BEACH BUM…

Touching down in South East Asia, it was the sizzling heat and humidity of Bangkok we had to navigate first.But wanting to make it down for the famous Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan it was a brief visit.So with the purchase of a dashing new pair of boardies from Khao San Road street market we boarded a night bus which would take us, with the help of a two hour ferry to the party island of Koh Phangan.Unfortunately as we arrived, so did a troical storm, but that did not deter us, and we got sufficiently drunk under the hazy full moon.The next day was a right-off - We slept! Our next stop was and island a couple of hours north on the ferry called Koh Tao.Hoards of backpackers had made their way here after full moon, so to be honest it was much of the same, with a slightly more chilled out atmosphere and nicer beaches and water. Here we frequented Big Blue bar regularly, especially for its happy hour, and chilled out with Sarah, Fran and Dan, and of course Billy the dog, who was hated by all other animals and people (usually for his racist tendencies) but took a particular liking to us.It was on Koh tao that we also had our first Pad Thai, Thailands most famous noodle dish, and boy was it nice, so nice that I think I ate it pretty much every day we were in Thailand! We did venture off the beach and out of the bars on one day though, and did a cool snorkeling trip where we saw amongst other fish, a reef shark and visited the beautiful Nangyuan Island, where we clambered to the top of a hill for a spectacular view of the beach, hill tops and surrounding waters below.The following day we were heading back to the mainland via a night ferry, but it wasn't long until we were back on the beach again, as we were making our way to Phuket. We did take in a brief bit of culture and visited the Shrine of the Serene Light (Temple), and ate some tasty spinach and potato cakes from the night market, but spent our second day there visiting two gorgeous beaches, unfortunately amidst torrential rain, putting a dampener on things.The sun did creep out in the late afternoon, so we were able to catch a few rays before we caught the bus back into town.

From Phuket, we caught another boat to the island of Koh Phi Phi, where Leonardo Di Caprio donned his speedos in the hit film 'The Beach'.Koh Phi Phi was gorgeous and my favourite of the islands we visited in South Thailand.We did another snorkel trip and stopped at monkey island en route to the fish, which was pretty amusing as some stupid German tourists invaded the monkeys' space a little to much, resulting in them being chased down the beach. We also had lunch on Bamboo Island - A piece of Paradise, and visited the famous 'Beach' in Maya Bay.That night was not my greatest moment as a took on the burger challenge - 800g of burger and a huge plate of deep fried crap…enough to make bring on a minor heart attack! In a mere 30 minutes. I got no where near finishing and for that loss I had to pay 500 Baht, around 10 quid, which believe me, is an astronomical amount for a meal in Thailand!Luckily, I did not humiliate myself alone, as four other guys attempted and failed miserably, except for one, who got close, but then spewed it up all over his plate with only a few minutes to go!

Getting back on the mainland we spent a night in Krabi - it was rubbish, with nothing to do, and we shouldn't have bothered.The next day we were making our way into Malaysia, crossing the boarder by sea and arriving on the island of Langkawi…