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We're so sorry it's taken so long to write this blog - we've just been completley lazy on the islands and beautiful beaches of Thailand that we just haven't thought about it!!
So we last wrote when we were in Ko Samui, which was the first island that we visited and was lovely. The beach here was amazing and we stayed in a lovely bungalow a stone's throw away. It's quite a lively island and we spent the first night in a few of the bars - we even went to the Ice Bar where everything is made of ice - tables, chairs, glasses etc - you have to dress up in a protective suit to keep warm, which was quite surreal and funny whilst we were in shorts and flip flops!! We spent the next day just lying on the beach and swimming in the crystal clear waters - it was bliss! The next day we moved onto Koh Phangan.
Koh Phangan is split into two areas - Sunset Beach and Sunrise Beach. We stayed in an amazing bungalow overlooking Sunset Beach that had a lovely communal pool and was just paradise. To be honest we did absolutely nothing here but laze around by the pool and enjoy the luxury of our bungalow!! It was really lovely to just be able to relax after all the busy towns and cities we'd visited throughout Vietnam and Cambodia where you don't always feel confortable in your bedroom and therefore have to be out of the hotel all the time. After a few days here we moved onto Koh Tao, which is still on the east side of mainland Thailand, just above Koh Phangan.
We didn't enjoy Koh Tao as much as the cost of accomodation quickly rose and we found ourselves back in a rather grotty place! There were numerous nice restaurants along the seafront and we enjoyed a feast of chicken, beef and prawn kebabs BBQ'd with corn on the cob and jacket potato. There wasn't too much to see here and the beach wasn't that great. We knew the west side of Thailand was meant to be even more beautiful than the east so we decided to leave Koh Tao after 1 night and head over there. We took an overnight boat to the mainland in order to save money on a night's accomodation. Thinking that we might be in a cabin with maybe 4 other people, we were shocked when we just saw one big room with 80 matresses all laid out next to each other!! It was very strange sleeping so close (kind of on top of!) the person next to you but we managed to get a few hours sleep and wasn't as bad as we expected. The boat docked at 5.30am in Surrathani and then we took a bus to Krabi on the east side of the mainland. The final part of our journey was a boat to Ko Phi Phi where we finally arrived at around midday but it was definitely worth the journey!
Phi Phi was beautiful and we stayed on a beach a 5 minute boat ride away from the main town as it was quieter and bigger. On our first night here there was a thunderstorm and we didn't fancy getting a taxi boat (just like in the picture above) to the main town so we stayed in our resort. We spent our few days in Phi Phi relaxing on the beautiful beach (in between rain showers) and eating lots of yummy seafood! We also went snorkelling and scuba diving (only Sam scuba dived as I'm a wimp), which was really good fun. We were both a bit nervous to start with but once we were under the water everything was great. We saw so many types of fish and at one point a swarm of 8 sharks even swam past us!! Lots of people on our boat had been diving before and said that this was the best dive they'd been on in terms of all the marine life that we saw. We met a few people from the boat in a bar that evening and watched some Thai boxing, which Sam had been longing to see for a while. I wasn't sure that I'd like it but actually it was quite enjoyable but very brutal - nothing like our boxing!
After Phi Phi we took a boat to Koh Lanta, which is further south. It was nice but we much preferred Phi Phi. There wasn't too much to do here and as everything was spread out on one long coastal road it was quite difficult to get around without taking lots of taxis, which is something we've tried to avoid doing as throughout the trip we've found that we discover much more by foot! On our first night here we went to the Koh Lanta festival, which is much like a fete at home with lots of stalls with food and games etc. We thought we'd try some of the local delicacies but we didn't like any of it - can't actually tell you what we had but some sort of sausages and a soup/curry concoction! In between the rain showers the next day, which were becoming more frequent, we spent some time by the pool and then took a long walk to the nearest restaurants. After 2 nights here we moved onto Railay, which I think I speak for both of us when I say it was our favourite place!!
Railay is on Thai mainland but it feels like an island as it's only accessible by water due to the large mountains behind. We certainly had a shock when we arrived here as the ferry stopped a while away from the shore and we had to jump down into a long tail boat (pictured) with our big bags and take that to the shore. We had an even bigger shock however when we got off the boat as we spotted a couple we had been traveling with throughout Laos were there sunning themselves!! It was so strange that they were there as they were actually staying at Ao-Nang, which is a beach resort 10 minutes away and had just visited Railay for the day! We agreed to meet them in Ao Nang the following day and went to find ourselves a room to stay in. We walked to Railay East, which is in the mountains and stayed in a very nice hotel with great views.
On our first full day here we went to Tonsai Beach which is a small bay close to Railay. We decided to walk here and had to tackle some pretty tough terrain to get there! Ropes were even put in place along the trail up the mountains as it was very steep to climb. On the walk we saw lots of monkeys swinging from the trees, which was amazing! That evening we took a long tail boat to Ao Nang and met up with Mandy and Don. The next day we spent relaxing on the beach in the morning before taking a Thai cooking class in the afternoon. We had a lovely teacher who taught us how to make spring rolls, a Thai soup, Thai green curry, pad thai and bananas in coconut milk, which were all delicious! We hope to be able to cook up some treats when we return. That evening as we were walking home with some drinks and snacks that we had bought we passed some more monkeys. We put the shopping bag down to take some photos and a pesky monkey ran off with the bag!! He took out my ice tea and ran off up the tree with it before realising he couldn't eat it and dropping it on the floor again - it was very funny. On our final day in Railay we hired a kayak and explored the local waters. We didn't realise quite how hard it would be to kayak in the sea, especially with the boats making big waves but it was still fun nonetheless. Railay had the most beautiful sunset we'd ever seen and in the evening everyone sat on the beach with a drink to watch it, which we enjoyed 3 nights out of the 4 we were here. On our final night we went back to Ao Nang to pick up some last minute cheap purchases (flip flops, sunglasses, bags etc) before Sydney as we knew it would be very expensive there. We had a lovely dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant to celebrate our time in Asia.
The next day we flew from Krabi to Singapore, where we spent one night. Singapore was nice but very expensive; we went out for an Indian and it cost us 60 pounds!! As we didn't have much time to spend here we didn't see too much but managed to squeeze in a trip on the Singapore Flyer, which is like the London Eye and had a great bird's eye view of the wonderful skyline. We then had to quickly take a train back to the airport to catch our flight to Sydney, which is where we are now!! We had a great flight out here especially as one of the air stewards took a fancy to Sam and constantly bought us drinks, sweets, chocolate and even one of the fancy headsets for the tv that they use in first class!!
We arrived in Sydney at 6.30am on Friday 18th March. We're staying at a hostel in a bedroom with 10 other people all in bunk beds!! Sydney's great and we both feel instantly at home here, the only downsize is the price, it's soo expensive. A bottle of water is between $2-$3 and a skooner (not even a pint) of beer is $6-$7. We're currently trying to find somewhere to live, which is proving rather difficult but we will persevere!! Sam has a job as a water cooler salesman and I'm still looking but have signed up to a couple of recruitment agencies so hopefully that will help me. So far we haven't done much sightseeing but the city is beautiful and we did take a walk up to Sydney Harbour and saw the opera house and bridge. We've also been to Bondi Beach, which was nice and had the biggest waves we've ever seen. We will do more sightseeing etc once we're settled in.
Once again we're really sorry it's taken so long to do this but we were just having too good a time in Thailand and then a bit of a stressful week in Sydney looking for jobs and a home!! We will keep you updated on the job and house front though. Lots of love to you all, Kirsty and Sam xxx
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