The boat arrived in at Donsak Pier after a very bumpy boat ride. We got straight into a minivan it had air con and was really comfy we thought 3 hours in this to Krabi we'll piss it! However, Thailand being Thailand we got told to get out the minivan and dropped off at a "bus station" on the side of the road were we were to wait for another bus. More and more people turned up after us and about an hour later a huge coach pulled up and we all piled on heading for Krabi. It was hot and sweaty and there was a looney thai sitting in front of me who was either drunk or smacked up and he kept falling off his seat and not even waking up when he smacked against the floor of the coach! ha!! A quick nap and around 2 hours later we arrived in Krabi. We had to get off and wait in another travel cafe type of place were buses came and picked people up to take them to different places. This was starting to get a bit annoying being dropped off and picked up a million times! But things could be worse!! After being squashed into a mini wan for just over half an hour we arrived at Good Will hotel in Ao Nang, Krabi. It was so different to Koh Phangan, we were staying on a long road that lead to Ao Nang beach which was really nice. Krabi isnt an island its on the west coast of Thailand with loads of island off it so it really quite touristy. Well were we were staying anyway! The scenery is really pretty though, there are hundreds of mountains around. That day I had a massive migraine so Matt went out exploring in Ao Nang for some lunch to avoid my moaning! Matt came back with 2 Big Mac meals for us mmm! We sat on our little balcony and chilled out for the rest of the day before heading out for some tea.

Ao Nang reminded us of a place people would come for a two week holiday. There were nice hotels along the road and hundreds of bars and restaurants along the beach a bit like you'd find in Spain or somewhere. We soon realised that this area had a huge Muslim community completely different tothe east side of the island. Our hotel was next to a mosque and 5 times a day they would play the Islamic call of prayer through speakers through the street. Even at 5 in the morning when the streets are dead and its pitch black - it was a bit creepy! It even woke Matty up - yes even woke matty up! ha The next 2 days we managed to get on the beach for an hour or 2 in the morning before the heavens opened and it poured down non stop for hours!

The next day we were planning on getting a long tail boat to the Hong Islands just opposite the beach but the weather was so bad we couldnt go! We had no choice but to stay in our hotel room and watch films! There were a few english movie channels so it wasnt too bad! We still didnt have a plan as to what we wanted to do after Krabi so we did some research and found out a little bit more about Koh Lanta and thought we'd stay there for a few nights. We booked our bus at reception for the next morning, it was only 2 hours away!

The next morning we checked out just before 10. Our ticket to Koh Lanta said our pick up was 10.00-10.30 but the bus driver decided to turn up at 9.30 and left at 9.45 and when he returned to pick us up shouted at us and told us we had it all wrong! He was muttering something in Thai under his breath probably "you stupid english b******s!" hahaha We tried to tell him our ticket said 10-10.30 but he was having none of it and chucked our bags in the van and slammed the doors after us. Lovely! He pissed us right off! Ten minutes later he dropped us all off at another travel cafe place where we showed him our ticket and starting arguing with him he looked at our ticket and soon shut up, mumbled something again in thai and stormed off! ha! The guy inside the cafe apologised to us and said it was his fault for telling us the wrong time, oh well! An hour later another mini van turned up and we all squahsed inside.

To get to Koh Lanta we had to cross 2 small rivers, where the vans drove onto big concrete slabs floating on the water with an engine on! They took us and a load of other vans and cars across the rivers. We reached the main Koh Lanta island around 1pm. Our driver dropped us off on the side of the roadand told us our hotel was "just up there" we didnt belive him as it looked like a dirt track leading to no where but we spotted a sign with our hotels name on it and headed up. Sure enough it was at the top of the gravel path and we looked around but couldnt see anyone. Someone shouted "Amy" from behind us and the owner Yuko showed us to our rooms. She told us that as it was quiet season there was no recptionist as it was not busy enough at the time. Yuko took us to our bungalow it was gorgeous. It was really modern and spotless and smelt sooo nice! She came into our room and told us about the island and were to go, she was really helpful and already we loved it. Her cat had followed her to our room and snook onto our bed making itself comfy haha! You could tell these wernt rabies cats they were really fluffy and fat! ha There was a pool right outside our door and it was so quiet and peaceful! We jumped straight in the pool and chatted to a german girl who was staying here and told us this was the first sunny day they had had on the island for a few days. We made the most of it and sunbathed for a few hours before the rain started to poor! It didnt stop for 3 days! It was terrential rain constantly but we couldnt have been in a better place to sit out the rain. We had Thailands version of Sky and there was a dvd box in reception with about 50 dvds inside which we could rent for free. So on the way back from getting tea at the thai restaurant on the main road we got 'The Beach' 'just go with it' and the The Muppets! - which I watched while Matt watched the Liverpool game on the laptop. It was quite nice to just relax and watch some films with a few beers while it poured down outside!

