Siquijor….you NEED to go

Friday 5th February

Our plan this morning was to take the boat over to Siquijor, one of the islands that we could see from the beach. We were told that there was just one boat a day (by the internet) which we figured was rubbish given how close it was, so enjoyed a rather leisurely rise, faff, and breakfast. Fail. There WAS only one boat per day. Oops.

That said, we weren’t about to just believe that. For starters, to take the boat across the tiny bit of warer to the island we could see would cost us a small fortune and involve taking a moto taxi back to main land, then a boat from Tagbilaran to Damuagete and then another boat to Siquijor. Bonkers.

So, while I packed our bags Ben went for a little walk down to the sea front to see if we could rope someone in to taking us either as a one way trip as part of a tour or just someone headed that way. Twenty minutes later I was packed and checked out, and he came back saying he had spoken to a couple of the locals who yesterday were shouting James Corden at him (or so we thought, turned out to be James Harden, see below (spitting image of Ben!). There was a guy who was able to take us on his brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins boat whenever we wanted for less than the official tourist boat. Winner. We had already booked a place to stay in Siquijor aswell, so to not turn up would have been even more expensive.

We grabbed a freshly roasted chicken and a baguette from a local street seller and made our way with our backpacks down to our boat, we couldn’t resist….and they were only pence! I forgot to mention that last night I had yet another terrifying waxing experience on our way home! I’m giving up on salons here!!

Once down at the seafront the guy was very quick to catch Ben’s eye….he ushered us about 100m up the beach and started asking around who wanted to take us over to Siquijor. Some of the men didn’t even move – clearly not enough money in it for them – but finally two young guys said they would do it.

We loaded up the boat, chicken and bread taking pride of place in the middle, had a mini photoshoot on board our private boat before lathering on the sun lotion. The guys were busy pouring fuel into the guzzling tank and tying bits of rope here and there. The sun was nearing it’s peak heat and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and then just after 1.15pm we set off. There’s something really nice about not taking a tourist bus or boat everytime, other than the fact that communication becomes nigh on impossible.

The journey took us around 2hours…it really didn’t look that far away and probably wasn’t but every ten minutes one of the two guys would nip below deck and we would here a few conspicuous bangs, or the engine would conk out. Never mind, we had nowhere to be per say and were just glad to be on our way. It did strike us at one point that we had just hopped onto a little bamboo balanced boat, with two randoms and were currently just floating around in the middle of the ocean where the sea although blue had that very dark black almost colour not far below the surface. The chicken soon distracted us from those thoughts.

We arrived at a completely derelict little beach that looked more like someones back garden with a couple of tiny fishing boats moored up at the shore. As the water was so shallow we had to hop off the boar walk to the shore. One of the guys very kindly carried my bag for me, the sea bed was covered in some kind of seaweed and rather tickly on the sole, the seaweed disappeared closer to the shore leaving just a completely trasnsparent and almost colourless water. The whole way it was as warm as bath water, never before have I felt the ocean so warm. The beach was a hidden little cove, alot of driftwood and a little washed up rubbish but still complete idyllic as it was cut off from the world. If it wasn’t for the boats it was completely lifeless.

We followed the guy up some rubbish covered track up a little hill and were soon enough behind someones little small holdings….PIGS! 20 metres further and we were at the road. The guys said his goodbye and we thanked him before crossing over into the shade. The sun was burning.

A couple of friendly locals were smiling at us, one stood very proudly next to his tuktuk as if he was our butler. We asked if he was a taxi man, he just smiled, we told him that we needed to get to Charisma Beach which was on the other side of the island. I think that he saw us as a bank, but also had no concept of taxi fares either (as he wasn’t a taxi man) and came out with some ridiculous figure which we politely declined and decided to commence the walk. We would fiigure something out, or someone would drive past. We hoped. We walked for about 2km, all the locals stopping to say hello and ask where we were going. They would all smile, laugh and say ‘very far’ or ’35km’ and we would smile and laugh back. Oh please, someone drive past. We stopped for a little breather outside a ladies house, she was selling cocacola so we had a little sugar hit, she kindly fetched us two of her best glassesd and even dug out some ice for us. Luck was with us, a collectivo drove past and for 10 pesos (15p) he would take us to Siquijor town where we could get a moto taxi from. Perfect. We sat in the back with his wife and baby and within 10 minutes were at the main (tourist) ferry port where there were plenty of taxis waiting.

We hopped into a taxi and were on our way. The driver was very friendly and slowed down to let us take photos of the school run – never have you seen so many kids squished into a single tuk tuk!! They loved us taking their photos too and played up for the camera. The driver even slowed down to let his wife and grand daughter say hello as we passed his house. Such a happy chappy! We arrived at Charisma and waved goodbye.

The place was more like a basic hotel than a hostel, a pool, little restaurant and bar and was beach front. What a view. All for a hostel price. We decided we would rent a scooter while we were here as everything was pretty spread out so once we had dumped our bags we headed over the road to find one, the guy who rented us one had to run around the local shops to find us one but ten minutes later we were good to go.

He told us about a party that was happening tonight, another one tomorrow and then cock fighting on Sunday. What an action packed weekend! Apparently everyone who was anyone would be at all three events! We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the beach, enjoying the sunset and then for dinner headed to a place that was opposite the party location. It was about 15 minutes away on the scooter and in the middle of nowhere, surely this couldn’t be right?

Anyway, we ordered dinner and figured we could assess the party situation later and make a call on it. Our dorm was about ten people and they were all headed this way after dinner. The place we ate at was recommended and very popular amongst the few westerners and the locals, Ben went for a Burger and I had the chicken. There was a big buffet banquet behind us, including a pig roast which we may just have to come back for!

