Full Moon Party Christmas Day
After an awful, mosquito ridden bus from Bangkok we finally arrived in Koh Phangan 17 hours later! When we got off the ferry we got a taxi tuk tuk to our bungalow, but the driver dropped us off 4 km away from our bungalow so we then ended up paying double for what was meant to be a cheap taxi ride. When we arrived at "Coach Bungalows" we were pleasantly surprised how nice it was, because the reviews on the internet were average. The lady took us to our beach front bungalow, which was about 10 metres away from the sea, it was like paradise.
Our bungalow
View from our bungalow
Ban Tai Beach
The next couple of days we just spent sunbathing on the beach waiting for Christmas day and the Full Moon Party to arrive. One day it was raining so we decided to hire a motorbike and explore the island. What we didn't know was how high some of the roads were and we read that inexperienced drivers shouldn't ride on Koh Phangan's roads because there are so many accidents. But we only hired it for one day and we were very careful, but some of the roads were very steep and scary at times!
Motor bike day
Christmas day arrived and that meant so had the Full Moon Party (FMP)! It didn't feel like Christmas at all, we just sunbathed on the beach, did some washing and got ready for the Full Moon. We went to the FMP about 10.30pm, the people who were in the next bungalow were meant to come with us but the girl, Roxy felt sick so they just stayed in. When we got to the FMP it exceeded my expectations. The beach looked massive, there was people everywhere, their bodies covered in UV paint and everyone had buckets full of weird and wonderful cocktails. There was different types of music blasting out the speakers in every beach bar we walked past. There were lots of fire dancers, mainly Thai men with ripped bodies (Morgs expression not mine!) There were lots of fire skipping ropes with lots of people trying to skip, but failing miserably and getting burnt. It was such a good night, on our way home we stopped off at "Chicken Schnitzel" which did amazing chicken burgers which were very much needed after a long night!
Full Moon Party
Koh Samui
After a short and pleasant ferry ride we arrived in Koh Samui. We had already sorted out our accommodation because it was New Year and we knew it was going to be busy. Our hotel was called "Vanda House Resort" we paid a little bit more for this accommodation because we wanted to treat ourselves for New Year. Our room was amazing, it had a queen size bed, a fridge with complimentary bottles of water, a cable TV, air con and a balcony (flash packers). On the first day we met up with Paul and Rachael who we had met in Laos. We went down to the beach in the day then headed into the town Chaweng. We had a nice day and night catching up with them before they left for Koh Phangan the following day. The weather for the next couple of days was hit and miss, there was a lot of rain and a few thunder storms, so we didn't really see much of the island. It was not one of my favourite places I've visited as it was very "touristy" and the beaches were not as nice as I thought they would be.
One of many chocolate and banana pancakes
New Years Eve
For New Years Eve we went out for a meal, had a few drinks then went back to our hotel and watched the fireworks from our balcony. The fireworks were the loudest things I have ever heard, but they were pretty spectacular!
Koh Tao
Scuba Diving!!
We had booked to go scuba diving in Koh Phangan and got a pretty good deal with free accommodation and a few freebies thrown in. I didn't really know what to expect but was very excited about doing the course, but not as excited as Morgan who has always wanted to do it! We had booked our open water course with "Crystal Dive" which had been recommended to us. On the first day we filled out the necessary paperwork then spend the afternoon in the class room which included watching 3 videos and filling out the necessary quizzes after each video. The videos were pretty boring but they did teach us all the information we needed to pass our exam.
The following day we watched the final 2 videos in the morning and completed the quizzes then we were put into our groups. Our instructor was a guy named Guy, he was from Yorkshire, we were very pleased to get an English instructor. We were in a group with two Polish lads, Jacob and Matteus, and three Aussies, Salami, Sam and Aaron. In the afternoon we got to do our first spot of scuba diving in the resorts swimming pool. Before we could get in the pool with the kit on we had to learn how to put everything on properly including the tanks. We had to follow a certain process and do it over 5 times so we would remember how to do it. When we had all the gear on we headed to the swimming pool. When we first got in the pool it felt weird having all the equipment on us but after a while you get used to it. We spent the afternoon learning all the different techniques including filling and emptying your mask, what to do if you run out of air etc. At first it took me a while to get used to certain skills we had to do, Morgan however seemed to fly through every skill we had to do!
