Fare thee well, Thailand

Hello once again, my friends, relatives and other correspondees.

Well, I've finally said my goodbyes to Thailand. I've left behind the land of Tuk-Tuks, Sang Som, Sawasdee and smiles, and am now in Cambodia. I'd probably have written sooner, but Ko Chang is another one of those places where internet is oh so much more expensive than it really ought to be.

Before that, of course, I was back in Bangkok, where I spent a couple of days shopping for supplies (there are more and better pharmacies etc in Bangkok, plus the farang-oriented tourist markets actually have sandals in my size) and watching football at a couple of the fake British or Irish pubs which infest the Sukhumvit area, where I was staying this time. One of these (the Londoner) was actually a brewpub as well, so I got the joys of a drinkable pint of bitter (which obviously put me in hog heaven).

That took care of the weekend, before on Monday I finally made the side-trip I'd been planning to Kanchanaburi. However, due to circumstances beyond my control (non-existent river express service in the morning, train delayed for public holiday in the afternoon), I didn't actually make either the trip there or back on the train as I'd planned to, instead getting rather better acquainted with Bangkok's southern bus terminal than I'd planned. Being Bangkok, this is naturally in the west of the city.

Whilst there, though, I looked around the Allied war cemetery and the Thai-Burma Railway Museum as, for those who haven't gathered it already, Kanchanaburi is the site of the famous Bridge on the River Kwai, part of the WWII Thai-Burma Rail Link, better known to the world as the Death Railway. Something like 16,000 Allied PoWs (mostly British, Dutch and Australian) died in making the railway, but it was only with this visit that I became properly aware that well over 50,000 Asians, mostly indentured workers (ie pretty much slaves), also died in its construction. Nobody actually knows the precise numbers, though, since the Japanese didn't bother keeping records of how many died (as they were forced to for PoWs by the Geneva Conventions).

Lightening the mood somewhat, though, was the discovery that the Bridge on the River Kwai wasn't actually on the River Kwai (or Khwae, as it's usually spelt in Thailand). The guy who wrote the book didn't realise this, but it actually ran for a long way alongside the Khwae, but the bridge in question crossed the River Khung. This wasn't an issue until the film became so successful and tourists wanted to see it. At this point, the Thais then had a problem - how to deal with this without confusing all the poor farang visitors. In true Thai style, they decided that the easy way around this was just to rename the river - so that section of the Khung was renamed the Mae Nam Khwae Yai (or Big Kwai River), meaning that the bridge now did indeed cross over a river Kwai.

So now the tourists can scramble all over the railway bridge there, getting out of the way whenever one of the occasional trains comes along (this isn't quite as daft as it sounds, given that there is a 10km/h speed limit over the bridge). Which many of them were doing. I didn't go all the way across, but did have a bit of a wander out on the bridge. It being a public holiday, there was a little tourist train running across the bridge, which was why the scheduled train was so late that I eventually decided to go get another bus.

On arrival back into Bangkok, later than I'd expected, I then faced the challenge of getting over to Khao San Rd, where I was due to meet up with Elin, the Swedish girl with whom I had had a slightly surreal drinking session my previous time in Thailand's crazy capital. Unfortunately, the bus station was mostly populated by taxi-drivers of the more mercenary persuasion, most of whom refused to turn on the meter and kept trying to get me to pay 250 Baht or more for a quick trip of a few km across the river. After about 10 minutes, though, I finally found a guy who was happy to do his job properly and use the meter (which meant the trip cost me 60 Baht, as it should), and hence was only about 15 minutes late.