Really randomly, the toilet doors had a Barbie and Ken on them to distinguish boys and girls! At around 11pm, we finished our drinks and decided to head over the road. There were a few more scooters parked outside now, so we paid our 10 pesos to the lady who was sat outside the garden gate (that’s literally what it looked like) and headed inside. Two girls from our dorm were with us, they too had eaten at the restaurant with a French couple.

We walked in, there was a big club house with a make shift bar inside, it looked pretty rubbish but we persisted and tried to find the others from our dorm. We failed BUT we did find a huge stage set up out the back that seemed to have somehow been concealed by the club house and trees! There was a band on stage who were so energetic playing all sorts of music and hundreds of Filipinos dancing and drinking away.

It was like a mini festival in there. The locals were of course very interested in us and immediately we had a group of them around us, chatting away, dancing and cheers-ing us at every oppurtunity, inviting us to dance with them. I got the impression that the locals like to have a table as the centre of their group as plastic tables kept appearing and being crowd surfed to their required spot. There were young teens and everyone through to grandma and grandpas age at the event! Friday night, this is the place to be!

We headed home around 2.30am, I wasn’t drinking. Outside was just a sea of scooters, so to try and extract ours was certainyl a mission! Our room mates weren’t far behind, but as there was a group of them they struggled for a taxi and in the end asked a police man to take them home, who kindly obliged! Brilliant.

Saturday 6th February

This morning I was up super early. I wanted to watch the sunrise over the beach given how close it was, and couldn’t sleep very well as I wasn’t in a beer coma and the cockrells were crowing from around 5am.

By 6am I was out in the hammock taking in the mornings activities. The once shallow sea was now over 1km out leaving behind it just a carpet of green seaweed infested with little creatures. Hundreds of crabs combed the beach and some sort of little urchin type body hid in the green.

Boats were beached, waiting for the water to come back and save them and locals were out in force collecting sea urchins to sell in the day ahead. The sand was almost boggy, swampy to walk through, a very weird feeling, but I can imagine quite theraputic and doing wonders for my feet….the kind of product you would be sold in a shopping mall. I walked up the beach a little, there were hundreds of huge shells, my legs were now covered in the swampy sand mid way up my calves!

I decided to take refuge on a sun lounger at the front of the hotel and just watch say break. The sea was creeping in closer to the shore, and more locals were appearing – along with a couple of crazy Europeans who were out for a morning run on the beach.

At around 7.30am I ordered a coffee from the bar which was now open, and watched as a big group of local kids and adults swept the beach picking up any litter that had come in overnight. That’s why its so clean!

For the rest of the morning I just hung out at the beach before waking Ben up in time for poached egg and toast Breakfast elevenses. Poached eggs – amazing! My favourite, and I have missed them. The lady who took my order thought I said potched eggs and when I explained that I was wanting boiled eggs but out of the shells she looked absolutely horrified. Two minutes later she came back out of the kitchen laughing at herself and misunderstanding confirming she knew exactly what I meant.

We took to the scooter just after mid day to explore the island. We were going to the old enchanted tree and Cambugahay waterfalls today and well, whatever else we fancied on the way. The island was surprisingly hilly, and I mean some big hills. The kind where we would both lean forward on the scooter to try and get up! The others from our dorm were donig the same, but as there were six of them they were opting for a tuk tuk, that took some negotiation so we nipped ahead and said we would meet them there.

At the tree, there was a pool just below which had the fish pedicure fish in it. Gross. My feet were not going in there! They were HUGE aswell. The tree itself was pretty cool, ridden with spiders though.

Just as we were leaving, the others arrived. There wasn’t really anything to do there so we didn’t hang around. The falls were around 30 minutes away, so off we went, passing through little villages and rice paddies galore.

We passed St Isidore de Labrador Church, one of the top things to do in Siquijor. It was a big tin church with loads of people sat around outside, as if they were queueing for their giro cheque! The drive was reallty beautiful, up high we could see more miles over the trees, with some rather daunting hair pin turns – you never know when a chivay could come zooming around on your side of the road! We arrived at Cambugahay falls and were greeted by a little car park attendant type man. Funny really, as there was no car park, but he was very good in telling us not to leave anything valuable at the pools and to lock it in our vehicles or to take turns in the pools, oh, and that we could pay our parking ticket after we had been for a dip. Thanks old chap!

We walked down some steep steps following the sound of kids laughing and playing. Wow. When that crystal blue colour poked through the trees, it was just indescribable. Yes, we have been to waterfalls before, but this was beautiful.

Perhaps because the sun was doing a fantastic job of illuminating it, or the fact that it looked like a washed off paint brush pot but it was gorgeous. There was a rope which kids were hanging onto and plunging into the pool below and then multiple shallower pools all framed by lush greenery.

Ben swung from the rope swing while I waited with our things per the old mans advise, by the time I fancied a dip Ben had dried off so I decided not to….nothing worse than being on a scooter soggy! We stayed about 45 minutes and decided we would come back this afternoon when it was even hotter to cool off on the way home. Again, just as we left…the others arrived!

Our next stop was well, anywhere. We had maps.me to check out recommended places, but decided just to follow the roads. There was one main loop road so you were never far from that. The reason so few people go to Siquijor is because they think it’s haunted.

There are supposed to be two different kinds of witches who live here, so of course, this afternoon what better way to fill the time than to go witch hunting. We made our way further around the island, stopping to take photos as we could now see right over the sea of palms covering the island to the ocean over the other side of the island, but before we headed inland stopped at a little road side store for a top up of sunscreen and a cool drink.

