Day 5-7
Flew from Beijing to shanghai, then to Bangkok, and then straight onto Phuket. Phuket is a little island off the coast of Thailand. We spent a day and 2 nights in Phuket, I had stayed there before and didn't think it was as good as the smaller islands, and so only wanted to spend 2 nights there. Spent the day on the beach and while walking back to the hotel we were nearly decapitated by a rope attached to a parasailor (if that's even a word), who was being towed behind a boat. We heard the calls of "look out, look out" I looked up and saw a heavy duty rope coming towards us at great pace. I turned to Kelly to make sure she was safe…. and she was already half way up the beach….thanks very much. That evening we went out for dinner. I chose pad thai, and Kelly chose fish. She was asked by the waiter to go to the front of the restaurant and choose her fish, and she obliged. As she walked off, I wondered whether she had grasped the exchange rate yet…..yeah she will be okay. Being Thailand, everything is pretty cheap, and my pad thai was only 120baht, about 4 dollars. When Kelly returned she said that she had chosen white snapper and it was 750 baht "was that expensive"…..what 750 baht, that's 25 dollars, we're meant to be back packing. I sprinted up to the counter to cancel the order, but it was too late. Kelly's large fish would be here soon. 5 minutes later her hump back whale turned up, a huge piece of fish. Let's just say that we were both very full after that.
The next day we caught a ferry to Koh Phi Phi, a little island about an hour away. We arrived at 1030am, pretty tired and spent the day exploring the island. That evening we went for dinner and watched an amazing fire show, spinning flaming sticks and other pyro maniacal stunts

Day 8
We went on a lovely boat cruise that lasted the entire day. This included 4 stops for snorkelling, visiting maya bay (where the beach is filmed), and multiple other beaches. It was at bamboo beach that I proposed to Kelly and luckily, she said yes, I didn't have a ring, and so fashioned a band out of an old bit of twig I found on the beach….what a romantic. There were lots of benches where people had inscribed/scratched their names into them, and so we decided to remember the day with a carving of K + T. We were both very happy, and a little sun burnt by the end of the trip, but it was a great day.

Day 9
It thunderstormed most of the night and the following day was pretty overcast. We spent the day reading and taking it easy, not a particularly sunny day, but not too bad. That evening it poured down again, and we went to dinner wearing our "Super cool" white plastic rain ponchos. On the way back, we were stopped by loads of backpackers, asking us where we got them….preparation my friends….preparation.

Day 10
Spent the day sun bathing and investigating where I would be able to watch the Haye vs Klitschko fight at 4am. I found out that it would be on one of the channels in our hotel room. 4am, I wake up and search the tv channels. Is it on there?? Is it b******s. Panic sets in and I try to find a live streaming video of the fight online on our laptop….but the hotel connection is too slow. Its all going wrong. I admitted defeat and decided I would ignore the news and try and watch a replay of it at some point in the next day or so.

Day 11
We got a 2 hour ferry to Krabi and then a 3.5hour coach journey across land and then another 1.5hour ferry, and we finally arrived in Koh Phanang. We got to our hotel, and it was really nice. We had dinner and played a little bit of table tennis, as I hit a cross court forehand smash at Kelly, much like my lookalike Djokovic, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the Haye fight was on…Get in!!! 5 beers later and Klitschko has beaten him. Not a great fight, but definitely worth watching.

Day 12
We hired a scooter and went to buy some fruit and a load of water, to keep in the hotel room. We haven't been eating as healthily as we had liked and thought fruit was a good idea. We then spent the rest of the day in the sun and lounging by the pool, which was 3 ft from the beach…not bad. Back to the room and rugby league storm v tigers game is on tv, nice. Went out on the scooter to get some dinner in a nearby town, but the restaurant was basically in a jungle/mosquito nest and we decided to go back to the hotel to eat. Quite a dodgy journey on the way back, on a poorly lit road on a scooter that had seen its best days. Our average speed was about 20kmph, i wasnt going to take any risks

Day 13

After breakfast we jumped on the scooter and decided to drive around the island and to some recommended beaches. Absolutely boiling hot, but with the cool breeze of the drive it was a nice little adventure. We got lost a couple of times but had a map to work things out. We found a lovely little beach in a bay to the north, where the water was like a hot bath. The water was beautiful and there were lots of different fishes and sea cucumbers. Kelly sat down and shrieked when she felt a seas cucumber under her, it was very funny. After wallowing like a couple of hippos we grabbed a bit of lunch and were on our way again. We finally buzzed back to the hotel by 430, a few lengths and then a shower, and we relaxed before dinner. The nightimes have been fine, except at certain points of the night, when the Blair witch waits outside our room groaning. I think it's a gecko, or the weird little thai fella that insists on running across the restaurant to serve us and greeting us with good morning(when its night) and how are you tomorrow? The noises are a weird groan, a mix between a fox and a frog. Actually quite scary.