The next day we had our exam followed by a floating and swimming test, which we both passed. In the afternoon we got to go in the sea and dive. I was a little apprehensive at first but when we got in the sea and went down my nerves went. It was amazing going under the first time, seeing all the different tropical fishes and different coloured coral. We spent about 40 minutes in the sea then we had to come up as some of us were low on air.
The second dive was at "Junk Yard" which is a man made dive site created to bring sea life back to the area. We got down to about 12m and explored the site for about 40 minutes but the time went too quick and before we knew it we had to go back up to the surface.
Some of the fish we saw on the dives:
Barracuda fish
Clown fish
Trigger fish
Parrot fish
The next day we got up at 7am to do 2 dives in the morning. We ordered a sausage butty with brown sauce before we went out on the boat as we had been told that they tasted like "real" sausages that you get back home. They were amazing, it was a nice change from banana pancakes!
For our final 2 dives we were being filmed for a video which is shown in the resort bar in the evening so from first thing in the morning we had a camera thrust in our faces filming us walking to the boat and getting the gear ready on the boat. The 2 dives were equally as amazing as the first 2, if not even better as we had more time to swim around and see a lot more sea life. the feeling of being weightless under water, swimming through coral formations and having fish come up to you and swim with you is unreal. Its a million times better than snorkeling.
After the 2 dives we headed back to the resort to fill out our dive logbooks and sort out PADI membership details, and pick up our free t-shirt. With it being an early start the afternoon was spent catching up on some sleep and getting ready to go celebrate completing the course and Morgan and Sam's birthday who's birthdays were on the same day.
Scuba Diving Group
That night we met up with the dive group to watch the video of our dive from that day and have a few drinks. Afterwards we headed down to Vibe Bar on Sairee Beach to carry on the party. It ended up being a messy night including lots of Sangsom buckets and shots of Sambuca and Tequila!!
Brandon Block was DJing
We liked Koh Tao a lot so decided to stay an extra 4 nights, topping up our tans on the beach. On the last night in Koh Tao we met up with Sam and Aaron and headed to Sariee for a night out. We went to a bar and met a local Thai bar tender called Paul who served strong Thai whiskey buckets and free shots! We liked him. We headed to Lotus bar on the beach front and ran into our instructor Guy and partied till the bar shut. This turned out to be a bad idea because we had a 10 hour journey ahead of us the next day, Morgan fell at the first hurdle and was sick on the first ferry! It was a nightmare journey!
Paul
Novelty tree at Lotus bar
Krabi and Koh Phi Phi
After another horrendous hungover journey we arrived in Aonang. We hadn't booked accommodation and because its peak season we ended up walking round for about 2 hours with our backpacks on looking for somewhere cheap. We ended up paying more then we wanted to for a room at "Lucky Place" but we were desperate and it was 10pm by the time we had checked in.
A few days later we took a day trip to Koh Phi Phi, famous for the film "The Beach". We stopped of at four sections of the island including Maya Beach and Bamboo island. The beaches were amazing, like something you would see on a post card. Clear blue waters and white sand, however the only down side to them was that they were crowded with tourists from other tour companies.
"The Beach"
Snorkeling
On the speed boat
Railay Beach
Naughty monkeys
Koh Lanta
We arrived in Koh Lanta on the 15th of January. We booked to stay in a bungalow near the beach at a place called "Lantawadee Resort". It is by far the nicest and cleanest one we have stayed in and the beach was very nice with lots of beach bars along the front.
Our bungalow