The ladies in the shop loved us. You could buy everything here, I mean everything, from shampoo to inner tubes, rope to rice! A few locals sat opposite, day drinking, and well, they were definately day drunk but having a great time.

We continued onwards to the ‘healers fields’ but we didn’t have any luck in finding any witches. The ride and views were amazing, often the roads would turn into sandy dirt tracks, a little challenge for Ben to try and keep us upright! We carried on ending up at some sort of little caving attraction.

We thought about doing it but neither of us were really very interested in it and instead continued our loop back towards where we lived for some late lunch (4.30ish). We decided to watch the sunset at our beach tonight, the sun literally set into the horizon taking with it the heat that warmed our skin whilst sat in the super shallow sea, it was stunning.

After a little disco nap we went down the road for some food. We ended up at a neighbouring hotel as everywhere had stopped serving (it was only 9pm). Conveniently the hotel was opposite tonights party destination, so we crossed the road afterwards to check it out.

It was awful, not a scratch on last nights so after about an hour we decided to head home instead where the others were sat in the pagoda sipping on some beers. We joined them and conversations later Ben was practising a section of his pending best man speech on his awaiting audience! It was down a treat. Can’t wait to hear the whole thing in a few weeks.

Super chilled, today was awesome. I absolutely love island life.

Sunday 7th February

Today was the day of the cock fight, however we hadn’t realised just how far away it was (we had now returned our scooter) and one of the guys in our dorm said that it was better in Palawan where we were headed next so while we had this super gorgeous beach front location we decided to enjoy it.

That said, after breakfast we ended up spending literally the whole day doing admin. The internet as you would expect is pretty slow here, but even the others who had been out to a nearby beach for a few hours were shocked to see us still sat in the same seats. I mean, it wasn’t a terrible office, but it was painfully slow. We were trying to book a few little flights, and so had to spend a chunk of time sussing out the best combo and work out our dates before the tedious task of actually booking them. But we did it. And spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out at the beach in the sea and enjoying that gorgeous view.

For dinner, we headed out with everyone in our dorm to a local grill place, it was a short walk away and deliscious. I think I had one of everything! We made our way back to the hotel quite promptly as there was an England rugby match on that the bar staff said we could watch but once we got there, there was no luck with the signal. Boo.

 

 

 

So this is where it all goes a little bit wrong…

So for those of you who read these “regularly” you will have noticed the blip we had whilst we couldnt upload anything for the last couple of months (hence the post spam now) – problems associated with this would be….if ones phone should break, get stolen, or be lost….the beautiful documentation that you have collected i.e. your photographs are gone forever. This happened to me. My phone must have got a little wet at a waterfall….so I kept the phone off for over six weeks…well, it wouldnt turn on, but once back in the UK I took it to a shop and once he did all the work told me had had to delete the device. After hearing those words, I cried. Literally. Utterly devastated. No tears could bring those photos back and I have learnt a very valuable lesson – that said, I had backed my phone up at one point. When asked “doesnt Ben have photos?” we both reply the same…. I took enough for a small tour, let alone the two of us, so he never needed to. Luckily he has some, our tour guide in Flores took some and the girls who came out to Indonesia took plenty too, so the only gaps are Malaysia.

Thursday 21st January

Our Thai visa expires today, so we had the choice to either stay and pay the 500 Baht fine or head to Malaysia. Although we would have both stayed on Lipe for another week it was going to work out being rather expensive for the sake of a boat trip by the time we had booked accommodation and the trip itself, and once Martin told us that it was good ‘but he was spoilt in the Philippines’ it made the decision an easy one. And got me really excited for the Philippines! That said – we will be coming back here. I will not live my lifetime having not returned to this paradise. We packed up our bags, checked out and headed out to book our boat ticket. The afternoon ferry was at 4pm but there’s a whole immigration piece we needed to do first. Once we had our tickets and Ben had read the back of every single book in the book shop, buying the last one he read, we went to grab some breakfast somewhere with decent wifi to check out hostel options in Langkawi. We stopped at Bloom Bar, the food looked amazing, but annoyingly their wifi was down. Damn it. I really fancied an Oreo milkshake aswell!

Across the road at a place called Banana restaurant their wifi was working, though just as slow as the hostel. We had our breakfast and headed back to the hostel. Ben (self admitted) was in a terrible mood today, he’d been bitten by God knows what and was tired from the snore monster so really irritable. Was funny when he said it was irritating him how irritable he was! Ha. So, he stayed at the hostel and stuck on a movie while I went down to the beach. I took the GoPro as I wanted to try and capture how clear the water was. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise how filthy the GoPro lenses and case was so the videos looked rubbish! We had to check in with the boat company at 2pm so Ben met me on the beach at the end of walking. Street with our passports at 2pm. Here we exchanged our passports for our tickets, it doesn’t f eel overly safe doing this at some shack on the beach but I guess it’s the only way for it to work to make sure that people don’t outstay their welcome (without forfeiting their passports anyway!). That white hut is immigration….what a view from their office!!

We had to be back to have our passports stamped by immigration at 3pm so headed back to the hostel again (you can imagine how well this went down with angry Ben) to grab our bags, and Ben wanted to watch the end of his movie. I bought a Reeses nut bar last night….. Wow! I’m not a huge fan of peanut butter lumps in things like that, but this was something else. Pretty gutted I waited til my last day in Thailand to buy one as I know they won’t have them in Malaysia!

We waited til 3.15pm and Ben’s film still wasn’t finished, so adding to his irritable-ness, we had to leave and head to the beach again. This time we dumped our bags, got our passports back from the ferry firm, went to immigration who stamped and then again withheld our passports, and we waited ready to be told what to do next. There was a bakery opposite, I couldn’t resist. So bought a cinnamon & raisin roll and a chocolate brownie. Ben immediately followed suit.

