you walk between the steelwork with the road visible between your feet, the views of the city from the top are amazing, the city all lit up at night is something you have to see to believe, it's huge! looking into the harbour with the opera house and all the boats is cool stuff. It took about an hour and a half to get to the top, take photos, sing happy birthday to Rachel, then get back down again. So after that we were pretty hungry.
We headed to an area called The Rocks and found a nice little Italian restaurant where we sat outside and eat so much food we thought we may not be able to walk home, we had a fair amount of wine to drink too so that may have been the real reason.

On our last day I managed to get man flu somehow and woke up feeling pretty shitty, we headed out to another park for another picnic and I got myself a little nap on the grass. We snuck back in to the hostel to cook some dinner and hang about for our bus that left at 9. We have bought a ticket for Greyhound which is like a national express that you can hop on and off or up to 45 days, we're planning on travelling up to Cairns taking about a month to stop at places in between, we have also booked 2nights / 3days camping and 4x4ing around Fraser island then another 2 nights / 3days sailing on a Catamaran around the Whitsunday islands. It cost a bomb but sounds amazing so we're really looking forward to that in a few weeks time.

So we finished our stay oh Phi Phi and made our way via ferry to Phuket, we had no idea where on Phuket we wanted to go so picked somewhere from the lonely planet guide. We settled on Kata which is one of the quieter bays, it still had it's fair share of Go-Go bars and dodgy markets though.

To be frank I wasn't so keen on Phuket, it's a big place and one of the very touristy islands, everywhere was expensive resorts and family restaurants, the traditional Thai places were nonexistent here which I think is a shame as surely that's why people go there on holiday? it kind of opened my eyes to how holiday makers could really get a different experience of the country to the one we have had.

However! there were a few perks to Phuket, we got dropped by minibus to Kata bay and started walking to find a hostel when we came across a discreet allyway with a sign for Rico's Bungalows, it looked well expensive but they had a special on for 800baht a night, now whilst this is more than we have paid anywhere else... My word was it nice, we had our own little chalet 3 steps from the private pool, there were only 23 rooms and they all had glass fronts looking into the quad around the pool, this place was so nice that the next day I didn't bother to leave at all, the poolside with comfy leather loungers and all the sun you could ask for was enough for me!

We stayed here for 3 nights and on the last night Rachels friend Leigh came to visit, he only arrived in Thailand that day after 2 years in Australia partying. We chatted til late and drank a bit too much.

The next day we were up early (to my horror) as we had 2 planes to catch, the first was from Phuket to Bangkok then after a few hours in Bangkok we were on our way to Sydney, Australia - how exciting!

It's a real shame to have left Thailand, it's such an amazing country in which I could have stayed forever, fabulous food, great destinations and the nicest people you'll ever meet. I've truly had the best time here, from riding elephants and climbing mountains to scuba diving and partying on the beach we have sooo many brilliant memories to take with us.

After our amazingly fun catamaran trip from Koh Tao to Chumporn (they didn't show the end of high school musical, what happens?) - we jumped on a bus, then another bus, then eventually arrived in Krabbi, we went for a lil walk n found a half decent hostel (we got air con as a treat too) to rest our weary heads for the night. We got washed up and headed for the local night market, it was nice, pretty tourist free as well, I ordered a green curry and the lady asked if I wanted spicy, I said yes and wowsa did I get spicy, definitely the hottest meal i've had in Thailand (possibly ever!)

We hadn't really decided which of the islands we would head to first so we had a little read of the bible and decided on Ko Phi Phi, it's a tiny island but with a huge tourist trade, it was one of the worst affected areas by the Tsunami because of it's very skinny shape between 2 mountains.

So we headed to P.P in the morning by ferry (boats are quickly beginning to rule our lives) and arrived by lunchtime, we had gotten talking to a girl named Yaneka from Yorkshire on the boat and decided to head for the hostel she and her 2 friends were staying. They were all very nice, a Canadian called Char and a Californian called Lauren, the hostel is a bit ropey, but it is real cheap.

