We left rainy Sangkhlaburi and headed for the party island of Koh Phagnan, wahooooooo. The Mexicans, in true Mexican style, bought rum and whiskey for us all to transform our boring coach journey into a party bus. The party consisted of plenty of alcohol before noon, dancing in the aisles of the coach to Thai radio (actually suprisingly good!), playing guitars and ukeleles and Jess ending up in the overhead storage!

After the 3 hour party, we arrived back in Kanchanaburi to our old hotel so we could change coaches, with a quick dip in the pool first. As we got out of the pool, someone shouted 'who's is this purple bag?' which of course had to be Lucy's... It had been dropped in sick by one of the boys when they were transferring coaches and absolutely stank - brilliant news for the following 8 hour journey, Lucy was not impressed.

The 8 hour coach to Koh Phagnan was a little less exciting as we all attempted to sleep. The air con was ridiculously cold and apparently could not be turned off as then the air-con bus would no longer be classified as an air con bus - worst excuse ever, we were freezing. When the sun came up and we saw the blue sky we couldn't have been happier. We boarded the boat and were the only ones sunbathing in our bikinis, making the most of the first few rays.

We were given the key to our beach hut and the beach was literally on our front door step, we were in heaven! We hit the beach straight away and prepared ourselves for our first night in Koh Phagnan. That night we headed to the beach party on Full Moon Beach, where buckets of vodka redbull were 3 quid, much cheaper than Birdcage :) the rest of the night is a little hazy as we danced on picnic benches on the beach. One of the girls in our group drunkenly decided she was going to breathe fire by putting gasoline in her mouth and spitting it at a lit torch. She was suprisingly good at it but the next morning she realised some of the gasoline had spilt down her top, blistering her boobs and resulting in numerous painful hospital trips!

The following day we hit the beach again, a little worse for wear. The weather was beautiful until about 5pm when a huge thunderstorm came and turned off all the power for about 5 hours. This provided us with the perfect excuse for not going out that night as we watched the lightning from our beach hut, a little worried about the fact we had a corregated iron roof!

The next morning we felt a lot fresher, and went elephant trekking with the group. We fed the elephants bananas before we climbed onto their backs and went for a trek through the jungle. We even got the chance to ride on their necks and of course we had the wobbly elephant, nearly throwing us off several times.. It was amazing! That afternoon we went shopping for our full moon outfits - neon tops, neon paints, neon hairbands.

That night we were informed by the Canadian in our group that it was Canada day which meant all Canadians got stupidly drunk and therefore decided that we too would be Candian for the night. We painted the Canada flag on our faces and perfected the Canadian accent and national anthem at pre-drinks before we hit the pool party. Suprisingly, we conviced loads of Canadians we were from Toronto and sung the first two lines of the national anthem over and over again. The pool party was definitely an experience - hundreds of people were in the pool with hundreds more dancing round the edges, wish we could have them in England!

Again, the next day we recovered by the pool/on the beach and then went to the Jungle Experience, a party in the jungle, that night. We saw this as a perfect opportunity to dress as animals and managed to persuade all the others too! We went all out with the face paints - Jess was a zebra and Lucy a lion, getting a few funny looks at the Jungle party as most other people were in normal clothes. Lucy reluctantly loved the house music and it was our best night yet.

The next day involved serious preparation for the Full Moon Party which mainly involved sleeping. We donned the neon paint and tops and headed to Full Moon Beach for the biggest party in the world. Thousands of people hit the beach and we danced for hours in awe of everything around us. We played a hilarious drunken game of 'lookalikes' spotting Tarzan, Sadam Hussein, Jesus (which one of our group managed to pull!) and Professor Green. This game kept us enterained for several hours and had us crying with laughter. We partied until 7am, determined to stay up until the sunrise. As the sun came up, we saw the weirdest sights - the shoreline was lined with people sleeping and hundreds of empty buckets. Full Moon definitely lived up to our very high expectations - it was insane!

Needless to say we slept most of the day after but made it out that night, suprisingly! We spotted Jesus again and got a picture with him which made our night. We surrended to Koh Phagnan as we had a boat trip the following day.

The boat took us to some beautiful waterfalls as well as the best beaches on the island. We got the best spot on the boat, on the roof! We got the opportunity to snorkel at one of the coral reefs where they had amazing electric blue fish as well as the sharpest coral in the history of man! Jess managed to slice her foot open as well as swallowing the whole of the Gulf of Thailand so we headed back to the boat, content with what we had seen.

That night we all went for a meal at a 5 star resort as our last night together. When we returned to the hotel we made a campfire and sung songs with the ukelele, all gutted that the trip was almost over. One of the boys held an awards ceremony which was hilarious! Obviously, we managed to get a joint award (we still dont think anyone can tell us apart after 4 weeks), the Symbiosis award for not being able to live without each other! The most hilarious award went to the girl who pulled Jesus - the Pontius Pilate award for doing unspeakable things to Jesus!

The next day had the worst journey in store, 2 two hour catamarans followed by an 8 hour coach journey back to Bangkok - these are the days when we regret bringing suitcases as big as us plus a huge backpack! We made one stop on the journey, hoping for a 7-eleven, the supermarket we have grown to know and love in the last few weeks, but instead were greeted with a Thai market. Already cranky from the journey and sick to death of Thai food, we were both close to tears! Lucy settled on crisps and a kit-kat while Jess adventurously opted for a Tom-yum pork flavoured pot noodle which of course was grim and Jess accidentally tipped the remaining contents all over Lucy's jacket - brilliant news... now all Lucy's clothes smell of tom yum pork for New Zealand, not happy.

We made it back to Bangkok and did some shopping and got a supersize McDonalds (finalllllly!) before a few last drinks with everyone. As everyone was leaving at different times the next day (and we were planning a lie-in) we said our goodbyes to all the amazing friends we have met, obviously sobbing hysterically. We honestly couldn't have asked for better people on our trip and we have definitely made some friends for life, taking trips to Mexico, Canada, Essex, Newcastle, Guildford and Brighton in the near future!

In our last morning we decided to take a trip to the 'Weekend Market' with a couple of the others. We took the tuk-tuk, still the scariest mode of transport in the world, across town and arrived at the edge of what seemed like a pretty big market, a million times bigger than Bury's World Famous Market! The real size of this market was not realised until we had been walking for 4 hours and still had not reached the other end. We somehow managed to end up in the "pet" section, getting horrifically lost with no escape. Tiny cats and dogs were in wire cages as well as squirrels on leads, exotic fish and hundreds of rabbits - potentially the weirdest experience of life so far.

We said yet another emotional goodbye to the last remaining few and our co-ordinator before we headed for the airport. We have had the most incredible 4 weeks in Thailand with the most amazing people and can't believe how quickly it's gone. We're currently writing from Sydney airport waiting for our connection to Auckland after a really good flight with 4 seats between the two of us, watching Hunger Games and sleeping for the rest.

We're sooo excited for New Zealand now, starting the Kiwi Experience bus tour on Monday. First stop is purchasing a coat as we have a serious lack of appropriate clothes (story of our lives on this trip!). Absolutely cannot wait for Western food! We will try to upload some pictures soon as we've managed some fab suntans!

J&Lx