They were both amazing & tasted exactly how they should! Unbelievable. The brownie was so gooey inside that I had to eat it with a spoon…..every other brownie has been box cake mix which has been over cooked so this was something special!!

On check in we were given a ‘Langkawi’ sticker to wear, a boarding card for the long tail taxi and a ferry boarding pass. The stickers always come off so I didn’t bother wearing mine, the boarding cards were sequential, so when your number is called you hop of the long tail taking your luggage with you. As ever, these are a few metres into the water so you’re going to get wet. Some people still haven’t grasped that water gets you wet and are horrified, it’s hilarious. Loaded onto two boats, Ben, and I had the one from last cards so of course there were no seats left. I’m quite glad it was us and not some of the princesses on the boat who didn’t want to get their feet wet. By princesses I’m talking about men and women. Westerners of course. Goodbye you beautiful piece of the world.

So anyway, the long tail took us to a floating pontoon onto which the luggage was first unloaded as it was at the front of the boat. For some reason, two girls at the back of the boat tried getting off at the rear where there was a big gap between the pontoon and the long tail. I kind of wish that they’d fallen in purely for being impatient, but that would have caused delays. In jumping they jolted the whole boat, people have no common sense I’m sure. The rest of us waited, grabbed our bags and boarded the ferry. A movie was played, but there wasn’t a long enough journey to be able to watch the whole thing. I’ve no idea what it was, I blogged instead. When we arrived my clock had jumped forward changing time zone, which made us think that the ferry ride had been 2.5hrs! That was our first border crossing by sea, and probably one of the easiest yet!

We went through immigration, failed to find a currency exchange kiosk, and headed for a taxi rank via an ATM. We told the taxi driver where we wanted to go, albeit that we had no reservation, however he had no idea where it was so in the end had him drop us at the end of the road and we would walk. Little did we know that the road was 2km long! The journey was really pretty, going through little villages, via beautiful landscapes gardens and with the mountains and sunset in the background. After about 30minutes we arrived at Gecko Mini Mart. We then spent the next 1hr 20minutes trying to find any place with availability that wasn’t hotel prices. We eventually found where we had wanted to stay, but the door was locked. Bugger.

We found a motel that was actually cheaper than the dorm and slap bang in the middle of the town so all worked out ok really.

We freshened up, well, washed off our accommodation hunt sweat and headed back out to find a bar. We were both full of brownie so not hungry per say. A bar seemed more impossible to find than a hostel! We wondered if it was a religion thing and then remembered the beach bars so made our way back down there (the beach had also been part of our accommodation hunt), but everywhere was a restaurant & bar and Ben doesn’t like to sit in a restaurant ‘just for a drink’ so our choices were somewhat limited!

We walked the whole way back to Gecko Mini Mart, finding an Irish bar but Ben didn’t like the music. I know what you’re thinking…. Diva, just order a bloody beer some were! No? Just me then. There was a Mexican up the road where I’d seen people sipping cocktails so we went there, and ended up ordering some nachos aswell. They were the lovely thin nacho chips that I like, covered in cheese with homemade salsa and sour cream. They were out of their guac. We had a couple of drinks and headed back towards the main town, swinging by a little ice cream shop. Smurf ice cream is the one that caught my eye…. Apparently smurfs taste like caramel! I went for a scoop of milk chocolate & a second scoop of cherry and she even gave me a cheery on top. Wahoo. Ben had coffee & mint choc chip, they were all delicious!

A little further up the road the night market was in full swing, music blared….perhaps this is how the Malays spend their time? Raving at the market? That’s why there’s no bars?

Past the market was a fried ice cream van with quite a queue, intrigued, Ben got involved. If it involves ice cream….he will be there! So this was a scoop of Oreo ice cream that had been wrapped in a sort of dough shell and deep fried. The whole thing was then re frozen and from the can they simply re fry it which manages to keep the ice cream frozen and the outside warm, with a crispy shell. I want sure about it to begin with, it was very salty and although I love salt, was expecting super sweet and sickly. I think I’d prefer a sweeter ice cream. Ben loved it. Right up until he felt sick anyway.

We walked past our motel to check out what little shops were around, grabbed some water and headed home around midnight. It’s so cheap here….. Huge bottles of water for about 30p! I think in the coming days we might explore the island by motorbike, and maybe take a boat trip.

Friday 22nd January

So after a lovely lie in (though I think my body has now had too much sleep) we set about finding a place to stay. There are places half the price of here, it’s just a case of finding them. After half an hour on the standard Asia speed internet we gave up and decided to stay put as we couldn’t be bothered with the trekking of last night all over again given that the Internet wasn’t proving to be our friend today.

We have decided against a boat trip, although they are super cheap here we have heard and read that visibility isn’t great around here so we are going to wait for the Philippines.

My micro dermal is trying its best to heal which is super annoying, I keep having to play with it to open it up which obviously isn’t great as I’m aggravating it. Not really sure what’s best to do but am not holding much hope of finding a place to buy a top before Singapore!

Our initial plan was to grab a motorbike today and head out all over the place, and to check out the cable car but as it was already lunchtime we are going to leave that til tomorrow. A nice breakfast at ‘The breakfast bar’ where there was a sign reading “Please read the menu and order before you update your status”. Tickled me. Especially when a guy on the next table hadn’t even sat down before asking not for the wifi code. The owners response was one of silence and just pointing at the sign. Brilliant. The bar also advertised Ukelele lessons for £3 an hour! Steal!

