Thailand

 We arrived in Bangkok airport after a big, tiring weekend in London and met up with my brother Jeremy here. He was rearing to go! Our first plan of heading to Koh Tao to do our diving and chillax in the sunshine had been squashed by the recent floods here.. so the secondary plan was to try for Phuket. Again we were unlucky as apparently the buses were not going here because of the floods. A quick look at flight prices confirmed that we would NOT be going to Phuket. So Bangkok it was for at least the night. After securing a cheap but nice guest house we headed out to the Khao San road area for dinner and a few drinks. Of course the few beers turned into a few more and the large Chang's at 6.4% didn't take long to take hold. A couple of buckets of Sangsom later and we were wandering through the streets of Bangkok on our way back to the guest house that much worse for wear.

Not such a good idea!

Day two in Bangkok saw us not venturing out until around 11am with only an hour to figure out what we were doing before check out time. As it turns out buses to the island we had decided on for sunshine only left at 8am in the morning. Oops. A 2^nd night in Bangkok it was then. With the day itself we did very little. I was feeling very rough and the boys were not up for much either. We wandered Khao San Road and around and then chilled at the guest house before heading out to the same place as the night before for cheap Chang and good live music. Dan and I also treated ourselves to a Fish Foot Massage.. I actually couldn't stand it for long as it just tickled too much. Some of them were so big they actually hurt when they started to nibble! Dan got into it and came out with silky smooth feet.

Khao San Road

Not so sure at first...

They were everywhere!

Relaxing into it a little bit more...

After just a few beers we started to head back to the guest house... but not before the boys had a second meal of Pad Thai off the street.. amazingly good! Followed by a cocktail of deep-fried bugs. Big bugs. They both tried a mixed bag of crickets, grasshoppers, scorpians, frogs, silk worms, locusts amongst more. Apparently they were all not too bad – the frog tasting like crackling! I was forced to try a small locust which I managed and then a larger cricket. This did not go down so well.. or at all and I was left gagging on the street much to their delight.

Deep Fried Frog

Cricket or some leggy insect!

Scorpian... mmmmm

Jeremy was loving it!

Ewwwww

... and thats not gonna go down!

The next day we had the mini van ride to Koh Chang. It was a painful 4.5 hours cooped up before we arrived at the ferry and then had a short ride to the island. We found a nice place just across the road from the beach and settled in ready for some beach and sun. Of course we awoke the next day to rain. We waited it out before hiring motorbikes for the day to explore the island. We ventured down one side of the island zooming up and down the hills and winding roads. The boys kept debating who was the unlucky one to have me on the back as it was hard with 2 people to make it up the hills. Jeremy loved the bikes... highlight of his trip so far apparently! Although he was unable to wear a helmet as his head is too whopping. The island was nice and the weather turned out ok... it was super hot when we were not moving on the bikes. We returned to White Sand Beach for a well deserved beer after our mission. We ended up having a good night out and all found ourselves on the mechanical bull! Dan was supposed to be the only one as he lost a bet regarding knowledge about Speights Ale. Of course he was wrong against us South Islanders! We then moved from place to place as all seemed to close on us. We were always the last in there. We finally looked at the time and it somehow had become around 3am. No wonder everywhere was closed!

The boys relaxing with their Cubans

View point

Lonely Beach

Hookah Apple Sheesha!

The next day was to be our sun relaxing day but again it rained. And it continued to rain all day. Great. So we didn't do a lot. Slept in. Ate. Chillaxed. And went for a swim in the warm warm sea before a nice dinner and early night.

White Sand Beach