Luckily, Elin hadn't upped and left, so I had my planned reunion, which ended up turning into another impromptu drinking session courtesy of friends Elin had made, namely two Irish girls she'd met in Bangkok and two German girls who'd been on her dive course on Ko Tao. Obviously, I was deeply distressed to have to go out drinking with five young ladies, so it wasn't any real surprise that I didn't make it onto the bus I had planned to get the next morning, and ended up staying an extra day in BKK. It also wasn't any particular surprise that I didn't drink at all on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, though, I did make it to my bus (the Eastern bus station being luckily only a few Skytrain stops from my hostel, saving me any more taxi-related grief), and headed down to the little port of Laem Ngop, where I caught the ferry over to Ko Chang. There, I decided to sod being different, and caught the sawngthaew down to the island's main backpacker community of Lonely Beach. Though, as locals and guidebooks point out incessantly, it's not particularly lonely these days - Ko Chang is having something of a tourist boom at the moment, so there are guesthouses everywhere.

At any rate, I had a pleasant couple of days down on the island, split between lazing on the beach reading books, eating and drinking good food at a restaurant/bar and guesthouse called the TreeHouse and (on Friday) taking a snorkelling trip out to some of the other islands just south of Ko Chang. And, once again in typical style, I ended up on a big night out, having met some fun people, the night before I needed to leave. Such that my travels on Saturday, back to the mainland and over the border into Cambodia, were not as comfortable as they might have been. That night, I stayed in the little town of Ko Kong, where I ended up eating and sampling Cambodian beer in a little ex-pat bar called Bob's, where I met an assortment of the local characters, led by Bob himself, a garrulous old Aussie, and including Percy (a 73-year-old, foul-mouthed old merchant sailor from England, with a collection of anecdotes that would make your toes curl). Astonishingly, the fish there was Barramundi, which I had hitherto believed indigenous to Australia, but apparently they grow in the rivers here as well.

Then today I have caught the boat down the coast to Sihanoukville, Cambodia's main port and beach resort, where I have acquainted myself with the joys of being transported, along with my pack and daypack, on the back of a motorbike, and vegged out by the sea. So another couple of days' beach-time beckon, with a brief interlude tomorrow where I need to pop into town and get my Vietnamese visa.

And that's the lot for the moment. Apologies this has turned into one of my epic compositions. Hope you are all well, wherever you are!

Take care and have fun,

Pat

One of those days...

Hello again,

Occasionally, just occasionally, when travelling, I have the odd day when I wonder why I am doing this. When the Gods appear hell-bent on making my life unpleasant, and when what can go wrong, will. It's never as bad as it seems at the time, but it can send my (normally pretty low on the road) stress levels back to what they were when I was working and more.

As those who were nattering with me on MSN yesterday may have gathered, yesterday was one of those days. Quick (well, quick for me) summation follows.

'Mare yesterday involved:

1) Being misled by the guy who sold me a ticket from Don Dhet (island in the middle of nowhere - well, actually the middle of the Mekhong in the 4,000 Islands but at times might as well be nowhere) to Pakxe, such that I was waiting around for an hour and a half in Nakasang (the local port town) for my ride north to Pakxe to depart.

2) Said transport being a sawngthaew (converted pickup/van, with two bench seats facing each other in the back and, in this one, another bench inbetween - suffice to say, even for a Thai, that would be cramped). I did know this, but had not fully comprehended the horror of being in said vehicle for around an hour and a half waiting (yes, I could have got out, but laboured under the misapprehension that we would be leaving at any minute), plus at least two hours on the road. Hard seats, little or no space, chickens on (initially) the back platform (before they were transferred to the roof), being offered fried-grasshopper-on-a-stick by vendors when we paused at one place, etc etc. An experience I could happily forego repeating.

3) When crossing the border from Laos to Thailand (on, admittedly, quite a nice bus) there wasn't a bank/exchange booth (unlike the crossing I made up north), meaning I had no alternative but to get scalped by the bloody bus driver for changing my last Kip (the Kip, bless its little, cotton, undervalued socks, is utterly unexchangeable anywhere outside the Lao People's Democratic Republic)

4) Arriving at Ubon Ratchathani (the terminus of the Northeastern railway line in Thailand), making another sawngthaew ride (happily a rather briefer one) down to the train station to discover that all sleeper berths that night were sold out (there had been almost a full train available when I checked a few days earlier before going into the near-internet-free-zone that is Si Phan Don, the 4,000 Islands). All second class seats that night were sold out. The only thing available on the trains that night was 3rd class seats. Deciding that my bum couldn't handle this (11 hours or so on a hard wooden bench, no air con, and the prospect of screaming Thai kids or, if my current luck held, maybe more chickens?), and that I have about a day's slack time, I enquire about trains the next day (today). No second class seats until the evening trains. Luckily, a couple of sleeping berths, one of which I get.

