Hi everyone,

We joined our group in Bangkok on 21st to start our Malay Basix trip. There are 16 of us in total and our leader Lyn is from Malaysia. Everyone is really nice so we have been lucky as we all spend alot of time together.

The first part of the journey was an overnight train to Surat Thani and then a mini bus to the Kao Sok National Park, which is supposed to be older than the Amazon rain forest. On the first day we went tubing (which was basically sitting in an inner tube of a tractor and floating down a river) so not as extreme as it sounds. It was really relaxing and we saw wild monkeys jumping into the river and a large black and yellow snake up in the trees. After we went to a monkey temple where we were able to feed bananas to the monkeys. We were holding onto the bananas and having a tug of war with the monkeys.

The next day we went for a walk into the National Park. It was raining and there were leaches everywhere. Everyone kept stoping for leach checks and Michelle had to keep flicking them off her trainers. It would have been better in the dry season as most parts were shut due to the weather.

24th August

We set of for Krabi which was a 3hour mini bus ride. Yesterday we went on a boat trip to visit the different islands around Krabi. We were last to get on the speed boat so ended up sitting at the front of the boat, which turned out to be the best seats on the boat because we got the sun and a white knuckle ride everytime we went over a wave. The first stop was an open sea snorkelling area where we saw lots of pretty fish. Michelle thought she would be scared but had a great time floating in her life jacket looking at the fish until the water went in her snorkel and she breathed it all in! After this we went to Koh Phi Phi and stopped at Maya Bay which is where 'The Beach' movie was filmed. It was packed with tourists but was very pretty all the same.

We stopped for lunch at Tonsai Bay and then moved onto Bamboo island which was hit quite badly in the Tusnami so there is now very little Bamboo left. Here we did more snorkelling but this time there was lots of coral and poisonous sea urchins. We were given bread to feed the fish and they were all around us in the water - which you can just about see in the pictures we took.

In Koh Samui we were introduced to Swensons (an American ice cream parlour) which we are now addicted to so we have been going on and on about it to our group so this afternoon we are all meeting up to go for icecream as we have a free day today.

Today is our last day in Thailand as tomorrow we are setting off for Penang in Malaysia which is going to be a 9 hour mini-bus journey.

We will be in touch again soon xxx