We wanted to do a cooking class while we were in thailand and we thought while the weather wasnt too good this was probably the best time to do it. We went and asked Yuko to book it for us and she told us about the 2 cooking schools on the island. Again she was really helpful and told us loads about each of them. Time for Lime was one of the more popular cooking schools which we had heard about but we didnt know that all the profits made are donated to an Animal Welfare clinic next to the school to help keep it running. Yuko told us that she had recieved an email from them to say that any volunteers who helped out at the centre would get there cooking class for free and she had seen me playing with the cats and thought we might be interested. We went and grabbed some lunch while we thought about it and looked at the menus for each of the schools. We decided on time for lime so we went back to get Yuko to book it for us. She told us that she had emailed them but they said you had to volunteer for a whole month - Matty wasnt too keen anyway he thought he might of caught rabies! ha Damn!!

Time for Lime was only a short drive down the road, they picked us up from our hotel around 3.30 and took us straight there. It's low season in Thailand at the moment so everywhere is pretty quiet. We thought there wouldnt be many people in our cooking group but when we turned up it was just us 2! One on one cooking class yess!! As we went in we were directed through the grounds, past their bungalows and through their kicthen and to a bar and restaunt at the end. The girl at the bar told us to take a seat and have a drink while we waited. So we sat outside just on the beach, it wasnt a very nice day but it was so relaxing here. After around half an hour a lady called us in (we think her name was mii or mui)! We sat down and she had a little tray of ingredients in front of us a basket full of thai ingredients and sauces. She introuduced herself and asked us to introduce ourselves(to each other), it was hilarious, Matty introduced himself "Hi everyone my names matt and i'm from England" haha!, and i did the same it was the most awkward thing!, as i think most of the time they have a big group doing these classes and they say the same things to everyone, so it sounded like she was reading from a script "Welcome everybody to time for lime" it was only the three of us! haha Anyway she went on to explain all the different aspects of thai cooking and what ingredients they use to combine the 'sweet, sour, and salty' elements in all thai cooking. We had a little snack to begin with that we put together ourslelves, it was an edible plant leaf, lime, ginger, red onion, chilli, dried shrimp, peanut and honey. You then wrap it up like a parcel and put it all in your mouth. It tasted amazing! After our little introduction we had a break and then went into the kicthen to start cooking. We were given a chopping board, a 'killer knife' , a tasting spoon, a sweat rag! ha and an apron we could keep! We first chopped up our ingredients to make our chilli paste ( we were making massaman curry - our fave) Obviously Matty was a wiz at chopping and was done in no time with small perfect chopped ingredients - mine however took a bit longer and my arms were aching already ha! We then put all the ingredients into the pestel and mortar (or pestal and water as i call it) and bashed all the ingredients together. Oh I forgot to add that before all this, mii had toasted a load of spices in a pan - like cinnamon, nutmeg etc, and bashed them into a powder before our ingredients. Mii told us that in Thailand men looking for a wife go into kicthens or were women are making food and listen for the sound in the pestel and mortar. If its the right sound they will make a good wife. When it was our go she told us we would both make good wives ha!

After the curry paste we made spring rolls and a spicy pumpkin soup. Mii asked if we were professional chefs (obviously because Matty was chopping away like a pro haha) he was looking at her while was chopping really fast "no, no we just like cooking" haha I was dying to tell her he was a chef! After we made these two dishes we sat down to eat them in their little restaurant. Mii also made a pickle - which you get in most thai restaurants and we've always wondered what it was. It was rice wine vinegar and water with cucumber, chilli and another thing I cant remember. But basically they use it as a condiment - a bit like my mum puts onions in vingar to have with our roast dinner! haha It was lovely. After our starters we were stuffed! It was time to make our Massaman and a glass noodle salad. Again we chopped up all our veggies for our massaman and Mii told us loads of information about thai food and how she grew up. She told us she loved western food, like pasta and pizza. In thailand their basil is really sweet and quite pungent, so their pasta's taste compltely different to normal, but she said a previous customer was going to send her some real basil that she can grow herself so that she can make real western pasta sauces haha! We were well underway cooking our curry, we added all the veggies and the chilli paste to a pan and then coconut milk, fish sauce, soy sauce and some other ingredients when boom!! Powercut, the wind and rain had proper kicked in so we spent the rest of the class cooking by candlelight! Mii said that our currys were the type of spiciness she would give to her 5 year old daughter and that we couldnt handle our spices like her! I thought mine was well spicy! ha! After we finished up cooking and made our noodle sald with prawns too, we sat down to eat again. There was an english family with young children who had come here for their tea too so it was nice and peaceful in the candlelight eating our tea that we had made! After our tea - like we needed anymore food, they brought out a chocolate dessert, a bit like a mousse but alot thicker and had sugared hazelnuts on top! We wer completely stuffed by now and it was time to head back to our room! Still in the dark we walked back to the front of the place were a man in a truck was waiting to give us a lift back. It was completely pitch black - quite scary! On the way home the lights in the street came on so we jumped out at the bottom of our road to get some supplies form the little local shop.