5) Walk away from the ticket office, and suddenly realise I could probably have got a bus in the morning. Curse inwardly.

6) Realise that I've just landed myself a day (and a night) in one of the least-touristy, so least-English-speaking, parts of Thailand. And the train station is out of the centre of town. Helpful lady at the info desk provides me with a map. I head off to try and find a guesthouse.

7) Map is not terribly useful. Almost no street names on it. Not to scale. Of people I meet, they either a) can't speak English or b) have no idea where we are on the map.

8) Realise that I am, in fact, lost, after dark, in a city where apparently nobody speaks English.

This would be pretty much the nadir of my evening, before a nice old Thai gentleman (who has to get out his glasses to find that he can't tell where I am on the map either) is able to get me going in the right direction. The reason for this, not terribly reassuringly, is that I am asking for directions to the River Moon guesthouse, and it turns out this is the ONLY guesthouse in town. Hence, by asking for the GESS-ah-touse (the joys of Thai pronunciation of English - you cannot pronounce two consonants together without an intervening vowel), I find my way there.

The lady out front speaks English. It's cheap (cheapest place I've stayed in Thailand). These are the good points. The principle bad point is the bathroom. It's shared, and the worst I've had in Asia. The cockroaches are only a minor nuisance. We are down south of the river, actually in a satellite town of Ubon whose name I can't ever write down properly, and there is nowhere I can find that is open to sell food except a 7-11. I eat a 7-11 hotdog and some kind of horrific facsimile of a "chicken" sandwich (after the lovely baguettes in Laos, Thai over-sweet bread is a horrible shock to the system) for my dinner.

Looking back today, it's already starting to look more like another dumb anecdote of the trip. At the time, it was taxing, stressful, upsetting and (the early bits) seriously bloody uncomfortable.

In any case, prior to that I had a very quiet, chilled-out, peaceful few days down in Si Phan Don, which revolved mostly around lying in a hammock, trying not to get sunburnt whilst reading trashy paperback novels (finally, a situation where a Dan Brown novel actually qualifies as being more useful than a roll of toilet paper), chowing down on Lao food and Beer Lao in the evenings (for the few hours that the power is on), meeting more new acquaintances (I would call them friends, but we never really got time to talk for long enough, such that I don't even have any e-mail addresses from there). One day I actually got all enthusiastic and energetic and hired a bike, to ride over the old French railway bridge to one of the other islands and look at some waterfalls.

As you can see, not the most event-strewn section of my trip, but really quite pleasant and relaxing (just in time for yesterday to go and undo all that good work at chilling out...). Oh, and I saw some ancient ruins called Wat Phou on the way down there, which were quite impressive, if rendered a little harder to enjoy properly by the scalding heat. Did I mention the weather's been absolutely scorching recently?

So, now I burn yet more time on the net whilst waiting for my train, trying not to be deafened by the sounds of the local kids playing online games around me (yes, it's one of THAT kind of internet cafe, rather than one that charges you a fortune for the herculean task of burning a CD and features Israelis loudly arguing with the owner about how it ought to be cheaper), and reflecting once again on how much better it would have been for me if I'd followed my resolution to learn more than the most very basic of Thai (things like "How to ask for directions", for example...).

A few more days of lunacy in and around Bangkok beckon, before I head down for a last dose of the Thai islands on (probably) Ko Chang, and then head on into Cambodia.

Hope all is well with all of you (those I haven't been bending the cyber-ear of on MSN). Take care and have fun,

Pat

Taking the slow boat...

Hello again, my many and various friends and other readers!

