Well we've been gone 9 months now, feels like we only left home yesterday!

Think ill start from the begining with this journal thing so here goes:

We left rainy Galway on the 9th of April, after a crazy weekend of goining away parties we were dropped off at Dublin airport by Linda and Fiona, we made a quick stop in Jennys house on route to say so long to all the Walshes! Rolled up at the sirport ata bout 2.00pm and said the last of out many goodbyes to Lin and Fi! Flew into Heathrow where we had a horrible 8 hour wait for our onnecting flight to Bangkok. Kevin of course was hungover as hell and Heathrow Airport is possibly the last place in the world you'd want to be with a hangover! Spent the 8 hours walkin around trying to keep ourselves awake, was tempted to go for the cure i was feeling so rought but Kevin was having none of it! Finally made our way to the boarding gate for our 12 hour flight to Bangkok which really wasn't as bad as we thought it would be given that the longest flight we'd been on before was a 5 hour flight to Cyprus which i thought was horrific at the time! The food was awful and the film that was on wasn't much better!!

Finally touched down in Thailand at about 4.00pm 10th April. Bangkok Airport is an experience in itself!! We didnt have accom booked so went up to one of the desks in the arrivals to try sort something out. We only had about 15 hours in Bangkok before our flight to Chang Mai so we weren't too bothered about where our accom was - good job too because the Hotel the guy booked for us was miles from anywhere!! It did the job though so - had a shower bed and air con...all ya want after travelling for over 24 hours!! Food was a different story though...we tried this place right beside the Hotel and after pointing to pictures on the menu we were served up Rice, a Fried Egg and some Sweet Chilli Sauce...not exactly what we had poited to in the picture!! It filled a gap though! We made the phonecalls home to tell everyone we'd made it safely and all that jazz and the flopped into bed absolutley wrecked!!

We headed up to Chaing Mai the following day at about 12, boarded a poxy little plane similar to Irelands Aer Arann ones! Made it in one piece thankfully! Got to Chang Mai airport where we were met by Shane, we got our first tuk tuk ride into the city - it was mad great to finallydo it a fter hearing so much about it! We had arrived just at the start of "Sonkhran" a 4 day water festival to celebrate the Thai New Year it was crazy!!! People are just lining the streets with buckets of water soaking anyone that comes their way! The lads of course were right in the thick of it. Checked into the Hostel, got changed and met the rest of them in the pub to get stuck in!

It was unreal! There was a canal going through the city and each bar had a big huge basin outside that was dragged over and filled up with water from the canal and everyone would just fill their buckets from there and get stuck in! The water was horrible! We were glad we got the Typhoid shots before we left!!

So we spent the next 4 days with the lads enjoying the Songkhran with all the lads gettin intoxicated on Samsom mix - a poisenous mix of whiskey, coke and red bull, but its not the regular red bull its thai red bull which has horrible effects! So the days were spent the the Ba ba bar and we'd have to go to the night bazzarr (which was just a outdoor market type of thing where you get all the fake clothes and bags and all the other thailand souvenier tack!!) every evening for Kevin to get new flip flops...poor Kev wasnt havin much look with the whole flip flop thing....he couldnt find a comfortable pair for the life of him so he tried every different style going before he settled for a basic pair!! We couldnt keep up with the lads for much longer so we flew ot Surat Thani after 4 days to catch the ferry ot Koh Samui. Flights were expensive by thai standards because of the thai new year, i think they worked out at about 98 euro which we thought was great but apparently that was a rip off! With the lads being regulars to Thailand now they pretty much gave us an itenery for the 3 weeks on where to go and what to do etc!

Finally arrived in Koh Samui after another bad flight on one of the crap little planes, i had been dyin to get to the beach by then, Chaing Mai isnt much different to Bangkok - a big polluted city! We hopped in a tuk tuk to Chaweng beach and then had to search for a room or hut! Got a place above Burger King that did the job, was about 13 euro per night with air con and tv so i was happy out! We moved to a hut right on the beach for the rest of our time in Chaweng, it was lovely! Had dinner on the beach for Kevins birthday and i got a little cake from 7/11!

Headed to Koh Phanghan after about 5days and went straight for Coral Bungalows in Haad Rin. Some laugh there, it was full of travellers either goin to or coming from Australia so it was handy getting the do's and don'ts off everyone! We did a boat trip around the Island, went to the half moon party, pool party and beach party so were a bit burnt out after the week!! The full moon was comin up but we decided to skip it because accom was hard to find and id had enough buckets at that stage and there was way to many weird looking cats ariund or apt that were freakin me out!!

Next Stop was Koh Tao. kevin wanted to do his scuba diving course...i thought i did too but chickened out in the end!! On day 2 the rain came and didnt stop!!! Just poured down all day and night and the power was gone all over the island most nights so we left the day after Kevin finished his course. Got the ferry back to Surai Thani and a bus to Crabi where the weather wasnt much better, we hung around for 2 nights waiting for the weather to improve but it didnt! So back