We got the clasp on Ben’s GoPro fixed at a shop we found last night….they sell all sorts of headphones too and unfortunately my Christmas tesco ones aren’t doing too well, so I may be back to purchase.

For the rest of the afternoon we decided to kick back on the beach and take a dip, two chairs was £3 – so we gave our backs a break and splashed out. We have read quite a lot about jellyfish here so going to have to keep our eyes peeled for those. I got stung when I was a kid in Greece and still have the scar…. I told Ben that I needed one for the other leg, to which he replied ‘to show off in the morgue?’ Because apparently the jelly fish here are the second deadliest in the world. My bad.

The sun was in and out today which made a nice change and made the heat more manageable. Together with dipping in and out of the sea it was perfect. Whilst I was in the sea I looked to the left of where we were pitched up and saw a huge white sand vortex! It was tearing up the beach! Must have been painful for those caught in it. It looked amazing though…. A white tornado!

Two people walked along the beach offering food and drinks, the same price as in the bar. A bar? What! Ben ordered a banana shake without sugar…. It came, full of sugar. Maybe we will give that bar a miss after all! There were beautiful shells all over the beach and in the waters edge, one looked like a white unicorn horn whilst another looked like it was inside out! There were fish in the shallowest part of the sea, tiny little black and white striped ones, and slightly bigger with blue markings once the water was knee deep, it soon became more merky. It was still lovely and warm and you could see to an extent, but not clear like Koh Lipe. We were spoilt there!

In the late afternoon I went and sat down towards the water edge and collected another cool shell, well it’s not a shell, it’s a piece of something. It was pearlescent and see through, was pretty. It was while I was there that I picked up another three shells….. They were perfect. So permit that crabs had taken residency in them. Oops, sorry to disturb y’all! Funny little things. I was watching the crabs on the beach too. There were absolutely hundreds of them, they were kind of eating the sand and spitting it out into balls. I don’t know why though, I’m going to google it. We had seen the balls of sand like trails to the crab holes lots of times but I’d assumed it was sand from the holes where they were burrowing. Apparently not. Maybe they like the taste of it? Their little claws made prints in the sand. It was fun to watch them and then smack the ground and watch them disappear. Soon enough, like a game of whack attack their heads would peer out again.

Big birds of prey were circling above…. I don’t fancy the crabs chances much against those bad boys!

Once the sun started to go down we went for a walk along the beach stopping at a place called Little Lydia’s. They have live music every night but before we walked all the way down here wanted to check. Glad we did as its not on tonight! Ben had a beer and I had a chocolate milkshake. A proper milkshake made with ice cream. I downed it in about 40 seconds, it was so good. We have decided that whilst in Malaysia as hostels are a bit more limited (with the exception of KL) and the Internet is quite a rarity to actually work, we are going to pre-book our hostels. On the way back to ours to do just that we stopped in a few little shops, Ben looked at a GoPro drone (!?) and o tested out about ten pairs of headphones. We swung by a bakery called ‘Bread Story’ not because we were hungry…… Just, well, because! Ben bought some pizza and we both bought a pie of apple pie. It tasted like home! Like how real apple pie should taste, even cold it was so good. Perfectly buttery pastry and a light touch of cinnamon. Delicious.

Back at the hotel we set about hostel hunting and before we knew it, well we knew it was getting late as Ben’s blood was boiling that the Internet was taking forever to do anything, it was 8.30pm! Ben has decided that anywhere that advertises wifi and it doesn’t work in all areas of the property at a decent speed at all times is getting a zero rating and a fully critiqued review – watch this space!

Anyway we managed to book a place for George Town and that was it so with an idea where we want to stay in KL we shall chance our luck and try booking somewhere else. Please Internet work!

We showered away the days beach sweat and sand and headed out in search of a place called ‘Tomato’ that Ben had read good reviews about. It looked like the kind of place you load up a plate and pay for it at the end, super cheap and like a deli. Perfect. If we had been able to find it, it would have been perfect. However the map managed to take us to a street turning and building site, so perhaps the restaurant used to be there. We joked that it had had to shut down as it didn’t make any money. Dinner was less than £1!

So we set about finding somewhere else. We are going to head back to Little Lydia’s tomorrow night for a sea food BBQ and the live music so we thought some local Malay curry would be good tonight. We walked past a place that appeared to do a bit of everything and had a little band playing – I think that they were a Filipino band.

We followed the waiter in and were put into a kind of pagoda booth….fancy! They didn’t sell beer but they were happy for you to bring beer in or send someone out to grab some for you so the waiter hollared over at his buddy who went on a beer run! He took 10 ringgit for two beers….I’m sure they’re about 1.50ringgit each but it’s hardly a bank breaker! I had a watermelon shake. Ben ordered the Arabic BBQ for his dinner; marinated chicken, lamb kebabs, chicken kebabs, pitta, salad, sauces and fries! I had a chicken platter, it had a funny name something like shawaramma but I can’t remember and a side of greens. My chicken was cooked in ginger, it was lovely. All the food was so tasty, though Ben said his was a little dry, and so much food!

The band played the usuals; hotel California, hey Jude, no woman no cry. Our waiter was from Bangladesh and liked to make conversation with us, it was a bit weird when he would kind of awkwardly stand next to us when we were eating though.

After dinner we didn’t even bother trying to find a bar, Ben said he was so full that he couldn’t put anything else in his body…..didn’t stop him having some ice cream though. I think there’s a separate department for that. We walked through the awful market (that tonight was less the rave music) towards the same ice cream kiosk as last night. Ben took the tiramisu & salted peanut butter caramel ice creams tonight and I went for tiramisu and Granny Smith Apple. All delicious, but I think last nights choices were better. Lovely to have a super fresh palette cleansing green apple kind of sorbet though! It was almost midnight by now and everything was starting to shut so we bailed aswell and went home!