I've swapped countries again, and now write to you from the Lao People's Democratic Republic, commonly known as Laos (pronounced with a silent 's'), or amongst some backpackers as Laos, Please Don't Rush. Yes, if Thailand can occasionally seem like it's operating on a different time system, and Fiji frequently so, Laos apparently takes this to whole new levels. I've only been in the country a couple of days, so haven't seen enough to judge, but it seems plausible.

Those couple of days basically encompassed the trip down the Mekhong river from Huay Xai (where I crossed the border, which at that point is the river, from Chiang Khong in Thailand) to Luang Phabang. The last day or so in Chiang Mai I spent doing some cookery classes (yes, I now know how to make Thai curries properly, woohoo!) and occasionally wandering around the markets. I didn't do the Hill-Tribe trekking in the end, partly from time constraints, partly because I don't have shoes any more and didn't think my sandals were really up to that much walking, and partly because the weather forecasts were universally iffy (although, it turned out, mostly wrong).

I also kept up my usual record of having one of my best nights out in any particular place on the night before I have to leave - I'd got all my stuff packed up, and popped down one of the local bars that I'd earlier seen advertising live music that evening, just to listen to a band for a bit, got invited over by a girl whose birthday it was to have a a drink with the group she was with, and ended up out in a place glorying in the name of "Spicy" until around 3 in the morning. Subsequently, I didn't get up and check out quite as early as I'd planned, meaning that when I got to the bus station all the early buses were booked up and I couldn't get on one until lunchtime, meaning that (when I'd made my way across northern Thailand to the border), I arrived just too late to get across to Huay Xai that night. Which was a slight problem as I was on the last day on my visa. Meaning I got a 500 Baht fine (about 7 quid or so) for overstaying by a day when I crossed the next morning. Ah well, that'll teach me to go out drinking the night before leaving somewhere. Actually, who am I kidding, it blatantly won't...

For the trip down the Mekhong, I took the advice of people everywhere (apart from a few demented petrolheads) and forewent the joys of the ultra-fast and ultra-dangerous speedboats for the pleasures of the slow boat. This takes two days going down the great river, serving as a bus service for some of the local villages by the river as well as carrying hordes of backpackers, which meant it had the unintended pleasant consequence of providing a whole new bunch of people to get to know, something that Thailand's guesthouse-based scene (as opposed to the hostels I'm more used to) is not all that brilliant at. Hence, my travelling companions included the usual numberless host of fellow British, a stereotypically Irish lad called Liam who spent the best part of both days drinking lao-lao (the local rice moonshine, which smells like meths!), a couple of Dutch girls, a Swedish lad, a German-American girl called Jessie who'd been studying in China and a trio of French girls who gave me plenty of practice for my rusty francais.

The weather was mostly good (we went through occasional light squalls of rain, but there were always blue skies in sight a little further on), the boat was less hellish than some guidebooks lead you to believe (ie those on both days had seats, the second day they even had cushions, and the toilets, while less than pleasant, weren't the hole-in-the-deck variety that I'd halfways feared) and the company was pleasant, making the trip significantly more enjoyable than most of the buses I've taken recently. The overnight stop in Pakbeng was amusing, mostly because there wasn't a lot to do in the village other than have a few more beverages, so a lot of us got quite merry - for all that I regard lao-lao with deep wariness, I am already getting quite fond of Beer Lao, and the prices here compare VERY favourably with those in Thailand. The fact that we were there the night before a big Buddhist holiday also meant that all the local kids were running around throwing firecrackers everywhere, which was hard on the nerves at first (and not the nicest way to be awoken in the morning), but actually quite atmospheric.

So, now I'm in Luang Phabang, Laos' second city and former capital and, well, it's basically a very beautiful riverside town - the population's something like 20,000, so it's not exactly a teeming metropolis, which is great after the madness of Bangkok. Planning on staying here a couple more nights before I start heading on south through Laos, most likely staying at Vang Vieng before I get to the capital at Vientiane. All good fun.

