Made it to Oz - Melbourne

We made it - Australia!!

After removing the upsettingly friendly woman from my shoulder we left our 4th plane behind and headed towards the dreaded quaratine! Dreaded because we had half the thai jungle hiding in asorted areas of our baggage. Sure enough they took a number of leaves out of our books and gave us a kick up the ass but the tea and chopsticks made it through and our real backpacking adventure began.

We made our way to St Kilda after the recommendation of a friend we met on our first day on koh san road who lived there. We stayed in the Barkley Hotel, our first hostel, in an 8 bed dorm room. Upon our arrival to the room after a killer day of travelling and our first experience of the ridiculous system of checking in times and what not we met Ben and Stuart who were to be our room mates. We checked out Acland street and went for a pint in the bar and I love Australia!!! There was apparently a quiz which never happened but we did met 2 seamingly nice ladies who convinced us to take a short walk to another hostel nearbye. Unfortunately they turned out to be money grabbing whores and while standing at the bar staring at a much finer specimen we totally mugged them off in favour of a cheaper night. Despite this the party was on and it turned into an open mic night in which I took part with a rendition on Newton Fawlkners 'People should Smile More'! Epic! Then while practising 'Sexual Healing' in the bathroom a familiar face was staring at me, it was Chris the barman from Ashridge - what a small world!!! The open mic turned out to be not so open and we were entertained by a single, talented, irish man while chatting to Chris and his friends, one of which was a girl called Carly who we somehow managed to adopt. First night in Melbourne was destined to be a good one and so on the advice of the barmaid we made our way to Tongue and Groove (a late night club) - awesome! Unfortunately she obviously wasn't that impressed with us as it was gay night, perfect! We got as much enjoyment out of the cheap booze and enormous trannies as possible before hitting the sack.

The next day we had some how managed to arrange to meet up with Carly for a tour of the city centre. We eventually unravelled the tram system, validated our tickets and caught the 96 in to the Melbourne. We wondered around the Milton Keynes like grid of streets in search of a replacement for my broken flip flops with very specific criteria in mind. Throwing caution to the wind I purchase a pair of massively reduced designer flip flops from Energie - they looked pretty. We stopped for a BK and found ourselves in the middle of Hitchcocks 'The Birds' with a swarm of feathered aviators circeling our Whoppers inside the 'restaurant'! After traversing all the streets of Melbournes city centre in some magestic random fashion without even a thought for ther CHinese Postman we made our way to the tourist information centre to see what other delights this city had to offer. My God! There was a lot of information there! Like some posessed travelling Golem I snaffled as many of the booklets as possible ending up with a comprehensive guide to about a hundred places we would never have time to visit! Books books books! Luckily one of the books was about the precincts of Melbourne and gave us a focus for the rest of the afternoon.

After narrowly missing death by angry tram conductors - seriously I know it took us a while to work it out but did they really need 3 grumpy old men shouting at us to get us on the right tram. No. - we made our way to Chapel Street Precinct were I gave a running commentry from my newly acquired 'precious' book. We were enjoying the so called village vibe and the funky shops when we stumbled acros 'The Jam Factory' - how exciting! Upon entry it seams I may have pushed and already suicidal securicor man over the edge by asking him where the jam was before realising that the Jam Factory was not actually a premisis for the creation of jellified sugar and fruit but, was in fact an amusement arcade with cinema, cafes and a like - oops. We amused our simple minds for some time with a bent mirror before drinking some smashed up fruit and veg before finishing our tour with the market, which was closed. Upon enquiring about the closed nature of the market we were told that it was 'only open on tuesdays and thursdays' - thats wonderful and all, but is bloody tuesday! She forgot to mention that everything in this sodding country seems to close down at 4pm so they can work on twanging up their accent so they all sound like they've swallowed a dogs chew toy! - not happy. Apres this catasrophy Ed's tour took a turn for the worse on the way back to the hostel when 'the map' decided that 500m was infact a few k's! Despite assuring my clients the walk would do them good they were not happy with me when we returned to the Barkley.

Upon re-entry to the dorm room we met with Cam, Sam, Tam (one of those), an australian!! from Perth!? Stuart, the extremely camp, 6 foot blond, tanned, definately gay guy assured us that Tongue n Groove was not a gay bar and that it was $2 pints and $4 basic spirits - you don't need to tell us twice! He had done us proud and when you take into account the quality of the company he keeps he's got to be my favourite maybe gay almost complete stranger. The booze was flowing and we had a great night despite ruining my new shirt attempting to rival some pro dancer with my one dangerous dance move - do not roll on the floor in that club! As if boogying to the early hours and mistaking purchasing shit loads of vodka and orange at the fictional end of happy hour was not enough the walk home was far from uneventful.

Although fairly hazy the pictures don't lie and that night Adrian, Carly and I managed to aquire not only a pram but a trolley as well and somehow managed to avoid encarseration using them as chariots of booze fuelled glory down the middle of the road at 5am! Once the novelty and deminissed I carefully selected some crisps from the garage and we sat under a tree. Adrian did his best monkey impression before we were approach by a vagrant. He wanted some money but I offered him a crisp instead. F*ing fraud had a packet already so I negotiated a crisp exchanged, pleased to find my choice superior to that of the hobo's, sadly the same can't be said for Stu's brunette friend's choice.

It was time for some hardcore sleep and I must have been very tired to sleep through a 6 foot blond bimbo standing legs a kimbo on my top bunk bed bashing on the room above's window scream a wailing drunken jib-a-jabber. You may think I'd have been a little upset about missing out on this through unconsciousness until you learn that said bimbo was infact Stuart who under the cloak of too much alcohol turns into a raving lunatic! - praise my self induced coma!

Getting to Singapore and the most expensive city ever!!

Hope you guys are still finding this interesting even though we are in NZ now and are a long way behind.

Once we left the paradise that was the Perintian Islands we were dreading the enormously long journey we had to get to Singapore but being true to our adventure so far we went all out extreme!

The journey started with a 'definately legit' taxi service from a random guy we met in the street. After we'd piled into his rather small car, crammed our bags in his tiny boot and bungied the boot closed, we picked up his wife?! and got cruising down the highway to the town in which we could catch the overnight train to Singapore. Despite the randomness of all this it was all going smoothly until the guy pulled over to the side of the road with a puncture - perfect! Clearly having no idea what he was doing Adrian ended up changing the wheel for him while I hysterically took photos of the predicament we'd gotten ourselves into! Soon we were back on the road and made it to Tanah Rata where we would catch the train.

This place was a hole! And we had 6 or so hours to wait for the train, which had no beds left!! It's becoming somewhat of a theme of the trip that we atract weirdos and this place was no exception! As we went for some lunch we met a strangely dressed man called Zach in pink shades and a fez after the usual ' where are you guys from?' he followed us to BK and scarily sat opposite eating the left overs from other peoples meals! We managed to get rid of him but only for a while as he turned up at the station shortly after with a different coat and hat and a rucksack!? Unfortunately he opted for ruining our afternoon and told us all about how he can't sleep and is beaten and that general he is a total loon! After declining his offer of a trip to his house we were thankfully rid of him! We boarded the train after a pair of kids had spent a number of hours thinking it was hilarious to try and get as close as possible to me before I noticed, it had been a long day, I was not amused.