The most beautiful island I’ve ever seen – Koh Lipe

Tuesday 19th January

Today we are heading to Koh Lipe. We’ve only met one person so far that is heading there, and no one who has been. Martin was in the dorm here with us before he went Koh Lipe.

Our pick up was at 10.30am, well due then and arrived at about 10.45am (not bad!) already on board were a couple of Brits, two French, and two Germans. We threw our bags on the roof and waved goodbye to the lovely folks who had looked after us the past few days. We had to make one more stop before heading to the pier, we collected two older Swedish couples from a super fancy resort. They weren’t very impressed trying to get their suitcases on the roof, and instead waited for the hotel concierge to do it. They then had to squeeze into seats which fit around 2 people and a single butt cheek. The rear boot was left open for them to have a little more leg room which they found just all to exciting, and started a photo shoot. Once at the pier we grabbed an iced coffee and a pain au chocolat for the journey.

We then had to go through various ticket booths changing, exchanging, claiming and collecting various tickets and vouchers for our journeys and baggage, and finally we were allowed to sit still for two minutes to eat. We were then bundled on to the speed boat, and true to its booking confirmation, it was a speed boat. Ben and I claimed two of the hard formed plastic seats, I used my life jacket as a bit of padding to try and make it a little more comfortable. Our luggage followed. We were set. The boat was full, but each person had a seat which was rather nice (and novel for SEAsia). I forgot to mention how exceptional our pastries and coffees were! Recommended for anyone down at the pier!

As our new journey began, our headphones plugged in and we kicked back. We hadn’t been travelling that long (perhaps an hour) when we were stopping. In what appeared to be the middle of the ocean! Up next to us pulled a long tail boat. It did cross my mind that he could have been a pirate or bandit, but most likely was collecting a passenger and taking them to a neighbouring island. Exactly that.

We then continued about 40 minutes further before stopping again. This time we were at a beach and slowed down on the approach. The water was crystal. It was beautiful. I wanted to get in. The boat turned around and reversed towards the beach, a couple of long tail boats were kissing the shore. After the passengers dismounted we were off again. Next stop…..Koh Lipe. We arrived just after 3pm. Not that its needed, but #nofilter has never felt so satisfying! It was too beautiful for words.

The water here at Pattaya Beach was very shallow (low tide) so the boat was having to navigate the reef and marine life below. Quite a challenge with such a large boat! It was so gorgeous, Ben and I were both delighted that we had made the journey to come down here. Once at the beach we all disembarked and waiting on the white flour like dust that was trying to be sand for the boat guys to unload our bags and walk it to shore. People are just as impatient in this situation in this most beautiful place on earth as they are in grey London gatwick knowing they have to go back to work tomorrow. It was the mad baggage belt at an airport scenario. The Swede’s topped this list. They were desperate to load their long tail up and leave. I guess they were staying in one of the big resorts on the other side of the island.

Once we had our bags we headed to our hostel. A+ was new, only open for three months and whilst we didn’t have a reservation I’d seen a promotion of their Facebook page which suggested they had space, so we headed there. The island wasn’t cheap, but was no more than the rest of the west coast island. Don’t be fooled into thinking Thailand is cheap anymore folks. Especially not in the desirable months. The hostel was really nice. A capsule concept with both single and double capsules, communal bathroom and a little common room downstairs with TV and plenty of DVD’s.

We quickly dumped our stuff and bolted back to the beautiful powder beach that we had arrived on. We laid out our virtually new beach mats and soaked up the last of the afternoon sun. Ben didn’t waste any time in jumping into the sea. And once he tag teamed me, I was allowed in too. It was so warm, like bath water. And apparently very clear, I didn’t try it though. I wasn’t feeling so much of a pro today. I’ve never seen water so incredible. Fishes swam around my feet and crabs burrowed into the sand. Everything was just wonderful right about now!

We stayed on the beach whilst the sun set and then strolled back through the town stopping for a sweet treat before we managed to squeeze in a little snooze back at the hostel.

This evening we decided to walk the whole of walking street. It had really come alive! We headed right when we reached the cross roads (beach is left) and ended up walking all the way to the other side of the islands beaches. The street was lined with restaurants, bars and trinket and tour shops, all competing for the tourists wallets! One restaurant in particular caught my eye….the were selling huge fish kebabs but that was to be put on the back burner til tomorrow as Ben had his eye on another place which he had read about called Pooh’s. As in, Winnie The. Pooh’s was one of the oldest, most original places on the island which still used and excelled in delivering the original vintage recipes. Their board outside advertised live music on tonight too which sealed the deal. They were particularly famous for a type of curry that they did, so I of course had that, and Ben ordered another staple – Green curry, and as ever we shared spring rolls. Mine was absolutely delicious, so much flavour in that one bowl of orange delight! Like, galangal, chilli, garlic….all the standard items you’d find in a Thai curry, just blended slightly differently and doused in coconut milk. It was the best curry I’d had in a while! 

During dinner Ben asked what time the band were playing, only to be told that they were playing to,or row. Darn it. That would have made us come tomorrow instead and have the fish skewers tonight! Never mind. There were a few spots of rain during dinner, and luckily that’s all that they were as we were outside and uncovered!