Hope, as ever, that you are all well and enjoying yourselves wherever you are. Take care and have fun,

Pat

Crazy times in the City of Angels

Hello again,

Wow, I actually managed not to write any kind of mass-communication for a week or so whilst on the road. And, while a week may (as the saying goes) be a long time in politics, it seems like forever when you're travelling. In that week I have:

- ended up singing duets in a beach bar on Ko Phi Phi with a Swiss girl
- watched an awful lot of football
- had a distinctly unpleasant overnight bus journey from Surat Thani to Bangkok
- unknowingly had my spare credit card stolen in the course of said unpleasant journey
- praised various souls from my bank (for possibly the first time) for noticing some dodgy transactions coming up on said card and putting a freeze on it
- experienced the madness of Krungthep, the City of Angels (better known to most foreigners as Bangkok)
- specifically, experienced the madness of Khao San Rd, the beating heart of Bangkok's backpacker scene, albeit one with high blood-pressure that would need a defibrilator kept to hand
- got drunk and practised my German (again)
- had a very bizarre (and totally unplanned) evening out on the town in Bangkok in the company of a Swedish girl called Elin (and no, to those of you who will reply with the obvious questions, I didn't)
- contemplated buying a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "No, I don't want a f*%king Tuk-Tuk!"
- refused even to contemplate joining EVERY SINGLE OTHER backpacker in Thailand and getting a "Same Same But Different" T-shirt
- bought the cliched "flag-patches" for most of the countries I've been to to sew on my backpack
- realised that I've been to rather a lot of countries now and this is going to result in an annoyingly large amount of sewing to do
- marvelled at the comfort, price and service on the Thai State Railway compared to the nightmare that is the British train system (thanks a bloody million, Mr Major, you w*&ker)
- marvelled about the comfort, service and security on the Thai State Railway compared to the Thai Robber-Baron Backpacker Express VIP Bus Companies
- had a fascinating conversation over dinner with a Burmese gentleman on said train, which has convinced me I definitely want to see Myanmar/Burma, but not until those idiots who currently run the country are gone (amusingly, Burma's press is apparently not allowed to report on the coup in Thailand, as the Burmese junta is worried that the moderate way the Thai generals are going about things, and their credible timetable for putting things back in the hands of civilians, would make them look bad...)
- decided that Chiang Mai is a very nice place that I would like to spend more time in, then cursed that my Thai visa runs out on Thursday, so I do indeed have to go over the border into Laos pretty much straight away

And that's about where I'm at. Hopefully gonna do some kind of a cookery course while I'm here, just got to decide between the 3 million or so different schools (possible slight exaggeration there, but not by that much). Apart from that, gonna chill out and carry on with redecorating my backpack.

Hope you're all well! Take care and have fun,

Pat

Another new experience...

Hello again,

Well, I've done a fair few interesting things in my times on the road, but this would have to be the first time I've ever been in a country when it has experienced a coup d'etat. All a bit weird seeing the news from Bangkok last night, especially as, in true backpacker style, most of the farangs here were far more interested in dancing and getting drunk than what was going on (a lot of them didn't realise until today that anything had happened, and some of them still seem rather confused at the concept that the military's taken over the government).

This all made for rather a strange end to an awesome day, in which I gave in once again to my growing fondness for SCUBA. This was helped by absolutely perfect weather (bright sunshine, little to no swell, and great underwater visibility), and led to two of my more memorable dives, largely due to the fantastic marine life. We saw a couple of turtles, a leopard shark, three octopi, a moray eel, at least 3 reef sharks and, of course, shedloads of tropical fish and coral. What's more I didn't come close to panicking once, which is a healthy development.

I then had dinner at the remarkably cheesey "007" restaurant in town (no prizes for guessing the theme), where I watched the unbelievably cheesey film Stealth (this makes Top Gun look like an ultra-realistic docudrama) - as so often in Thailand, many of the cafes and restaurants show DVDs in the afternoon/evening as a way of drawing in the punters. The bars tend to have things like fire-shows (people swinging poi balls or staves with the ends set on fire) or muay thai boxing for the same purpose.