When we got back to our hotel, Yuko was standing outside with a candle and said that their electricity hadn't come back on. We told her the road lights were on and the businesses along the road had electricity so she got a bit worried. She gave us a candle and we headed back! We sat out on the patio for an hour or two until the ligths finally came back on. When they came on, they made a massive frog jump and it smashed straight into the pool! haha! On our last day the sun was out! We got straight into the pool and tried to top up our tans for a bit but again the rain came not long after and we headed back in! I went to the shop to get some milk for our new cereal we love and on the way back booked our boat for Phi Phi the next day.

7.30am the next morning our truck came to pick us up to take us to the pier for our boat. After picking up a few more people on the way we got to the pier just before 8. As soon as we stepped of the truck, a young thai lad in a liverpool hoody said "no boat to phi phi today" Noooooo!! It was raining and really windy but we didnt think it wouldnt go! Another thai man told us that the day before, a boat left phi phi heading for phuket and the waves were that high they swamped the boat, and cut it in half and the boat sunk! Everyone had to jump off and were stranded in the sea until local fishermen came and rescued them all! Luckily no one was hurt. We weren't too bothered after hearing that theres now way I'd want to get on a boat today anyway! ha We thought why bring us all to the pier just to say no couldnt they have just cancelled the taxi's?? Oh well! We managed to get another man to give us a lift back to escape cabins and he told us that if they had no room we could stay at his "familys" place hmm! ha Luckily Yuko was more than happy to let us stay for a bit longer. We even got our old room! Yay! Plus I got to play we the cats even more ha!! We went and got THE best breakfast while we waited for our room to be ready!

That day the rain didnt stop again, but we were so tired from being up early and not getting much sleep that we spent the daywatching films and napping! We went out in the evening for some tea, and remembered a local telling us that there was a party at his bar on that nite!, it was right next to the place we were eating it was really busy and had a band on which were really good bangin out all the classics and a few dodgy thai songs we got a few buckets and had a laugh we were quite made up that the boat didnt go in the mornin!. When we got back and thought it would be a good idea to go jumpin in the pool haha! before goin to sleep. The next day we said we would get a bike out whatever the weather! Luckily it was sunny! Yess! We rented a bike from Yuko with was a proper cool vespa looking thing! and we headed off around the island. As it was low season pretty much everywhere was pretty quiet but was quite nice to see as everywhere we'd been had pretty much been full of tourists . The roads were totally different to anywhere matty had drove there were pot holes you had to dodge regurely and some pretty steep hills. We stopped off at a restaurant on one of the highest points of the island for some lunch. The views were really nice we could see loads of different islands and boats coming in and out. After lunch we drove round for a bit longer before we ended up in a random thai village at the bottom of a hill - dead end. We had no choice but to turn around and go back the way we came. We passed through Old Lanta and the sea gypsy village. We had seen a sign for "cave this way" so we headed back for that to see what was down there. After a couple of minutes followuing the signs we came to a swamped dirt track and got the bike stuck in the mud! Uh Oh! Matty managed to pull it out and we arrived at a place in the middle of the jungle with 3 women sitting on a wooden balcony asking if we wanted to see the cave. They took us over to show us some pictures and told us it was 600 baht each to go inside. It was then that Matt said "aren't you scared of caves babe!" haha oh yeah! Im claustophobic and hate caves what was I thinking ha!! We thought we'd give it a miss and grabbed a bottle of water and headed back. On the way back we were driving along when we heard huge splatting sound coming from the side of the road. We thought it sounded like a dog messing around in the ditches but it was a ginormous Kimodo Dragon - Huge!! It was legging it along this ditch we both s*** ourselves haha! Luckily the roads were quiet as we ended up swerving on the other side of the road trying to dodge it!

We stopped off at the beach next to our hotel and chilled our for a few hours. The waves were huuuge!! On the way back Matt finally let me have a quick go of the bike, after nagging and nagging for weeks! Only down the road and back on a small residential road were there were no cars! ha We gave the bike back and got a quick shower before heading out for some tea for our last night in Koh Lanta (Fingers crossed the boat goes tommorow!)