After dinner we took a walk down the other end of walking street where by now the street was really busy and plenty more shops had opened up selling crafts, clothes and other local fashions. There was a man playing piano in one restaurant so we stopped outside to listen for a few minutes before continuing down to the beach itself. Along the beach various restaurants had expanded out onto the sand tossing cushions and low tables out for whoever wished to fall there. The obligatory fire show man was out twiddling his hot sticks, though not particularly well. There wasn’t much of an atmosphere down at the beach, despite being 10.30pm so we headed back up into the town where a bar had opened around sunset o clock on the crossroads by our hostel. It was called Maya. It was a very bohemian place, with floor cushions, bean bags, hammocks, no shoes and lights that were encapsulated in twig cages. The light was gorgeous….the kind that would be nice to have at home in the garden!

The bar tender was a little bit doolally but harmless nonetheless, he sand a song that had the lyrics ‘It’s the chicken that we fry fry fry, it’s the chicken that we are frying deep’. Perhaps he was just a little excitable! We opted to sit at the bar on stool which were tall tree trunks topped with bath mats! A unique use for them! The bar tender told us how he was in Koh Lipe working for the season and couldn’t wait to get home to his wife in Bangkok, bless him! We stayed for a couple of drinks and called it a night.

Wednesday 20th January

Eurgh! Snore off!! We have a room mate like no other, comes in drunk obviously lies on his back and snores. Snores like no other. Leaves his curtain open and is half hanging out of his pod anyway and snores. And bizarrely comes home with pockets full of coral – highly illegal! Once snore-a-Saurus Rex got up & went out, we managed to catch a little sleep.

Around 11.30am we headed out to a beach on the opposite side of the island to where we had landed, everything is walkable and didn’t take us long. The water was pretty choppy round here, and the water seemed a little dirtier, though I think anything would have looked dirty compared to yesterday’s! This side of the island there were two smaller islands nearby which you could kayak over to, that’s what we came for. Though on arrival at the beach we took a walk to try and find some kayaks…..to no avail. Bummer. I am now totally going to photo spam because, well, I just couldnt get enough of this place. I want to stay here forever.

The two islands were full of lush green forests, the beach we were walking on was more of the powder white dust, and the sea in between a glorious turquoise – the perfect blend of greens and blues. It was a scorching hot day without a cloud in the sky so we decided to play safe and pitched up under the protection of a little palm tree in front of a resort that was made up of beach front bungalows and villas. It looked fabulous, and what a view. Well, bar the two scraggly backpackers that had just pitched up centre of the frame! A few long tail boats were bobbing around in the water as well as a white boat which I assumed someone at the resort owned and arrived on!

Martin from our hostel happened to walk by and stopped for a chat. He was off on a boat trip this afternoon….we asked him to report back to see whether or not it’s something we should do tomorrow.

Once it reached around 3pm we headed back to the town to grab some late lunch. We walked a slight back way and ended up on a different part of the main street. The walk took us through the local houses where kids were playing, gardeners were chopping down what appeared to be everything, men were sleeping, laundry was hanging and life was continuing as normal. It was hot. Too hot for real life chores!

We stopped at a little shack near to the other beach. Neither of us were very impressed with our food unfortunately. Whilst the beach we spent the morning on was beautiful, we both preferred the sea of Pattaya beach so spent the rest of the afternoon there. This time pitched up under a tree where the public shower was. It provided a nice little cold splash of water to cool off in the burning heat! One more unwelcome user was a rather large Italian man. He had a big round belly, and tiny pants which he had rolled even smaller to fashion into a thong.

DCIM100GOPRO

When I looked up there was a old hairy white Italian bum above me. And when I thought it couldnt get worse, he then proceeded to pull the front of his pants lose and spray the shower down there! Some things are just not meant for public places. That was most definitely one of them!

Locals unloaded supplies onto the beach from long tail boats arriving at the end of the afternoon which were quickly carted off to various locations of the island. The sun set a gorgeous orange colour straight into the sea, perfect.

On our walk back to the hostel, restaurants were getting for the evenings service. One place had a cat helping out. Well, not exactly helping. Just chilling out. On the scales! Was kind of ironic as he was sat on the scales of a fish counter but couldn’t have looked more disinterested in the fish if he tried!

We didn’t got for dinner til bout 9pm. We went to the place where the pianist was playing last night….no fish skewers for me! A guitarist joined him. Neither of whom were particularly good! I ordered a Greek salad with chicken and a side of fries and Ben went for a pizza. Both were delicious. Thank god! The bar was busy, they had games for you to play, and was decorated with all sorts of eclectic items.

It was a nice place to be….just a shame about the shoddy music. Once we had eaten and listened to more than we wanted to we decided to go home. There was a TV and DVD player, and Ben had seen that they had Pan which we both wanted to see. Just as we got back two girls had put a movie on. It was Pan! Winner. For anyone who hasn’t yet seen it, it’s great. Well, the bit that we saw was. The owner came in and told us that he wanted to go to bed so we had to turn it off! So we are still yet to see the final 40 minutes. I’m hoping that it will be on one of our flights!

Phi Phi, buckets & Maya Bay; All Saints reunion!

Sunday 10th January

This morning was difficult to say the least. We were being picked up at midday to go to Phi Phi, the “backpackers dream paradise”. So at about 11.20am I got up, packed and tried to evoke some sort of humanity into my life. It was hard. At about 11.45am I woke up Ben. I’d packed his bag for him, and got clothes out. I wasn’t expecting to dress him as well but when needs must!