That afternoon we went on a boat trip around the islands, we visited the beach from the film "The Beach" as well as doing some snorkeling, seeing some fishies and laughing at the old Swiss guy in Speedos who had picked up a young Thai guy... very very odd.

In the evening we all headed out for dinner and a few drinks, went to a bar which doubles as a Thai boxing gym (as you do) and watched some people beat the hell out of each other.

On arrival back at the room you would have thought Rachel had seen a body or something, alas it was just a cockroach, she kept tip toeing around looking for bugs for ages, she woke me up in an unnecessary panic 3 times that night!

After a few hours sleep we woke up to another gorgeous day on a tropical island, it was so hot by 10am even the locals were stripping off and sweating, but us Brits are made of strong stuff so Rach and I thought it was a good idea to climb to the highest point on the island (only a few thousand steps up to 189m).
At the top there was this cool local guy who I got chatting too, he was abnormally interested in our royal family and the F.A cup (don't ask me why). To get down from this highest point is either back the way you come or over the other side of the mountain through the jungle, yes people... for some reason we chose the jungle in 40deg heat, we eventually made it down to this tiny little bay on the opposite side if the island where there was a beach bar to grab some lunch, now at this beach bar I learnt an important lesson about culture, I fancied a cheeseburger right, I know it's cheating and I know better now because what came out was a burger with no meat, just cheese. I guess I'll have to wait for a while before I get a proper burger.

Luckily for us the bar owner offered us a cheap lift back to where we were staying using his funky taxi boat, I don't think either of us could have made the walk back without severe pissedoffness.

So I should probably fill you guys in on what we have been doing the last week or so.

Well from Chiang Mai we took the overnight train to Bangkok, had a 12 hour wait there with nothing to do, next up was an overnight bus that left at 6pm, we drove all the way south to Chumporn where we got dropped at the side of the road with no indication of what to do (it was now 3am). At 4am a minivan came and took us to some random office where we then waited another hour before getting another bus to a port where we waited another hour for the ferry. It was now 8ish and we were finally on a ferry. The ferry took about 4 hours of pretty rough waters to arrive in Koh Tao, by this point it was midday and we were shattered, basically we had been traveling 3 days with only a few hours sleep.. not so good.

We headed to the accommodation we had arranged and to be frank... it was a shithole, we thought it was going to be a bit of luxury so we went and kicked up a fuss and managed to get most of our money back, we stayed the first night there but arranged our open water scuba diving course that day, we went with Ban's dive resort, it's one of the biggest in the world and came with 4 nights free accommodation. There are about 50 dive resorts on Koh Tao, an island 2km long and with 300 native residents, the place is tiny which makes it feel so nice.

The room was pretty nice, there's very little air con on the island (electricity is a bit hit and miss too) so we just had a fan, we were right next to a lush pool. And Ban's is right in the middle of Sairee beach which is lovely, full of bars and restaurants, prices were a lot higher than Chiang Mai but still cheap compared to the western world.

Our dive course started in the evening of the 2nd day and it was orientation and 2 hours of dodgy videos you have to watch for the exam, we met our instructors and our group was pretty huge, nearly 20 people so that was good. Everyone was really nice and the 3 instructors were great fun.

2nd day of the course and we met up with Cav at breakfast, was crazy to see him, been 5 or 6 months so we had a good catch up over breakfast, he managed to get in on the same course as us which was awesome.

We started by setting up all our equipment, doing safety checks then getting in the pool, you start off by doing exercises like buoyancy control and taking off your mask underwater and putting it back on (Rachel proper freaked out anytime we had to do this).
You always dive with a buddy so I abandoned Rachel and buddied up with Cav, it worked out for the best as Rach buddied up with one of the dive masters (who she blatantly fancied the pants off) so she got some extra help..

