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?

Today we booked ourselves in to a very touristy tour to Doi Inthanon national park, we got picked up about 8.30 and started out on a 2 hour drive south of Chiang Mai.

Our first stop was at the highest point in Thailand, it's about 2500 metres and unfortunately there was little to see as it was quite cloudy. At least we can say we've been there, the temperature that high was about 8 degrees so pretty nippy compared to the 35+ days we've been used to.

Next up was a Mong market where there was plenty of freshly grown produce to buy, Rach and I went half on some sliced melon, so refreshing.

We grabbed some lunch and got chatting to a nice Chinese couple in the tour with us, they were nice people and kept apologizing for their "bad" English.. Better than my Chinese ;-)

So after that we headed to a small village and it was quite uncomfortable, for me at least, I'm sure these guys don't want a load of tourists walking round taking photos of how they live, I'd be right annoyed if someone did that to me. Some of the women were
weaving scarves and table cloths, these take a week or more to inish and sell for 250baht (£5) at a market. Rough deal.

Next up was a few waterfalls, the last one we visited was pretty hugemongous, must have been a 25 or 30 meter drop, was pretty amezin so I jumped the barriers and went for a little paddle to cool down.

On the way back Rachel fell asleep and I have a hilarious photo, I'll try and get it up on flickr soon.

Tonight we've just gone to a few bars and enjoyed a few beers with out 100 baht spaghetti bolognese.

Chiang mai is preparing itself for the new years festival next week and I think we will both be sad to leave it behind, it's been so nice here, will have to come back, the people and atmosphere is awesome.

Wow, last night was mental! The thunder storm lasted through to the
early hours, the sky was lit up with lighning and loudest cracks of
thunder I have ever heard, it was like a bomb going off.

We woke about half 7 and blearily made our way outside where we had
yet more rice and veg to eat for breakfast, thankfully there was toast
and jam so that went down well.

We set out about 9.30 and none of us wanted to walk another step,
regardless we had to (unless we fancied staying on the mountain).
We walked for half an hour and fortunately it was slightly easier
(still harder than anything I've ever done before, but easier none the
less).
Our first stop was at the elephant camp, these beasts are crazy big,
we got on to the little seat they put on top and started riding
around, it quickly turned out that our elephant, Misuzu, was going to
be particularly mischievous and fancied going for a meal, we went a
bit off course and after a light snack (a few trees!) we met back with
the others, the driver (what do you call an elephant driver) let us
get out of the seat and sit on the elephants shoulders with our legs
behind its ears as it walked along, it was pretty fun, they're a
really odd texture and have long prickly hairs, there's a bit behind
their ears that is really soft too - random.

Next up was a few more hours of walking through the jungle, our guide
Noom almost caught us a snake! At some points we were walking along
these little mud walkways about 8 inches wide next to a very big drop
down the mountain.

You can not understand the relief we all felt when we came in sight of
the river and waterfall we were stopping at next, we hopped over 2
small logs over the river and stripped off before jumping in from the
top of the water fall, it's only about 4 or 5 metres but it looks a
lot higher when you have to jump from it. We managed to persuade
Rachel to jump too, check out her blog for a video.
It was the best feeling ever to plunge in to that river, cool down and
wash all the jungle crap off.

After a little waterfall shower and a swim we had yet more trekking,
yay, here the group seperated as 2 of the guys were doing a slightly
different itinerary.
We continued on until we got to a small farm in the middle of nowhere
yet it still had running water, electricity and satellite tv! crazy,
there were 2 tiny little puppies crawling around playing with baby
chicks, it was surreal.
I was completely screwed by this point, did not want to go 1 step
further and felt pretty sick, I think the lack if sleep and no meat
made me feel pretty bad. Luckily this is where our truck was picking
is up.
We drove for about 40 minutes and arrived at our next activity, white
water rafting.

The river we were going down was quite small but the rapids were fun,
if a little slow, we got stuck a few times and it was pretty good to
have all that water to cool down in, after the rapids we jumped onto a
bamboo raft that took us further down the river for 15 minutes into
some civilisation.

As we were going down the river it was so cool, there were monks and
children playing in the water and we had a little water fight with the
kids. Everyone is alway so happy here, it's amazing. We passed under a
few guys building a bamboo bridge over the river, fascinating stuff.