Day 14

We didn't do a great deal today. Sunbathing by the pool and a walk along the beach. I was reading my book and I glanced to my right across the pool at a bloke splashing with his girlfriend. From a distance, I tried to focus on his face, but it was difficult in the beaming sun. After a couple of seconds realised that it was my podiatrist, who had sorted me out with my insoles for my genetically inherited monstrous feet and ankles. He was referred to me from a friend at work, and had done a good job. I walked across to say hello and invited him to watch the state of origin final game this evening. At 5pm we got a taxi to a bar and watched QLD batter NSW in an entertaining game. I came home, met Kelly and got a nice bit of dinner. Dinner was entertaining, when a gecko crawled onto kellys hand while she was talking and she nearly knocked the candle over setting fire to 80 people and the hotel. Our 3 days in this hotel have been great. It's a really nice hotel, and the staff and food and rooms have been top class. The only down side is, we are right next to the hotel bar, which is a bit noisy if we go to bed early and our bathroom has concrete slits/gaps for air/windows. This means that we are visited at least twice a day by large millipedes that hang out in our bathroom, and occasionally creep into our room…not great. Tonight when we returned from dinner, we found, what can only be described as a wolf-man-spider in our bathroom. Huge , about 6inches by 6inches. It was massive and was incredibly quick, and jumped…..terrifying. Kelly pushed me into the bathroom and then proceeded to close the door behind me. Now im not a hero, and am naturally a coward at heart, and I was overcome with fear. Using the tools to hand (mozzy spray, a sandal, soap and the shower hose) I annihilated the intruder and exited the colosseum. I was met by a squealing Kelly standing on the bed, "Is it dead…..is it dead?" Theres no lock on the outside of the bathroom, luckily, or I think she might have locked us both in there.

Day 15

After breakfast, Kelly and I went on a Thai cooking course. It was great fun. We were given a huge choice of dishes and we decided to cook spring rolls, pad Thai and massaman curry. We were both pretty good and the food was great, although there was far too much, and we were both very full at the end of it. Back to the hotel and more sunbathing.

Day 16

We caught another ferry to Koh Samui and jumped into a taxi across the island. The hotel was really nice and we immediately confirmed with the hotel that we would like to book our final 3 days. We spent the afternoon exploring the local streets and having a look around. That evening we went for dinner at a local Thai restaurant, and had spring rolls, pad Thai and a drink each for $4 each…not bad. We then walked down to the beach where there was a beach party. This turned out to be amazing, with a live DJ and fire show. The fire show was incredibly dangerous, with guys spinning flaming staffs and catching flaming bottles of petrol. At the end of the night, they had a limbo competition, which Kelly took part in. She did really well getting down to the last 5 out of about 50. They then took the competition up a notch by setting the limbo bar alight…still Kelly didn't pull out, shes mental!! Once again she limbo'd under the flaming bar. We met a nice german couple and spent the night chatting with them while knocking back the famous Thai cocktail buckets.

Day 17-20

Spent the days sunbathing. Nothing particularly interesting happened. Although Kelly was suffering from a hangover…haha.

Day 21

We got up at the crack of dawn to get a taxi to Koh Samui airport and a flight back to Bangkok. We got into Bangkok airport at 1030am and got a taxi straight to the hotel. We dumped our stuff and walked out of the hotel to find a taxi or tuktuk to take us to a massive shopping centre. We haggled with a tuktuk driver and agreed a price to take us to the shopping centre. A tuktuk is a southeast Asian taxi/motorbike. Its basically an old motorbike engine, probably 100cc or so with a square cab attached to the back for you to sit in…..oh and the drivers are mental….all of them. We were flying around Bangkok city with a mentalist at the wheel. Ive been in these death traps before but Kelly hadn't, so I was interested to see how she got on. Kelly, being the thrill seeking adrenaline junkie she is, was loving it. Nutter!! When we got to the shopping centre we had to find a tailor to make me a suit for Kelly's brother's wedding. This wasn't going to be hard, as they are everywhere and virtually get you in an arm lock and pull you into their store. We found one and agreed to pay him 6500 baht for a tailored suit, shirt and tie. 6500 is about $196 or 130 pounds. Which is not bad. The problem was the collection and fitting of the suit. We were only in BK for 1 day, and then we were off on a 30 day tour of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. When we finish the tour we will return to BK for half a day before flying to London. The problem was getting measured, paying and then the tailor would have to store the suit for a month until we picked it up. I bought a suit 7 years ago from Thailand and was also in a rush and never fully tried it on. When I got back to the UK, I opened the suit to find a 1980s style black power suit with massive shoulder pads. Awful. I think I wore it once. The tailor told us that I would have to come back in 6 hours for the fitting. That meant hanging around in a shopping centre for 6 hours, which is hell!! We bought a small knife for peeling fruit, some swimming shorts….which I should probably explain the reasoning for the purchase. Kelly does a lot of my clothes shopping because she has better taste in clothes than me (My friend Reece thinks that my taste in clothes is decidedly average, especially my love of yellow tshirts), and because I don't have the patience. Kelly bought me some swimming shorts or boardies as the Sydney dwelling ex-cons call them. The first time I wore the shorts was in the sea, in Phi Phi. They had blue and white horizontal stripes and were quite fetching. The problem lay in the fact that when they were wet, the white area of the shorts became….see through…totally transparent, ergo everyone on the beach could see my gentlemans area…..Nightmare. As I was leaving the water I noticed this and instant panic set in. Quick thinking, I managed to "move some things around" and do some damage limitation. Not wanting to spend money on a new pair of shorts, that I probably wouldn't use again for a while, I spent the next 3 days walking sideways like a crab when I left the pool, so that I was charged with indecent exposure. The trick was to get out of the water and onto the sunlounger as quickly as possible and the shorts would dry within a minute. Anyway, we bought the shorts. We also bought a sarong for Kelly and some books for the travelling. That wasted an hour…only another 5 to go….argghghghgh. We got through it and rushed back to the hotel after the fitting to meet our guide and group for our tour. There was a group of 15 and a yank guide from Alabama. That evening we went out for dinner in BK and went to bed early as we had to be up early to catch a bus to the Cambodian border.