And that's pretty much the way life is here on Ko Phi Phi. People lounge on the beach by day, or dive, or do snorkelling trips (or cliff-jumping, for the clinically insane), then go out and party at night, and ignore most of what goes on back in the real world (apart from the sports). At any rate, it looks like I won't be going up to Bangkok this weekend as I'd planned - everything seems pretty close to under control at the moment, but I'm gonna give it a few more days before I run the gauntlet through the capital.

Hope all's well with all of you! Take care and have fun,

Pat

Which bit of "Monsoon" was I unsure about...?

Hey guys,

Just a quick note, as I'm having all kinds of fun looking up Visa requirements and the like.

I've now swapped coasts of Thailand, and gone from that facing the Gulf of Thailand to that looking out on the Andaman Sea. Specifically, I'm now in the port of Krabi, ready to go and explore the beautiful islands which lie offshore here. The only slight fly in the ointment is the weather - we're still in the tail-end of the SW Monsoon, and there's apparently a pesky typhoon hanging off the Philippines or something, so it swings from "hazy and quite pleasant" to "vertical torrential downpour" in a matter of minutes, on a semi-regular basis. Which makes planning things a little interesting, but I've decided just to bite the bullet, and head out to some of the smaller, close-in islands tomorrow on a daytrip. I'll probably head on to Ko Phi Phi the day after that (I toyed with the idea of going to Lanta, but there doesn't seem to be a huge heap to do there other than lie on the beach, which my normal inclinations and the climatic conditions render not ideal without a fall-back option).

In the meantime, I continue to struggle along, stumbling through a few (very basic) phrases of Thai and reverting to pidgin English at need. And smiling a lot. Smiling definitely earns brownie points over here. Any kind of signs of grumpiness doesn't. So I'm trying to work to my "If you can't affect it, then don't stress over it" ideal, and not get annoyed by any of the demonstrations of what I now instinctively think of as "Fiji-time". You never know, the UK might just get back a slightly more serene version of me in December. Or I might be a raving maniac by then...

Take care and have fun,

Pat

Lunar Lunacy

Sawat-dee, my friends, relatives and other random correspondees!

No mail for a few days, but I am now firmly ensconced in Thailand. Had a bit of a 'mare with the trip up here but all rather more chilled now.

I'm currently on Ko Pha Ngan, having spent a few nights staying on Ko Samui (although the middle night was actually over here, in the lunacy that was the Full Moon Party). Before that, I had a few nights in Penang (Georgetown, to be specific), which were actually pretty quiet.

The night I got there it was midnight before I could check in, after a hellish trip up from the Cameron Highlands which lasted at least 2 hours longer than I'd been told it would, and left me wishing for the usual ridiculous air-con, as the bus I was on was rather too warm and sticky for my liking (and the gentleman sitting next to me was somewhat pungent). The next day I slept in a bit in the morning, then went for a wander around town, before looking around the Cheong Fatt Tse mansion in the afternoon, which was fascinating if a little lengthy at times (the lady showing us around was a bit of an enthusiast, and I had a lot of sympathy for the non-native English speakers, as she chatted away at a hell of a pace!).

That evening, I met up again with Lies, who'd been on my bus up to the Highlands, and went for a really nice Indian meal. I'd been thinking I might go out for a bit after that, but the atmosphere in a lot of the places I looked at just wasn't that lively (and in a few it was a bit TOO lively), so I headed back to my hostel, dodging the beckoning ladies of the night who infest Chinatown on my way home.

My last day in Penang, I wandered around the old centre of town and then tried to go up Penang Hill, only to be informed on my arrival at the foot of the funicular railway going up there that the track had to be closed for unscheduled maintenance, and would not be open until the next day. "Bugger" quoth I. So that day didn't really accomplish much, but I at least had a fun evening, ending up having a few beers in the "Soho" pub in town, the downstairs of which is your usual pseudo-British pub, but the upstairs looks like it's been lifted from some mad faux-Edwardian gentleman's club or something, with elaborate wallpaper, chandeliers and the like. Tres bizarre. And I ended up chatting and drinking away (slightly longer than I'd planned) with a trio of Irish lasses and a whole posse of RAAF boys, who were on exercises with the Malaysians over in Butterworth (other side of the strait from Georgetown).