The next day was our first at sea, we got taken out to the dive boat and went to the north of the island to Mango Bay where we did our first open water dive. W went down to about 12m and it was cool, we saw this huge cloud of 1000s of Barracuda, was just like you see on tv in a giant ball above your head.
We were all really nervous and concentrating so we probably missed half of the cool fish that day, we did one more dive over at Twin peaks, here we practiced our emergency procedures again (I saved Cavs life)

That night was Songkran (Thai new year) naturally there was a huge party and the entire country has a giant water fight, everyone gets soaked and nothing is off limits.

The last day we postponed til the afternoon (everyone was far too drunk the night before) we were taken back to Twin peaks where we did an 18m dive, it was cool, we saw Trigger fish, a Nemo fish, rainbow fish, angel fish and loads of other funky looking stuff too.
On our last dive we went down with compasses and did a little excercise where we had to swim away then get back, easy stuff but it's a prep for the advanced course.
Cav had a bit of an incident and his eye blew up to like half a tennis ball, it happens when you don't equalize your mask and all the air gets sucked from behind your eyeball, he had to be taken to the surface and is ok now, he put glasses on and milked it with the Canadian girls.

We had a camera lady with us all that day and we all met up in the bar that night to party and watch the footage back, they were made really well and funny to watch everyone messing about on the sea floor.

I was really considering doing the advanced course but we don't have long left and there's so much other stuff we want to do in Thailand, maybe I'll do it another time, but for now Rach and I are both qualified open water divers and can dive anywhere in the world down to 18m.

The day after the course we decided to stay one more night and explore some of the island on a moped (hmm) we hired one of these crappy 110cc things with road tyres only to find out as soon as you turned off the main road you were on a sandy dirt track, there were a few interesting moments!
We explored where we could and stopped in some nice places on top of mountains for drinks, for dinner we found this private beach with a restaurant built into the cliff over the sea, we watched the sun go down and the stars come out, we were far enough away from town that the sky was just a huge blanket of stars.

.. so now we have had to wave goodbye and we're on this high speed Catamaran over to the mainland, they're playing stupid high school musical arg! When we arrive we've got a bus taking us to Krabbi where we'll spend a few days exploring the surrounding islands before we have to head back to stinky Bangkok for the next stage of our journey.

Today we have been to our Thai cooking lesson, the head cook and owner of "The best Thai cooking school" came and picked everyone up, we all squeezed in his van and drove to the premier food market where Permpoon showed us how to pick out the best ingredients.

Try at home tip: buy small eggs they are from younger chickens and taste better.

We tried a lot of the veg at this Market an they had pink eggs, if you ever cone across these run a mile, they have been slow cooked in the ground for months and look all brown and rotten inside... Not nice! He also showed us the correct way to check a pineapple and garlic and tomatoes an onions and all sorts.

We continued out of the city to Permpoons house, within a few minutes we knew this was going to be a fun day, Permpoon was hilarious, such a nice guy, he confirmed to us that he was not shy therefore had many children, haha, he also has a very comfortable sized house with the school out the back.

We met a few people we had seen before and lots of new faces. The kitchen setup he had was good, we each had our own little gas stove, chopping board, knife and pans.

We started out by going through the basics and he showed us how to make sticky rice (the local delicassy you roll up and dip into sauces).

We then made a load of dishes each, they had little pots with all the ingredient in and we just ha to use the ones for the dishes we wanted and follow his lead, he was very well organized and made the day really enjoyable.

We made spring rolls and the dipping sauce for them, they were amazing. I also made sweet and sour chicken, Thai green curry, Pad Thai, and Mango and sweet sticky rice.

The last activity was cooking with fire where we used a wok to make stir fry and burnt our eyebrows off with 3 foot pan flames, check out the pics and Rachels video, so much fun!

We then all got to sit down together and enjoy the dishes we had made. Fantastic day, learnt a lot and filled my belly, what more could I ask for?