This was the end of our little trip and we arrived back at the hostel
an hour or 2 later, sooo tired buy we could not go to bed, it was the
hostel owners birthday so we all went out for a meal n had some drinks
(from a bucket).

So that's about it. Laters peeps.

We got up early this morning thinking we were infor a gentle trek and
some nice scenery, never expecting to have such a crazy day.

We got picked up at 9 by our guide Noom, he was born on the mountain
we were about to climb. We picked up a few other guys from their
hostels, a nice couple from Switzerland and 2 Canadian firefighters,
we headed to our first stop, a butterfly farm, that was pretty lame,
we then moved on to a local market where they were serving loads of
cooked bugs and odd offcuts of pig trachea, intestines etc. Rach and I
took the safe option and just got some Oreos. Ha!

After a short drive we arrived at 1st base, we started walking and
after about 5 minutes were faced with a mountain, the only way was
straight up, the guides cut us some bamboo walking poles and it got
hotter and hotter and tougher and tougher as the day progressed.

We eventually made it to our first stop after 2 hours of gruelling
heat and extremely tough terrain, Rachel had to be helped out quite a
lot but we were here, a bat cave, unfortunately batman and robin were
out but we did see a few of the little critters hanging around.

The guides had been collecting plants all day for our dinner and after
another 2 hours or so of trekking we got to the village where we would
be spending the night. I tell you it was such a relief, mylegs were
about to give way and we desperately needed more water.

We're staying in a little bamboo hut with about 10 beds side by side
on the floor (very cosy). The first thing we wanted was a nice shower
and what we found was interesting to say the least, imagine an open
bamboo hut with the worst toilet you've ever seen, now imagine a pipe
up the wall next to it with a tap that shoots out cold water. The
shower was brief but refreshing, we would have washed in anything
right then.

After a short relax and a cool beer dinner was served, we all sat
around a huge table, the food was amezin and there was enough to feed
us 4 times over.

After dinner the guides and there friends from the village joined us
for drinks (one villager got very drunk and was singing to Rachel ..
"Baby i loooooove yooouuuu" it was so funny. A few of them played
guitar whilst teaching us some puzzle games with matchsticks.

Then the thunder storm came, all of a sudden we had a tropical
downpore and wind that could blow you over, our clothes and towels we
had out to dry scattered everywhere and even the locals said they'd
never seen it like this! So now we are tucked up in our beds looking
forward to tomorrow when we should be elephant riding, White water
rafting and jumping off of waterfalls before returning to the hostel

Night!

It's been a busy day already, we arrived at the station 3 hours late and
hopped into a tuk tuk, our hostel was a bit of a shock to begin with, it's
like a student house with people and stuff everywhere, as we arrived a group
of rather loud girls were leaving and making a right fuss and we wondered
what we were walking in to.

We got chatting to Hayley and Ryan in the living room and decided we'd all
head out for a full body Thai massage they had heard about at a womens prison!

After a very long and confusing tuk tuk journey (driver got very lost -
twice!) we arrived and oh my god it was amazing, I've never been felt up by
a female Thai prisoner before but I sure can recommend it. The little thai
lady (about my age) laughed because my body kept cracking so much, I thought
I was falling apart when she put me in all these random positions and pulled
me about, it was really good, digging elbows in and finding nerves I never
knew existed. Lastly she lay behind me and picked me up backwards on top of
her with her knees! I swear your body isn't meant to do that, my back was
making the oddest noises.

Try at home tip: pull your toes (in a pull my finger type way) it feels so
odd!

After that unique experience we headed to a little local restaurant nearby
and the 4 of us had a cooked meal and a drink each for a total of 173baht.. you can live like a king here!

We've booked ourselves onto a trek tomorrow and Thursday (camping over night
in a forest somewhere) we'll be riding elephants and water rafting as well
as lots of scenic walking and what not.

Think we'll spend a while chilling at the hostel then head to the night
bazaar tonight for a wander and some food.

It's nearly 7pm and we have made it on to our train, currently "speeding"
our way to Chiang Mai. So far it has been incredibly bumpy and noisy,
thankfully the iPod keyboard is really good at guessing what you are trying
to say. I really hope it flattens out a bit through the night.