Then came one of the longer days of my travelling life, as I headed up into Thailand. Looking around Penang, I was unable to find anywhere willing to sell a "normal" coach ticket, everyone was flogging Minibus ones, so in the end I had bitten the bullet and got myself a minibus ticket to Surat Thani in Thailand. Approximately 8 hours away from Penang. Leaving at 5am. Yuk. Yuk yuk yuk. My mood upon rising at that hour of the day is never exactly cheerful, and it deteriorated rapidly once I was shown into the back seat of the minibus, next to a German-Hungarian couple. My head was resting against the roof, and I had to either tilt sideways or try and lean back to avoid it bumping the whole time, the latter complicated by the absence of anything remotely resembling legroom. NOT a happy bunny.

By the time I got to hop out of said vehicle for a break, just before the border, I had a noticeable crick in my neck and had failed dismally to get much sleep. This after around 2.5 hours. The torture continued through to Hat Yai, the main transit town on the Thai side of the border, where I discovered that I was to be swapped into another, different minibus for the leg up to Surat Thani. This time I wasn't in the back. Hurrah! My neck got some relief. Unfortunately, I think there was actually even less leg-room in the middle row of seats, which didn't help my legs or my attempts to sleep one bit (neither did the Thai girl who kept dozing off, falling against my shoulder, waking up again, and then dozing off again).

On arrival in Surat, I found that I gave up on my original plan to try and sort myself out a decent boat ticket independently of the damned minibus company and just bought a ticket through them. Which then resulted in more "hurry up and wait" sitting around, before a quick trip in a sawngthaew (a pickup or minivan with bench seats in the back) and a further transfer to a coach, all of which confused the hell out of me and meant I only realised too late that I had left my shoes on the second minibus. Aaaargh!

After a dozy car-ferry ride over to Samui, and another of what are becoming increasingly frequent sawngthaew rides, I finally made it to my accommodation, on Bo Phut beach in the north of Samui. There I had some good food, a couple of cocktails and beers, and promptly crashed out. The next day I lounged a bit on the beach, swam in the sea for a bit (until getting put off by some of the stuff floating in it), legged it back under cover just in time to dodge a rainstorm, and headed off in the evening on the first speedboat over to Ko Pha Ngan.

The moon was bright, the water was like a millpond, and the speedboat had power to burn, so I had a great time on the way over. On arrival, the sun was already down, the neon and flourescent paints were out in force (along with the ever-present flower-garland- and glow-stick-sellers), and the night was just getting started. And it turned into a fun night, albeit a long one. I spent much of the early part of it hanging around with a bunch of South Africans, before eventually bumping into some of the people I'd met on the Perhentians - Ricky was pissed as a fart, and already at the "I love you guys" stage, which was quite amusing, but I was disappointed when the girls who'd originally persuaded me to shift things around and come to the Party just completely blanked me when I went over to say Hi. Ah well, never mind. After that, I hung around with various random people until the sun rose, when I finished off my bottle of water (yes Mum, I was actually moderately sensible, and didn't drink to excess) and headed down to brave the surf and get onto the next speedboat back to Samui. Where I crashed out and slept for most of the day.

Today I was back on the move again, bringing my stuff with me back over to Pha Ngan, where I'm about to do the logical thing for a Saturday night and go find a bar showing the football from back home. Ah, bliss!

And that's where I'll leave this, as it's turned into a bit of a monster e-mail and everywhere here in Had Rin (the main backpacker enclave on Pha Ngan) seems to be in a cartel that keeps the internet prices fixed (at quite a bit more expensive than Malaysia!).

Hope you're all well, wherever you are and whatever you're doing. Take care and have fun,

Pat