Hello from Ko Samui,

Well as the title of the blog suggests we have spent the majority of the last 3 weeks on a beach which has been fab-u-lous!! We started our Asia travels in Singapore which was the most humid place I have ever been to. You sweat from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep and all of the time in between!! A very attractive image i know!! We loved Singapore though and up to yet it is my favourite city...it has lots to see and do and is cheap which is very welcome after 6 months of paying over the odds in Oz - we did go a bit mad with the shopping though so had to reign it in a bit!! Overall it is a very chic, clean and happening place with the highlights being....Marina Bay Hotel (Hotel with a boat on top..AMAZING BUILDING), Zoo night safari and more shopping centres than you can shake a stick at!!

Our next destination was Malaysia where we started off in Kuala Lumpur which was a bit of anticlimax after Singapore but still worth a look and then on to an Island on the North East Coast called Palau Penang which had amazing food, which we sampled alot of! We spent one night in the town and then two at the beach town called Batu Ferringue as we were a bit sick of city life by this point.As per the lonley planet guide which has become our bible whilst being away we visited a particular beach called Monkey Beach. This beach according to our bible was to be deserted of people, like paradise with a few monkeys here and there. When we arrived however it was a very different story, full of tourists (mainly women in burkas with their husbands in very unattractive two sets- see pics for evidence!!), a horribly littered beach and no monkeys (or so we thought). You can imagine our dissapointment and just to paint the scene we had walked for over an hour in incredibly high temperatures (sweating again!!) and through the most difficult terrain with a host of horrible creatures including a giant centipede, spiders and lizards. As we were leaving the beach we finally saw our monkeys, although our excitiment was short lived when we realiased they were in the process of chasing off a couple of tourists so that they could unzip the ladies handbag remove the towels and clothes at the top of the bag to find her purse which they then proceeded to run off with!! Unbelievable, still not sure if they had been trained to do this as they were so professional in their method!! Needless to say we would not recommend a visit to this beach!!Our disappointment was very soon turned in to elation as we made our way to the Perinthian Islands on the North West Coast of Malaysia which literally was paradise! No cars on the island, very little internet or electricity, crystal clear waters and soft sand. On the last night amazingly we bumped in to Johan, a swedish guy we had met in Byron Bay, so naturally we had a few drinks with him and his girlfiend which included us all being introduced to monkey juice a spirit only available of the island and highly intoxicating!!

Next stop Thailand, which started with a an 18 hour journey to Krabi (not as bad as it sounds as when we go to the hotal it had the England Game on!!) followed by the ferry to Ko Phi Phi which was a beautiful island where we watched some Thai Boxing with a lovely couple from the Czech Republic whom we had met on the ferry. Not sure it matched the Perenthians as it was quite commercial especially when making the trip to Maya Bay (where the film The Beach was filmed) as you have never seen so many boats and people in your life which did ruin it a bit but was a good experience nontheless, even if Dan did make me swim/walk across the water covered in rocks where we both cut ourselves numerous times to get a better picture!! - Dave Bailey or so he thinks!! I didnt moan though......well not much anyway!!!!

From Phi Phi we got the ferry and bus across country to Surat Thani where we intended to get the ferry across to ko Samui, but we had not done quite enough research and relied upon the info in our bible a bit too much i think and missed the last ferry. We therefore had to spend the night in Surat Thani which is by no means a commercial place and when the bible stated that the accomodation was that poor that you would wish you had caught the night ferry which takes 7 hours to do a 2 hour journey but was not running that night (typical) i was not looking forward to finding somewhere to stay for the night! However we stayed in an ok hotel which was clean enough but as you will see from the pic had a missing toilet which was a bit disturbing!!

We caught the early ferry to Ko Samui which brings us to the present day. We have spent the day on the beach again which was very welcome and we are just enjoying a few beers on the balcony overlooking the beach...bliss!! We have hired a moped for tomorrow to do some exploring before heading to Koh Phan-nang on Sunday ready for the full moon party which im expecting to be absolutely mental!!

Time is going so quickly now but all good things must come to end!

Miss you all lots xxxxxx