Although we had no beds for the 13 hours train ride we did manage to get the seats with loads of leg room at the front of a carriage with the TV directly infront of us - score! And then Kung Fu Hustle, a great film, came on. No subtitles but awesome. When the film ended the pain began as guess what the next film was? ...Kung Fu Hustle!!! We watched it 4 times! Dear God!

Eventaully we got to the boarder and disembarked. The nightmare journey continued as the guy at passport control decided thyere was something dodge about my passport and it took me ages to get through before my bag got scanned about 10 times! We eventually made it into Singapore and got a taxi to where we might be able to get a room. Unfortunately the taxi driver was very friendly but totally useless and we were dropped at a shopping centre! Eventually we got some useful info and checked into a backpackers in China Town. The place was okay and had decent facilities for us to wash our clothes and use the internet. We spent the day at the Botanical Gardens which were beautiful and many a photograph was taken. That evening we went out to explore the city asking the barmaid at the hostel about where to go. We eventually found ourselves in a small collection of bars and restaurants called Chijmes, we had a pizza and a pint which pretty much cost the Earth before deciding we couldn't afford this place and returned to the hostel where Adrian made freinds with a completely mental woman who was obsessed with his rolled fags! Seriously she was scary and would not leave us alone - good times!

The next day we checked out Chinatown before the rain set in and my word when it rains here it really rains! Our plans to go to the beach covered island in the south via cable car were totally ruined so we returned to our shrunken tumble dried clothes and waited for the heavens to close! We went into Chinatown for a spring roll dinner that almost cost us $50 before making our way to the most banging area of Singapore, Riverside. Plenty of 'talented' people strolling around. Unfortunately the rain and the month of travelling had taken its toll on most things including our wallet and after the $48 Jug at Hooters we were done. We walked back in the pouring rain and went to bed.

We woke, excited about leaving for Australia that day used the internet and listened to some surprisingly good kareoke for mid morning before catching the tube to the airport. Where is Burger King!? After being teased by the elevator to the black void we ate and then boarded the plane. Unluckily for me it was my turn for some stranger danger and I got lumbered with 'Snuggles' the XL woman with a habit of cuddling up to young men in the seat next to her! Get me some more vodka and Orange! We watched a selection of films including the Wrestler and Ghost Town before arriving in Australia!!

The Perinthians Nick and Kate, Sharks, Turtles, Wrecks and Ed's Birthday!

Here we go again to any of you who are still following the blog, I hope you are and that you are enjoying it.

So we left the Cameron Highlands after smashing it in 2.5 days, boarded a minibus with our new friends Nick and Kate, plugged ourselves into our ipods and beasted it over to the North East side of Malaysia. We were only slightly panicked by the fact that we hadn't booked accomodation and that there was no cash machines and everything was going to be expensive on the islands but everything has worked out for us so far so sod it! After roasting to death in the minibus we arrived in some utter joke of a place! Seriously the dock was a hole and we still hadn't got any accomodation! We all bundled into a small motor boat and What on Earth!!! - we were handed life jackets, in SE Asia!!! So we put them on thinking 'how weird'! We soon realised why we had them as the 30 trip across to the islands was seriously rough and on a number of occasions we had the entire boat with it 20 passages airborn!! We were loving it, until, Adrian and my seat came loose and we were ejected into the air free fall and bouncing around like rag dolls trying to fix it, did the driver slow down, did he ****! Enventually the maddnessd was over and we made it to the idsland - it was beautiful! It didn't take long to walk down the beach find a resort to stay in that was half that of Nick and Kates and job done, apart from the fact that our room was up about 100 very poorly built wooden stairs with exposed nails and some seriously worrying creeks! Still we've pulled it off again and the view was amazing!

Our first evening consisted of us going in search of some night life?! Not much going on unfortunately after we'd trversed the pitch black pathway to the other side of the island and found the 2 bars empty we were a bit worried about it being my birthday tomorrow! But we were soon joined by Nick and Kate and then everyone seemed to appear - amazing! We got suitably merry, diabloed good and even got some cake for my birthday?!

The next day was my birthday - hooray, getting old - wonderful. But who can say they went scuba diving on a sunken Cargo Ship in the Perintian Islands on their 24th? Man it was amazing - best dive ever, saw so many different fish and all the rigging etc was epic, loved if, totally stoked! We then went Snorkelling, as if we'd not had enough, and spotted a turtle swimming around! Amazing! That night our amazingly friendly french neighbours offered us an apperetif as we shared stories of the 'GeCkoS!', rats and massive lizards we share the rooms with! We then treated ourselves to a fish BBQ in which I had Swordfish! We then went to Nick and Kates for some drinking games and they had got me some Nips and a card - legends. After numerous rounds of drink while you think we crossed over to the other beach again and enjoyed some reggae music and some rum, what and awesome night and what a pair of absolute legends Nick and Kate are!

The next day was as amazing as it could be! We went on a day long snorkelling tour of the islands starting with the lighthouse which had some amazing reef and some unbelievable fish not to mentaion a 10m high lighthouse which our tour guide scaled and hero-dived off. Of course I was soon up there and plumetting to my doom - what a rush! We eventually got Adrian up there and got a vid of us jumping off! Awesome - adrenaline flowing we went to the next stop were we snorkelled with black tip reef sharks - as you do! Amazing! After a narrow miss with an enormous trigger fish we were back in the boat, went for lunch and then over to Turtle Bay were what elese do you do but snorkel with enormous turtles swim alongside them and I even tried my hand and Turtle surfing! Last stop was at Romantic Bay where we saw sting rays and another beautiful beach before returning to the resort - what an amazing experience! We then went over to the otherside again which was a new experience after break my brothers flip flop and trying to go barefoot not knowing the termits can bite straight through the soles of my feet and palm of my hand drawing bloody! :-(! This was not helped by the fact that our only light source was my epilepsy inducing mobile flash light!

Bitten by the diving bug we went for another scuba dive the day after to another wreck, this was awesome but unfortunately the current was really strong so we ended up doing our first drift dive which was mental. We saw sea horses and I some how managed to run out of air, but no fear, buddy assisted ascent and what another awesome experience! That night we said our goodbyes to Nick and Kate with the agreement to meet them in Sydney where they were planning on working for the next 2 years!

We left the Perentians on a much calmer day and were back on the road in no time no looking forward to the insane distance we needed to cover to get to Singapore for our flight to Oz!

The Cameron Highlands - Trekking, mad off-roading and the World's Largest Flower.

Hey Guys, getting in the swing of things now although still really far behind.