We should be on this train for over 14 hours (there's been a delay), luckily
we have a nice American guy next to us called Evan. He's a bit of a geek web
developer with an ipod touch too so been chatting away to him and drinking a
few bevvies. Dinner will be arriving shortly, I'll let you know how (or how
not) to eat soup on a bumpy train!

...1 hour later...

Ooook then 2 interesting experiences, soup was rubbish so eating it was not
neccesary, the majority of the rest found it's way ok.

The other was the little squatty loo whilst on a moving train. I now have a
new low for toilet hygiene comparison purposes.

Our bunks have been set up and Rachel is on the top (I convinced her top was
best, muhahaha). They are pretty comfy but the train is still bumpy as
anything. I really hope that Rachel doesn't spot the cockroaches before we
go to sleep! Tonight will be interesting!

... In the morning...

Ok well sleeper trains suck, they should be renamed try and sleep but fail
miserably trains. Managed to get 3 or 4 hours sleep but like a half hour at
a time. Rachel spotted a cockroach but we were pretty much up by that point
anyway, was rather funny and she's paranoid now LOL.

On the plus side the view from the window is pretty amazing, heading through
large farming plains with mountains in the distance. Banana trees and tiny
kids riding mopeds to school.

Just been informed we have about 30 minutes left which means we've now been
on here 15. Not sure what we are going to do in Chiang Mai today, maybe go
temple hunting, will ask at the hostel when we get there to drop our bags
off.

Today we've walked a marathon and more. We started off by heading to the
train station and what looked like a 10 minute walk on the map turned out to take us over
an hour.
We've booked ourselves a sleeper train up to Chiang Mai tomorrow, they were
all sold out of first class so we'll be roughing it, luckily air conditioning is still
available - it is so hot here you can not believe.

We then caught the underground train up to the north of the city where the
largest market takes place every weekend, the scale of this place is amazing, we were
totally lost the whole time, dodging in between street vendors and huge shanty areas with low
roofs and no ventilation, packed with everything from paintings to cookware to clothes to puppies!

After all that rushing around we headed back to the hostel via the sky
train. We grabbed a bite to eat this evening at the night market at the end of our road. We
went to a real locals "restaurant" where nobody spoke English very well, we were coersced
into ordered some pork and rice - the old "waitor" was hilarious, I doubt they get many
westerners in there. The food was gorgeous as we have cone to expect, even though the
plastic stools were half broken and there were bugs on the table lol.
I should point out now that our meal consisting of 2 soups, 2 mains a large
beer and a sprite came to 190 baht beat that Tesco!

The Thai are fantastic people, everybody is friendly and they are always
smiling and laughing, very accompdating to is us backpackers, England would never be
like that, they hate the Welsh let alone people from the other side of the world, I don't
feel too bad about invading this country as there seems to be a mutual understanding that
we will be touristy and they will do there best to sell us as many novelty lighters and
laser pens as we can carry.

We've now returned back to the air conditioned haven of our hostel, Rachel is typing away
about something so check her blog too.

We finally landed in Bangkok after our 10 hour flight, it was nothing
special but we both managed to get some sleep. I think we were both so nervous about coming away
for so long, but once we were at the airport it was obviously the right thing to do.

We got a taxi to our hotel without being totally ripped off which was good.
Was very sleepy and dehydrated when we got to the hostel so just crashed out for a
bit. Room in the hostel is really good, if a bit out of the action.

We got talking to a guy in the lobby who had been traveling for 7 months, he offered to
show us around a bit so that evening we headed into the Khoasan area (on a tuk tuk - so
fun) which is where all the backpackers hang out.
We found a little outdoor restaurant and had a decent Thai curry, the 3 of
us ate with multiple beers for under 10 - bargain, the night progressed with many more
beers which helped us sleep through til 11ish.

Next day we caught the sky train and a taxi ride to the grand palace (the
largest temple in the area) it was so hot about 2pm I nearly passed out, an ice lolly
helped the situation. From there we walked to the river side and haggled ourselves a
boat trip around the canal waterways (still think we were ripped off), it's amazing
how some people live on wooden huts suspended over the water.

We then walked over to the khoasan area we had been before and grabbed
ourselves a bite to eat and a few beers.

Now back at the hostel and we're ready for bed, think we're heading for a
few markets 2moro and to book our train to the north.

Night y'all