Hey everybody.

Writing to you from the beautiful island of Koh tao situated in the gulf of Thailand. I'll speak more about it later as we have some back tracking to do.

After our trek we spent a day recovering in chiang-mai and decided to get the train this time to a city half of the way to bangkok call Phitsanoluk. (i think the spelling is correct). What a difference!!! We were nearly the only tourists there and were given the most weird looks by every thai person there. This was a very thai town and to be honest we didn't really enjoy our time there. However it was interesting to see real thai life as opposed to the streets of kho san road and chang mai. The real reason of being here was to visit the neighbouring ancient city of Sukkothai. Being the first capital of the Thailand Kingdom I (stu) was really interested to visit here and get a history lesson. Id promised Lauren we'd then go straight to the beach.

Like everything in Thailand it was a bit of con!! Although beautiful and very authentic looking, the majority of the park was reconstructed in the 70s. Personally I was dissapointed as I was expecting more, and because of the amount of money we'd spent getting there, but Lauren enjoyed it because she wasn't expecting much. It was so hot, and the done thing was to hire bikes which you are pretty much forced to do upon arrival, to then reach the entrance gates and pay another 100Baht to take the bike on site! The thais have it sussed Im telling you!!

One bus ride; a 2 night stay in bangkok (to sort out our transport to koh tao) another bus trip and a ferry crossing and we eventually arrived on the paradistic island!! As we approached I felt like we were on a film (james bond films, jurassic park thoughts will set the scene). Being whipped straight away to a posh dive resort, we used it as a free ride to the main town. One of the few victorys against the money-making thais.

We found a lovely place called lotus resort with beach bungalows little more than 50m to the most amazing beach we'd ever seen. The beach has perfect white sand and crystal clear water. you can see small tropical fish just swimming round by your feet. This place is amazing!! At night we had a lovers drink and watched the sunset go down and then ate on the beach. I dont know what but I managed to eat something funny- allergic reaction time which almost spoilt the evening as I darted back to the cabin to get my tablets. Nice one stu! It was a shame because both our meals were gorgeous. Red snapper and blue marin steak barbecued with special thai sauce. best meal since cabbages and condoms, except it made me blow up! The next day we spent lounging on the beach sipping cokes in the bars and swimming in the sea. Not sure what we ate that night but next day it all went wrong again! For the both of us. First Lauren was sick, 4 hours later it was my turn and we spent the entire day nursing each other in the cabin. Not the greatest day its to be said. Today Lauren is fine, im still a little ill but on the mend. I hope. So taking the time to write to all of you and fill you in and make you jealous. Hope you are all more well than us and you'll hear from us soon. Will attempt some photos but internet is crazy slow here so dont be confident.

Lots of Love from beautiful Koh Tao

Stu and Lauren xx