The next stage of our adventure was as follows:-

The bus ride to the Cameron Highlands in the north of Malaysia was fairly long but we made friends with the 4 German ladies, Lioni, Laura, Louise and Judy and chatted to them loads about our adventures so far which was enlightening as we were doing the same things just in the opposite order. Before long we had made it up into the mental winding roads of the highlands and the crazy bus driver decided that slowing down round the wild corners edged with cliffs was for girls and hammered it almost tipping the bus on numerous occasions! We arrived in the Main town of the Highlands fairly late and had no idea where to stay, oddly we decided to follow the Germans to Father's Guest House which turn out to be a damn good choice. The guy taking us from the bus stop was a hero! Named Paul, had some memorable sayings like 'what have you got in here, rocks!, when you guys get home you're going to be like body-builders!' when lifting our bags into the truck. Then he was passing a bottle of vodka around on the way to the guest house, maddness!! There was 1 room left and although we had to share a double bed it was only a few pence more than the dorm, ha! We went for some drinks and were joined by another German called Laura. We went to bed ready to explore the Cameron Highlands in the morning.

Our first day we decided a lie in was in order before taking the most difficult of the self guided treks in the jungle - hardcore! After being passed by some people who couldn't hack it we were feeling macho and continued up the ridiculous slopes to the top of the mountain. Hot and sweaty we arrived for the standard jumping photo before head down through the jungle and over some more of the tree covered peaks. We had been assured hitch hiking was easy to get back to guesthouse, unfortunately on the 3-4km walk we weren't passed by a single car! - perfect! When we got back we crashed out in a new room with 2 double beds - get in! Unfortunately Adrian's body decided it didn't like his bed and began to create some nice patches of rash! I mocked him good you'll all be glad to hear until his paranoia got so high that I asked him if it was anywhere else and upon revealing that it completely covered his body we decided a trip to the pharmacy was best, got some anti histamines and all was fine - phew! We went out for a couple more drinks with our friends and met a couple from England called Nick and Kate. We had booked ourselves on the day tour to see the Rafflissia (Worlds Largest Flower) the next day.

The tour started with meeting Francis the driver - utter legend and picking up a 'really talkative' aborigine with a large knife before some unbelievable offroad driving but Francis up this immense slope. After narrowly avoiding death when the landy got a bit sideways between a cliff and a wall we arrived at the top and disembarked. We trekked into the jungle sampling all the mad plants that Francis was telling us were medicinal/edable - safe! Soon we were faced with the most enormous flower (actually a fungus), mental, it was massive! We saw a couple of older flowers (they only last a few days) and then went for a swim in a waterfall before getting back in Landy for the return tripo down the slope - crazy!! We then tried our hand at some blow piping of which smokey asthma man was definately beaten by our 2 lady companions!

The tour then took us to the Boh Tea Plantation with the fields and fields of rolling tea plants - stunning! We stopped for a tea (Adrian had a coke, obvious). The last stop on the tour was the mossie forest which was much higher in altitude and so had totally different life, all very interesting and my word Francis was a fountain of facts and hilariously freaked the girls out with his talk of human devowering pitcher plants! That night we got to speaking with Nick and Kate and they were telling us about some islands on the north east of Malaysia which had just opened after the monsoon season, sounded beautiful and something amazing to do for my birthday rather than trek it back to KL to sweat our souls away. In true Ed and Adrian whistle stop tour styly we decided to leave the highlands with Nick and Kate and go to the Perinthians , a bit dissapointed with not exploring more, but that seams to be a general theme doesn't it!

KL, No Quintess just Bob the Legend

We arrived in KL airport with very little idea what we were going to do - fairly standard! We had the name of a hotel written on the back of the sick bag which we showed to the tourist guys who couldn't have been less helpful! We got hold of a map and found that Adrian's Dad's offices were near where all the airport buses go so, even though my birthday was a week away we thought we'd save ourselves a journey and head there first. Looking forward to meeting the mysterious Quintess Rajoo with our envelope of joy we boarded a bus and headed in KL. Upon arrival we were already upset with the ridiculous heat and humidity and the fact that the bus had decided to cover our bags in some black liquid did not help! We trekked towards the office blocks in search of Marty Boy's office, only marginally worried that we looked like and smelt like total tramps amongst these rather well dressed nice smelling business people. It only took as a little while to find it after asking some bemused office dwellers and there we were! We were confronted with a rather baffled lady who asked if she could help us, to which we explained we were here to see a Mr Quintess Rajoo - obvious! She dissappeared and shortly afterwards appeared 'Quintess', no, 'Bob'!?! an american man who ushered us into the office explaining that Rajoo was away and that he had been intrusted with the envelop we had search long and hard to retrieve - our precious!

Bob, the kind fellow that he is, solved our serious lack of accomodation problems by letting us stay in his apartment - sweet! If Marty Boy trust him with our goodies I think we can trust him too, plus its free! Not only was it free but Bob's apartment was seriously nice! We've done well here! We used the net, washed/shrank all our clothes and relaxed for a bit. Rather confused by being on the 23A floor (apparently the Malaysians are scared of the number 4, weirdos!) and rather impressed with the swimming pools, gyms and views we headed out to see what KL had to offer. We sampled the metro and made our way to the Towers, it was night time and they looked stunning all lit up but I was having some problems with the hot dogs from the flight so we didn't make it that far down the strip before we were forced to turn back. It nearly went very badly for the people on the metro but I managed to make it back to the apartment block and after some real difficulty with the security we managed to get into the building and use the facilities on floor 7 as to not disturb our new friend, Bob.

We hit the hay on Bobs sofas and Adrian drew the short straw in being located in the living room (Clapham Junction?!) and may as well gone to work with Bob at 7am :-). I on the other hand slept like a baby in the spare room, oblivious to any such activities. We had a well needed rest before trying to have a proper evening in KL. We made it to a few bars but I have to say the whole, hooker and middle age Brit scene was not that appealing, especially as you have to pay for the privilage of being in the vasinity of such debauchery!

Thanks for everything Bob, you are a total Legend! Keep up the good work!

The next day we decided to leave KL and made our way to the bus station. Jesus! The place was mental. Seriously mental!! After listening to a fat guy shout what sounded like "Debbie debbie debbie, go ska go!" for a few hours we stood at the side of the road with all our bags waiting for the bus to The Cameron Highlands. After being joined by 4 equally confused German ladies the bus pulled up about 100m down the road so after a short run we boarded and were on our way to The Cameron Highlands! Glad to be leaving the sweltering heat of KL behind us!

Krabi, Phi Phi and the end of Thailand

Hey Guys and Girls, sorry its taken so long to get anything up on our blog we've basically been having waytoo much time. Really far behind but here is the next installment of our adventure.

After the festivities of Koh Phangan we made our way to Krabi, after another ridiculous boat trip followed by another mental bus journey in which a girl being ill rescued my bladder from exploding much to our companions dissappointment, we made it to Krabi bus stop!? Well the middle of nowhere basically. It didn't take long before we were approach by a thai guy offering us accomodation right by the beach, it was late and it was cheap so lets go for it! We were joined by Debs, Kate and Chris from Koh Phangan and we were all whisked off in a jeep to the 'resort'. After a mental Canadians recommendations we thought it'd be alright, however, the frogs, ants and massive spiders had a different idea! The huts were set back in the rainforest and were over run with wildlife, not to worry though, me and Adrian could cower in our double bed! - awesome! Still it was the standard sort of maddness that goes with this trip so we decided to embrace it!

The next day we went on a day tour by longtail boat to some of the uninhabitated islands of Krabi. , The Hong Islands. We went snorkelling and I swam to a deserted island before moving on to the Hong Lagoon and flinging ourselves off the boat, having an awesome time. The we went to the main beach were there were a fair few longtails and tourist swiming in what can only be decribed as paradise! More snorkelling, jumping off rocks and treking in the tsunami devasted areas of the island. It was a fantasitic trip and the beaches were unbelievable. We returned late in the afternoon in time to catch the sunset go crabbing on the beach and have a few drinks to celebrate the days success.

We enjoyed the trip that day so much that we booked another day trip the next day to Chicken Island and Koh Poda. Yet again we boarded the longtail and headed out in the waters of Krabi. Chicken Island named for its chicken like headland was joined to 2 smaller islands via a narrow sand bank - awesome! This place was paradise! After soaking up the rays and swimming in the crystal clear, turquoise waters we went to Koh Poda, or Monkey Island as our crazy pink hatted boat driver called it. It didn't take long before we found out why! Monkeys on the beach stealling people water and eating bananas! We took some photos and unfortunately for me one of these monkeys was that keen on fame and chased me!! In the panic I ran straight into a tree! - perfect. Not good, monkey desease! (Sorry mum, kept this from you until everything was alright), the monkey had scratched my foot and so I was super paranoid about rabies! Went to the cafe and got blue napham to disinfect my wounds! Then upon our return to Krabi I went to the 'Hospital'. Bit of a joke and didn't open till 7pm!! So we went for a walk about in a market etc and everyone mocked me for my monkey business. Thanks to Debs for looking after me I eventaully got seen by the doc who said scratches were fine and that I had nothing to worry about but gave me a picnic of drugs to take anyway! - I didn't take these unlabelled plastic bag full of multi coloured pills!! Instead we went out on the town for a few bevvies and then had a beach side drink with our fellow travellers to celebrate valentines day being over!

Next day we checked out after having to find a cash machine and caught a boat to Koh Phi Phi. Everyone had been raving about this place and so we were very excited! We checked into the cheapest accomodation available, which was unbelievably nice apart from the strange viewing window in the shower! Anyway we only had a day and 1 night to do Phi Phi so me and Adrain set off exploring the cobbled streets, admiring the local art work and basically being dissapointed with the beaches after being in paradise for 2 days! There was still plenty to look at however and we were looking forward to sampling the night life which was meant to be epic! We squeezed in the time to trek up the mountain to see the view of the Phi Phi beaches. Would have taken less time if we'd have not gone through the jungle but once again in true Ransday fashion we like to do things the 'interesting' way! Anyway the view was stunning and the nice path down the mountain made getting back much easier!

That evening we treated ourselves to a gourmet dinner before meeting up with Debs and the gang as well as the 3 Brummy Ladies from our jungle trek in Chiang Mai - mental, such a small world! We all went out for a big night! We spent most of it in a wicked bar with a live band who were hammering out the Led Zep and playing the guitar with a pint glass and generally being amazing! Had and absolutely awesome night, with free buckets through in for good measure! It was a messy one and we were all reunited way into the early hours, checked out, went for breakfast, used the net and then had to board the boat to Phuket so that catching our flight would be easy the next day.

Once we arrived at the dock we went through the usual bus catching debarcle but eventaully made it to a hotel which seemed to be way to classy for us but the price was right and we checked into a luxury room with loads of room and even a bath. Before long the toatally gay bell boy fancied Adrian and we had dinner and the taxi to the airpot tomorrow sorted!

We arrived at the airport with plenty of time, had a BK and removed 10kg of clothes from our bags because of the joke baggage allowance, boarded the plane and were off. I never got my chicken fuccacia but instead some nasty nasty hot dog whioch did not go down well at all!!

Koh Phangan, Ring of Fire, Tuk's Tour and the Full Moon Party.

Only a couple of weeks behind but here's some more adventure for you.

After waking up for the last time in Ban's Diving Resort and believing I was underwater without my regulator! You knew this day was going to be a mission. We just about got our stuff packed up and made it out in time to0 check out. We were feeling a bit worse for wear so the few hours wait till the boat left was appreciated. Unfortunately I spent a while sorting my toe that had taken a battering last night and Adrian had failed to get the doctors signature meaning he had to run around like a mad thing in order to get his licence! Eventually Adrian had organised to fax a signature from Phangan which was just as well as the boat was about to leave! We said good bye to Paul and all the friends we'd made diving and went to the boat to Phangan. I was feeling pretty terrible for some reason and after some really unhelpful girls had told me they din't share water we got on the boat. We made it to Koh Phangan after an unpleasant time on the boat and went through the standard unorganised debarkle of getting our bags back before meeting the resort representative for Holiday Beach Resort. We got in a nice car where the passenger was brandishing a huge knife and we were off. When we arrive at the resort the first thing we notice is there's a kitesurfing centre right next door! We checked in and got the key to our 5* beach side bungalow...well..kind of! My first pair of aviators died and we went to bed, we needed a rest!!

After 16 hours sleep we were back on top form. Went for breakfast and check out the resort. So close to the beach, palms trees lining the shore and kitesurfers dotted along the bay. Not sure about the kites and trees mixture but it was cool none the less! We barely made it 100 yards from our bungalow when someone shouted 'Ed!', who on Earth was it?! there was a group of 2 girls and a guy lying on the beach..brain goes in to overdrive trying to work out which of the billion people we've met they could be..then.. it clicks..it's Debbie, Kate and Chris who we met at the dock to get the boat across to Koh Tao! Madness! We sat down beside them and chatted for ages. It was mental, they had met Lochie and Remy and knew about the dog killing!! Then they told us Paul the German was here too and sure enough he showed up, such a small world! We met a guy called Sam who really was an idiot, he'd been on Phangan for 5 months, for one reason 'Pussy on Tap!', what a tool!! We played in the sea with some mental dogs and 3 lunatic thai children, sampled Debs' favourite food, chicken with fried noodles and then relaxed in front of the big screen in the restaurant. Paul taught us a cool card game and we organised to have a big night the following night, it was great to final relax if only for a day!

We woke, 8th of Feb 09, fully revitalised and went for our free (paid for) breakfast. Adrian needed to go see a doctor for a signature and so I chilled and wrote my book, which is become totally epic now Tones! Adrian had to walk miles and took ages and returned once in the middle to collect a vital piece of paper he'd forgotten, what a fool. We collected a load of Samsung and coke ready for the festivities inn the evening and then spent the rest of the day on the beach - lovely. I almost fulfilled a life long ambition to shin up a coconut tree and collect a coconut, but not quite. We had some more chicken noodles and caught the end of Apocolypto the movie, which the girls had seen over 4 times!! We then went to the beach bar to play some pool with Paul. I teamed up with Debs and we immediately became the dream team until we'd had a few too many Changs and got bored with pool and inuendos. We then decided on a game of dare or dare, our own creation! This saw me sampling an irishmans pint, danger and Deb's having to place some fishy ice down her knickers - hahaha. Debs had told me all about how she was a super dooper judo kid and so I challenged her to a fight on the beach. Yeah she totally owned me until she taught me the moves, but I think she was letting me win so not to destroy my self esteem! Before long we were ready for the harder drink to start so went back to Kate, Chris and Fishy Crotch's room for a game of ring of fire - great game!! Before long Paul the German was very scared about the situation, especially as he doesn't seem to show any emotion and we all had a load of writting on our faces!! Most memorable of which was Adrians 'I love Willies', Deb's 'I love Ed', tash and whiskers and Kates numerous gratuatous arrows!! Before long I'd lost most my clothes, an irish man had made the mistake of joining us, earning 'Wank' on his head and some smart ass had suggested a trip to the beach!! Adrian decided to go skinny dipping in ankle deep water, whereas I opted for the hammock - Bad News!
Amazingly we managed to get up in time for breakfast with the standard Samsung hangover from hell and were ready for Tuk's Tour (Tuk was a legend of a guy working at the resort and a damn good artist). The Tour took us around the easten side of the island and started at a waterfall and then took us to a Chinese Temple where there was an enormous Buddha which turn out to be a huge money box! We then went to a Snake Show! When we arrived there was definately a group or tourists with snakes around their necks and a boa constrictor just chilling on the stage - mental! The 10 cent sound system started blairing and out came the world champion snake dancer!!? The show started with some insane dancing madness before the cobras were brought out, this was fairly average and hwe just waved them around like snake poi. I wouldn't have put their heads in my mouth though!! Then they brought out a proper King Cobra which was very angry and the guy scrabbled around on the floor like a demented toddler while this enornomous, very poisonous snake tried to kill him! Then if that wasn't enough he got 3 snakes all around him that were equally unhappy with him tugging their tails etc!! The show climaxed with us having our picture taken with 2 king cobras and a boa constrictor around our necks! I think Adrian had the one which had been down the guys pants!

After having held one of the most deadly snakes in the world, Tuk took us to Malibu Beach, which was a much nicer beach than the one at our resort, lovely sand and plenty to look at! Tuk really doesn't like the Thai sex trade and then we left. Next stop Koh Ma. This place was a small island in the north with a sand spit joining it to the main island. The snorkelling there was unbelievable, better than our diving!! Definately going to go back there just for the snorkelling! I almost got lost before we left for the Amsterdam Bar, last stop on the tour. We watched the sunset in the bar on top of the mountain with a cold beer and some good company. We were back to the resort for dinner with Debs and the gang, watched Babel?! and crashed out after an awesome day. It was the full moon tomorrow so we needed some rest!!

The day of the full moon started with Zohan, followed by Cast Away Day, dreamed up by Adrian and Debs the night before, which involved reinacting scences from the Tom Hanks Movie that I haven't seen. Despite this I basically was the only one trying and definately won with my floating victim, seaweed hair piece and beard, drinking water from a leaf and the hour spent trying to create fire with crap from the beach! I also got my chance to practise writting love letters as Tuk wanted me to write one for him for some gorgeous blonde girl on the beach! Much to Deb's disappointment it didn't read 'I love the way your eyelashes flutter in the morning breeze'!? Instead it was very simple and was all about the rose he gave her! We started to watch Transformers before going to the 7 11 for booze. We aquired some more samsung, dirt cheap vodka, mental thai red bull and some liquid foreplay!? The girls and chris had no where to stay so we said they could stay in our small room!? and so we went back there for some rounds of I have Never and some drinking. Before long we went to the beach bar for some more drinks aiming to be fashionably late to the party. We got some body paint and for some reason I got my face totally covered as a skull face!! I don't think we were sposed to have this paint on our skin! It burnt like the fires from hell!!

Once we were suitably decorated and battered we left for Haad Rin where the Full Moon Party is held. We sang mad songs all the way, like the old classic disney, some Queen and maybe even some Abba!? Debs saved me from getting my head caved in, in a thai boxing ring (still need to do that!) and we went for a few brews in the Warm Up Bar. Then we hit the beach and the buckets hard! It was rammed there were so many people, madness! It didn't take long to get seperated and we both have different stories of that night, thats for sure! I danced like a loon on a podium with Debbie Cockring before getting lost in a building site and trying to get a boat to Bangkok!? Amazingly we were reunited at about 6am around a comatose Paul! We stayed to watch the sun rise and looked back on a mental nights partying before catching a ridiculously expensive taxi back to the resort where we discovered Chris 'dead' on the porch! We all got into bed and tried to convince Chris he wasn't the last back and that we weren't ass holes before catching a few z's and having to check out in 2 hours!!

It didn't take much persuading for us to sack of the boat trip the morning after in favour of a chilled out day and a free bed in the gangs room. We developed a game called Splashy Splashy, watched our last sunset in Koh Phangan and managed to make it all the way through Apocalypto!

The next day we all checked out together and made our way to the boat dock to catch a boat to Suttarani and then a bus to Krabi, we were now a little crew but I think they were just following me and Adrian (the cool kids). At the port the queue was totally ridiculous, much like most of Thailands organisation it resembled the digestive track of a person after a few too many dried apricots and a bottle of Epicack, with the occasional movement of people squeezing through the proverbial svinkter when the name of there destination is called. In true Thai style they squeezed us onto our overloaded boat where there were no seats and we were off. I managed to get a seat while Adrian made a bed from lifejackets which may have been very useful considering how regularly the boat engine was malfunctioning!

Open Water and Advanced Open Water Diving

Hello everyone, bit behind on this as usual but here's the next installment.

We arrived at Koh Tao pretty shattered after a mental amount of travelling. We had organised our accomodation at Bans Diving Resort and thought we could just crash out when we got there. We managed to get ourselves straight on to the Open Water course and started with a lecture and intro at 5pm that day! We got our enormous manuals and had been told to swot up on the first 3 chapters! We went for a swim in the crystal clear waters - amazing! So good to be by the sea at last!! We started reading the book and answering all quizs like good little boys, unfortunately there was an obscene amount to cover and we didn't get anywhere near the end! A little worried that the teacher would be upset with us we went to the meeting where Neil (who I thought was called Ngil) our instructor told us that we didn't need to bother with the last few hours we'd spent reading and plonked us down in front of a super cheesy DVD which he couldn't be bothered to watch with us. Afterwards we were totally nackered and so went to bed ready for our pool session the following day.

We got all our kit and got in the pool after proving we could swim 12 lengths and tread water for an eternity! Me and Adrian were totally on it and basically it is easy. We did all the skills like mask clearing, regularor recovery, buddy breathing and bouancy and were well excited about get out in the sea tomorrow. We got along so well with Neil, not because we are shovenists, and we made great friends with Paul (Inspector Gadget) our divemaster. We had another classroom session were we aced all the tests and then we got yet another early night as we were off on the boat at 7 in the morning!

Our first 2 dives were amazing! We went to Mango Bay for the first and the visibility was unbelievable, you could see for miles! It was amazing, loads of fish and such a great feeling being underwater. We had skills to perform and then went for a swim, Me and Adrian as buddies, around the U-shaped coral reef. Amazing first dive, love it. The second dive was at White Rock where we saw massive Trigger fish and Nemo the Clown fish, another amazing experience and we make great buddies and Neil was really impressed at how easy we had found it. We returned to the big dive boat with massive grins on our faces totally excited about the rest of the dives we are going to be doing in the next few days. That afternoon we had another classroom session, completed our tests and then ate at Bans restaurant, again! Loving the fish so much we went snorkelling just off the beach where the number of fish was amazing. I love the beach! Bikinis, the sea, sand, the sun and loads of fishies!

The next day we had to take our final exam in the morning before doing our final 2 dives of the course. We'd been worrying about the exam but that was pretty ridiculous, it was easy!! Hard bit over we collected our kit, shiny new kit because we were being film that day! The first dive was at Twin Peaks and we went to 18m, it as great as always, loads more skills including the CESA Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent which was a bit worrying but we passed with flying colours and had another great dive. The final dive was back at White Rock and again we had skills to do and loads of tropical fish to see and then we were qualified open water divers - hooray! That night we had a few beers and a meal with the entire group including Neil and Paul who are both total legends! After no alcohol for some time the few beers we had really went to our heads, we started the advance open water course the next day so didn't go too hard, we were saving ourselves for the night after becoming advanced.

We started the Advanced course with a meeting with Neil, there were only 3 of us, Me, Adrian and Steve the slow Canadian from the previous course. Awesome, so good having a small group. We had 3 dives today, the Deep water dive, the navigational dive and then the Night Dive. so excited! Paul joined us again and we got on the boat with all the sexy divers again. The Deep dive went to 30m! There was a possibility of sharks as well as getting Nitrogen Nicosis, which is like being drunk. Apparently some people chase fish trying to give them their air or swim head first down into the sand - maddness! Unfortunately we didn't see sharks or get Narced :-(, but going to 30m was awesome. The next dive we used our compass skills that we'd practised on the beach by Neil giving us the bearing of some hot ladies and sending us directly towards them. This was great, we basically were on our own and navigated ourselves around Twin Peaks giving us loads of time to stop and see all the underwater life. We returned to the beach for some food before getting back on the boat for the night dive. Man the night dive was something else, illuminated only by the moon and our small torches we followed Neil's glow stick into the dark blue depths. It was awesome, got to see so many more different things like sleeping Trigger fish, Sting Rays and massive hermit crabs. We switched our torches off to see the phospherescent plankton and then surfaced into the night, so weird - loved every minute of it! We had 2 more dives the next day and knew it'd be a big night after that so we went to bed quite early, after meeting some of our friends from the Chiang Mai trek who had made it to Koh Tao, still buzzing from the dives today.

The next day we had a bit of a lie in and then in the afternoon we had our last two dives. Our first dive was a multi level dive at South West Pinnacle. We had been to the underwater photography lecture and had borrowed Neils camera to take with us. We had been joined by another divemaster called Louisa as well as Chris who we'd met yesterday who was instructing another group of divers. When we arrived at SW pinnacle we saw some shark fins on the surface near a fishing boat which was throwing bait into the sea. We quickly dived in and started our dive. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any sharks but it was another awesome dive, loads of sea anenemies and a cool swim through. Our last dive was at Shark Island (named because of its shape). This was another great dive site, we saw a blue spotted sting ray and I was bitten by a cleaning mooray! Just as we were on our way back to the boat Adrian pulled on my fin, again! but this time he had spotted a giant hawk billed turtle! Amazing, we were the only ones to see it, we swam along side it for a little way before finishing our last dive! What a way to finish! We were Advanced Open Water Divers! Time to celebrate!

We started with a few beers with Paul and Neil and then got on the buckets! Neil had heard about my party trick from Egypt and was plugging for a repeat performance. After he had fuelled us with alcohol the flaming Manjina came out once more, this time lit using a flaming sambuka! We had a wicked night drinking with our new dive friends as well as the 3 ladies from Chiang Mai and their siblings. A great way to end our time on Koh Tao.

Getting to Koh Tao

Hey everyone,

After having the most amazing time ever in Chiang Mai we embarked on a brutal 36 hour travel experience to Koh Tao. After chilling in Chiang Mai for a few hours before the bus left we set off on a 10 hour trip to Bangkok, luckily the bus was only half full so we managed to spread out a little and get some rest. We arrived in Bangkok at around 6am with nowhere to stay and with all our bags and everything with us! Luckily we were able to leave our stuff at the tourist info but it didn't open for another few hours - perfect! We sat around on the street amongst the crack heads and weirdos before it opened by that time we were pretty hot and sweaty and not looking forward to the day ahead. Still we went to our favourite road and managed to make a couple of cokes last about 5 hours each. We fended off some lady boys and women selling frogs and fell asleep on some bar tables. Before long we had wasted the day away and it was time to catch the next 10 hour bus followed by boat!

This time we weren't so lucky and the bus was rammed. The staff were extremely dodgy, didn't speak a word of english and were probably going to kill us all! We listened to the film previews for about a million times until we knew the words and then we were there! Or not! We got chucked out at the side of some road with our bags and deserted - interesting! More and more people got thrown out of many buses until there was quite a gathering, it was about 4am. After about an hour of worry a small truck turned up and pick up about 5 of us leaving the rest behind! It took us to the most banter port in the world but there was a boat there so things were looking up. Unfortunately the boat didn't leave for another 3 hours but we met some classic people who made the wait slightly less depressing, Cat, Debs, Chris and Paul the German with only a pair of small bags, one of which has a book, no 2 books in it - what a hero!

We boarded the boat and I slept, we arrived in Koh Tao with its sandy beaches and palm trees - Hooray! We had arranged to do our diving with Bans Diving and so they picked us up and took us to the resort, easy. We checked in about 9am and aquired our Open Water Diving books ready for our first lecture at 17:30!! Pretty tired with checked out the resort and the beach, it was beautiful, thanks for the tip Gems, Bans is awesome!

So glad to be by the beach and the atmosphere was great, so much more relaxing. Going to have a great time here.

Ed

The Chiang Mai Reggae Bar and the Long Neck Tour

Hello again everyone, really struggling to keep up with the posts, but here's the next installment for your viewing pleasure.

After the 3 day tour of the jungle we had become quite close to the people on the trek and so all decided to meet up at the famous Roots Reggae Bar in Chiang Mai. No wonder it was famous, this place was awesome, loads of live reggae bands playing plenty of Bob Marley, wicked. We got on the buckets - standard. I got in a bit of trouble with a Welsh girl who didn't like me challenging the thai kids to do 'the move' but it all went fine in the end and we had a wicked time. I even tried my hand at some bongooing until I broke the drummers drum stick which pretty much got me a black mark next to my name. Anyhoo had an awesome night, until, Locky the aussie turned up at our hotel looking particularly dazed looking for Remy and the key to his room. This didn't look good! He tried to pull himself together and explained how he had been forced to kill a savage dog with a stick! This was not cool! Anyway we hit the sack ridiculously late which was pretty stupid considering our Longneck tour left at stupid o clock in the morning!

Again barely managing to get down any of the 5* garmet breakfast we were bundled into a mini bus for the Longneck tour. Our guide was called Eddie, which quickly got turned into Eddie Murphy for some reason and he found the fact I was seriously hungover very amusing indeed. He especially enjoyed telling us that the tour invovled an enormous amount of minibus riding around stupid winding roads, not ideal at all! It took 4 hours for us to get the The Golden Triangle where we saw where Laos, Thailand and Burma met. We took a boat trip to Laos and sampled the cobra and scorpion whiskey! Nasty stuff, especially when you are feeling pretty bad already. Again there was no boarder control or anything, just a 20Baht fee! We saw a black bear caged and demented which was pretty horrible and then returned to the minibus by nutcase speed boat!

Another 2 hours in the god for saken minibus and we arrived at the Longneck village. Not at all what we expected! It was so tourist-a-fied. The women (and young girls) with the ridiculously heavy rings round there necks just sat around selling scarves to tourists. We weren't impressed but both Adrian and Caroline did get attack by an incontinent child which was amusing. Another 4 hours by minibus, which nearly killed me, and we were back.

We went for a final night at the Reggae Bar and meet up with Locky and Remy again as well as Ronald who was a Dutch guy from the longneck tour. We exchanged details with everyone and plan to meet the aussies in Canberra to shot a Kangaroo and BBQ it! We also found out Ronald is going to buy a tuk tuk and drive it back to Holland, what a hero, I'm going to join him for the Nepal Stretch! The next day we were leaving Chiang Mai much to our dissappointment as there is so much to do there, we will definately have to return. Plus the fact that we had a ridiculous amount of travelling to do before we made it to Koh Tao didn't make leaving any easier!

Ed

Trekking in the Chiang Mai Jungle

We woke at a pleasant 8:30, tried to stomach some of the already paid for 5* brekkie and jumped in the back of an old army truck with the rest of the people coming on the trek with us. Again the lack of safety precautions is fantastic! There were 11 of us on the trek in total as well as Lar our guide and his accumplice Day. Lar was an absolute legend but a compulsive liar telling us all about smoking crack on the trek and eating bamboo worms and wrestling crocodiles, man we were excited. Then there were a Polish couple and an Czech couple as well as the 3 girls I mentioned before who are from the midlands. The last 2 of the group were a pair of Aussie guys from Canberra, my god they were funny!! They had turned up drunk after the night before and told us allsorts of stories about the people they've met and the crazy things they've done. A particular favourite stories of mine was when some 'Bogans' (Aussie Chavs) were boarding a bus and the guy says to the woman, 'hurry up b*tch, or you won't get any heroin!', these guys were going to make this a unforgettable adventure.


We drove along ridiculously bumpy roads with nothing but metal spikes to protect our backs for about an hour before being faced with 4 or 5 elephants! Yes elephants! We bought bananas to feed them and got some unforgetable pictures! My word this is amazing!! Me and Adrian teamed up with Locky, one of the Aussie guys and mounted our elephant with me sitting on his head, mental! We persuaded the keeper to let us loose on our own and started on probably the most unforgettable journey ever! Our Elephant was called Bugall and he was boarder line retarded, but we love him anyway. He was super slow and always went the wrong way until we learned that to get his ass in gear we need to grunt and shout his name, huh huh huh huh Bugall!!, we also tried bribing him with bananas but he was having none of it! We got him up to some mad pace as well as have him shower us with his trunk and sneeze elephant snot on us! Best morning ever!

We got some lunch and headed up the mountain to start the trek. Trekking in the hills and jungle amongst the amazing scenery was epic and so different to the hustle of Bangkok, such a relief to be there and the company was amazing. We were convinced the trek would be fairly gentle, how wrong were we, it was epic! Trekking up steep inclines beside sheer drops, across narrow bamboo bridges! Amazing! We got to know our companions really well and made friends for life there, not least of all the tour guide Lar was a legend, made us walking sticks from bamboo and hid in the bushes in order to scare the crap out of us, which worked so well on me I nearly fell down a cliff to my doom, hero! We went to a waterfall in the middle of the jungle and Lar showed us how to jump in without get smashed into pieces on the rocks below. A few minor brushes with death and we were back to it. He took us across the border to Burma, no boarder control, no passports, no visas, eek! We then went to his families villages and enjoyed our first experience of beautiful, unspoilt by tourism, life in Thailand. We met his wife, a stunning thai lady, and his kid, it was emotional. We were served some traditional food and some rice wine moonshine!! Yes we got drunk again, didn't expected that but my god what a night, they had a guitar which I had to repair and then me and Caroline serenaded the group with classic songs while everyone got more and more battered on the wine, quality! I stayed up most of the night teaching one of our guides 'under the bridge' before attempting to catch an hours sleep before the trekking the next day. It was so cold! What the hell! After not sleeping at all dawn broke and we had breakfast before hitting the trails again, well I say 'trails' I mean walking through jungle, there were very few paths. We were given lunch wrapped in banana leaves and after seeing the town folk hammering down the rats I hoped it wasn't going to be rat surprise.

On the second day we trekked it good. Saw some amazing views and took some great photos. We stopped for lunch on the top of a peak and saw some stunning 360 degree views, thankfully lunch was noodles not rat! We continued to trekking down through the jungle amonst the wild flowers and the tropical trees. Lar was busy whittling chop sticks as we went and then embarked on the creation of a bamboo bong! Classic! We eventually made it to the location of our second nights sleep which was a pair of small shacks nexts to a picturesque river which we went swimming in again, it was ice cold and refreshing. We, in order to increase the depth of the pool, built a dam which was unbelievably effective and great fun. We then built an enormous camp fire and got back on the rice wine, crazy! They had a guitar as well which I had to repair again and then Remy the aussie astounded us all with the most amusing rapping to a 12 bar blues ever!! All I can say is, Pavarotti the universal dictator, backwards walking crab and tuk tuk wheely tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk. After a few more drinks me and Remy wanted a bigger fire and so went into the firest in order to cut down trees with a huge knife. What were we thinking, I was hammered, bare feet and wheelleding a machetee, safe!! Totally satisfying though. After yet another feezing cold night we went for a morning dip and a wash in the river, as you do. We then trekked our way to the dock were the bamboo rafting was going to take place. Thankfully taking the advice of Lar and leaving everything in the truck we went rafting with nothing but boardies. Rafting was mental! This has to have been one of the most dangerous things I've ever done! We thought we'd be relaxingly floating down the river chilling in the sunny, but we were very very very wrong! We totally had to guide this 15 foot shed door through some mental whitewater, between huge rocks at speeds in excess of 30mph using nothing but a piece of bamboo and our weight to steer. We all took a total battering not to mention me getting catapulted over the front into a rock and nearly being decapatated in the most mental piece of the rapids. Mental!! That has to have been the best experience of my life. Unreal! What a way to end the most amazing 3 days of our lives!

The Floating Market and our Trip to Chiang Mai

Hello there or should I say Shawadycup!! (yes this is spelt wrong),

We never didn't make it to Pat Pong to see the ping pong as we were too busy recovering from the previous days activities, we'll have to see a show later on. So instead we had a nice relaxing couple of bevvies with some more friendly travels we met. Unfortunately for us we ended up getting fairly hammered and invested in some 'chicken' on the way home. This was not good!

We had to be up at 7am to get the minibus to the Floating Market, shame we had got back to the hotel around 5! Anyway stumbled to the minibus in the standard hungover way and after some minibus juggling we were on the way to the floating market. It was fantasic, got some great shots of the crowded waterways and got on a small punt like boat, which I nearly sank in a drunken attempt to board it, and floated around amongst the 'market boats'. We also went on another power boat trip and saw some enormous lizards, 'crocodiles!'. We'll put up some photos of the market soon as well once we figure it out, got some great ones of all the colourful friuts etc.

When we returned from the Market we did our first bit of 'backpacking' for all of 100m before the driver took us back to the travel agents. We chilled out in 'our' Koh San Road until it was time to board the night bus to Chiang Mai.

The night bus was a beast! Not only did we nearly miss it due to a completely useless traffic police man, but on arrival a set of 3 young ladies were removed from the bus even though they were also on the way to Chiang Mai. We also met a bit of a hero, Patrick, before attempting to squeeze our finite length femors in to the ridiculously small space allocated to us. Then if that wasn't bad enough, the people in front seemed to have no issue with relcining their seat so far as to squash poor old Adrian into the feotal position! It was a very long 4 hours to the one and only stop over where we were supplied with what only can be described and vomit, cack and diarrhoea disguised as an egg, some dried apricots and shrimp, mmmmm lovely. Oh yes and some rice in dishwasher water, yes Oli, Congee!! Needless to say we were still hungry when we got on the bus again! Patrick was almost suicidal after spending the first 4 hours between 2 fat snoring, smelly Thai, I thought he was going to cry. Thank god though, I fell asleep and woke up to Adrian dementedly squeeking his bag at the now fully horizontal Thai man infront of him, he was not happy.

We arrived at our 'palace' at 6 in the morning! Seriously this place (BP Chiang Mai) was 5* what on earth have we paid for, we are clearly not backpacking!! Theres a swimming pool, a gym and kareoke every night! We went to a cafe for breakfast and saw a million and one different possible activities to do while in Chiang Mia, like abseiling down waterfalls and caving, awesome! Just don't have enough time. Definately going to have to come back here again! We had booked a 3 day 2 night trek in the jungle with all the trimmings, elephant rides, sleeping with tribes in the hills, bamboo rafting, you name it! We were picked up for a talk about the trek and what do you know the 3 girls that had been evicted from the bus were on the same trek and were staying at the same hotel! We saw some more temples and went to the saturday market and night Bazzaar, took yet more great photos and met up with the 2 girls from the plane that we'd met in Bangkok and that had got the train up to Chiang Mai. They say the train was way better, but it takes ages longer and you don't get to eat pure death!! We got battered, standard. Unfortunately on the way home a pair of savage dogs took a disliking to us and chased us over a fence and around the back streets, this was not cool! We survived and hit the sack in a our gormet room in order to be rested for the treking the following day.

We've made it! and Bangkok

Hey everyone, We made it safe and sound.

The flights were a killer, 6:35 followed by a 2 hour gap min Bahrain and then another 6:35. Arrived in Bangkok at 7 in the evening. No problems getting a taxi and getting to our hotel, which is down the darkess, smelliest alley ever, but its really nice, clean etc and very close to Koh San Road, job done. That night we went to Koh San Road and had a nice meal and a pint before crashing out in order to be ready for a full day of Banging Kok the next day. Unfortunately the jet lag meant we could sleep until about 7am and then we got up at 8am, pretty tired. Met some really nice people at breakfast and went out to find the wonders of the city. We made it ten yards before a teacher from the local school accosted us and gave us a whole load of things to do, shoved us in a tok tok and we were off! We were so lucky, it was a crazy holiday thing yesterday and most things were open to the public and free! We met a monk in the temple of Blue Buddha who taught us to pray and told us some stories, we went to some mental tailors and jewelers were they tried to get loads of money out of us, perfect! We spent all our money in the tourist info centre with Oven (hero) booking loads of future adventures that you'll hear about soon!! Then we went to the Great Palace, which is amazing and beautiful. I'll put up some pictures soon. We then went on a boat trip around the rivers of the city before getting grabbed by another crazy man who told us about some other stuff to see, so bundled in another tuk tuk and and saw another Temple before becoming the biggest suckers ever by buying to ridiculous soap for 6 quid just to get a token for the driver, yes we are idiots. We then went to a place with loads of Government type buildings surrounded by guys with Assault rifles which was fairly intimidating! Unfortunately the reason we were there is that there was apparently a festival on, but it would appear there wasn't. Nevermind though, cos we found a zoo and saw some cool animals, like panthers, lions and tigers, we compared the meercats but the bears were sleeping. When I got back to the room I had to unblock all my cards (first day, impressive). We then went back to Koh San Road and met some awesome characters, like a pair of Swiss ladies who's English, although better than our swiss, was comedy. We had a good laugh about 'Kitchen Box' where you keep clothes apparently and then we met some girls from England who dropped the bomb that we weren't actually at Koh San Road and that it was the next road over, Whoops! We got on the buckets, Adrian lost 100 Baht in a thumb war with an 8 year old girl, serious! and we met yet more nutters. All in all an amazing day, with so much packed in is was unbelievable. We slept like babies and then have had a chilled day today. The plan for this evening is to go to Pat Pong with some friends we met last night, see a ping pong show and then we are going to the floating Market tomorrow morning before getting the bus to Chiang Mai. busy busy busy!

Its super hot, beautiful weather and we are having an amazing time. Hope you are all well and I'll get some pictures up soon and post again once we have more to tell. Cheers to Tones for saying to make a diary, we both already have written loads and had great fun reminising about yesterday, so in 4 months it'll be unbelievably good.

Ed

Cheers Everyone, Pretty Excited Now

Hey,

Was great to see those who made it to our leaving drinks in Camden and Berko. Thanks for all your good wishes and Tom for the dust busting outfits!! Sorry we didn't manage to see more of you before we go.

Just sorting out the last few things now. We've had our shots (except Adrian who will have rabies on the plane), printed off an enormous amount of stuff, got our VISAs and getting the tunes ready.

We leave at 8;25pm on Monday!! So excited now! I hope you enjoy our adventure with us, next time we post we'll have some interesting stories and hopefully some pictures.

Thanks again to you all, look forward to hearing some comments on what we get up to.

Ed

Hi Everyone,

Just getting everything organised for the trip now. Here's the blog where me and Adrian will be letting you all know how we are getting on. We'll post pics up here and stories of what we get up to. Would be great to hear from you while we're away so feel free to comment on anything and everythnig.

Ed