Obviously, the minibus turned up early, we threw our sheets behind the check out desk and received our key deposits and bundled outside. Four other guys that we had met every night on the way home / somewhere out and about were on the bus too….and it just as much of a pickle as we were. Well actually, possibly not as they were still drunk. JP, Ricky, Steven & Barry were from Newcastle (Barry was actually Irish), we headed to the pier, JP continually telling everyone how he was so excited and how ace Phi Phi was and how they were going to have the time of their lives. He had worked out there a year or two ago. He was drunk, and truth be told, the kind of person I would usually find incredibly annoying, but he was hilarious. Just an absolute mess, it was brilliant. We queued for about 45 minutes before boarding the boat, we went to top deck with the guys – Ben & the four of them got straight on the beer. I couldn’t face it. They all held their cans level, cheering the sides of their cans, toasting with a rather lovely little ditty…..

‘Never above our family, never below our friends, always by their sides.’

The drunken louts had some substance to them, ’twas nice. JP continued to pest a girl he had been already pesting for three days, Barry with Ben tried to avoid the sun, and the others snoozed and basked in it!

Ben & I got chatting to a chap who was away for a while, he had received a healthy redundancy package and so decided to travel. £75,000! He was interesting but kept dropping money into everything, and continually tried to show you photos of everything which was a bit annoying. He spent £10,000 in the Seychelles on a holiday for him and his ex, and was staying at the Shangri LA hotel on phi phi. Apparently it’s the cheapest one in the world, but at £350 a night, I wouldn’t use the word ‘a steal’ to describe it. Lovely if you can travel that way, but I can think of plenty of other ways I’d prefer to spend that money.

We arrived in Phi Phi at around 4pm with nowhere to go. For some reason, we were all putting our faith in the drunkest of them all….JP. Dear God, please help us. We paid to get off the pier, with the exception of JP who high fives the cashier man and pushed through, and then proceeded to follow him to….well…. Absolutely nowhere as he had forgotten the way. Brilliantly hilarious. Everyone that he passed in the street he greeted with either ‘Hey Mother F%cker’ or ‘Hey B!tche$’, I mean, I can’t see for the life of me why Kelly who he was pesting wasn’t interested?! Yes, I realise reading this he sounds like a yob, but he was quiteharmless, and his greeting was well received by people (somehow). Anyway, every place we asked didn’t have six beds so we split from the guys and took two rooms at a place in the centre of the town. The town is quite sweet, no roads, so all luggage (for those with reservations) is collected at the pier in large carts and wheeled through the tiny stall lined streets which everyone walks bare foot along to their hotel.

Our hostel wasn’t great, to the point where we said, let’s dump our stuff and go find another place! It wasn’t cheap either really at 300baht, but it was clean, had three showers and the air con was cold. It was manic in there. A 20 bed dorm, full, Ben had his first top bunk! He also slept with his bag on his bed! Strange boy, he’s not familiar with upper deck formalities. Our hostel was up a little alley beyond the Muay Thai boxing ring, this wasn’t a normal ring. This is one where two tourists could opt to fight, they would fight a stranger most of the time and win a bucket for their entertainment provision!

First things first, we went for food. There were lots of places nearby, we stopped at a place that looked busy with tourists and locals called Cosmic. It had lots on the menu, but it was the Israeli food that caught our eye. We both ordered the falafel with tahini, pitta, salad, hummus & fries. It was incredible. So fresh and delicious. The falafel was full of spices that just popped in your mouth with every bite….and they weren’t dry! If this was setting standards, then I was going to enjoy eating here!

Next we decided to go find somewhere to stay tomorrow and thought that the beach would be nice, so headed that way through the town. There were so many bars and eateries to choose from….wahoo! After a few days in Patong I felt like I needed a detox….I don’t think that’s going to happen here!

Down at the beach we found a place, but it was over double the price, and didn’t have A/C….not a great deal! Bummer. We carried on our walk through the town to the Ibiza Pool Party….it’s free entry and packed. It was the time of day where we were the sober ones and everyone else had clearly been on it all day. Ben bought a beer as I watched drunken groups of lads push each other into the pool with their clothes on and beers and buckets in hands as the girls in their cheap (see-through when wet) swimsuits and coordinating lipsticks squealed for getting wet. All I could think was ‘that’s a swimming pool full of warm drunk pee’. Gross. Had we been there all day, it would have been a different story but I just wanted to get out of there. It was awful. Ben described it as everyone who works in Topman & Topshop (everyone wore the same!) who has saved up their earnings all year came away to escape working Christmas sales. It was about 8pm by now so we headed back to the hostel to get showered etc.

Theres no common area at the hostel so people we congregating on the sofa and plastic chairs outside our room in front of the reception desk. The guy who ran the place was really chilled out and didn’t mind at all. Most people had been out the night before on a big one, so we’re having more of a chilled night….winner! Beers on the beach seemed to be the consensus, we were up for that so joined the fun. Whilst waiting for everyone to get sorted we waited outside.

There were a couple of German guys, an Israeli guy called Gal, an New Zealander called Hannah….she was an 18 yr old with gorgeous fiery red hair, and a very free spirit. She was nearing the end of her big OE, fair play to her for doing it solo at 18, I think that’s awesome, two guys from India, and then there were three Brits. Two were from Manchester travelling Thailand and Bali on their way to work in Australia, Raimi who was a tall guy who was 1/4 Moroccan with a bit of Irish in their somewhere (he thinks) and works as a model scout / developer, and Naomi who was the tiniest little thing, really lovely lovely girl who did PR for Miss Guided before she left. She was getting chatted up by a Dutch guy, but had no idea he was hitting on her, he asked where she was from, I think she said her dad was Jamaican and her mum was Spanish, he replied with “my favourite kind of girls are half black and half another race”. It was so cringe worthy. Bless him for trying, but without sounding like I should be on mean girls, they weren’t in the same league. Raimi & Naomi were such a funny little duo.

The third girl was called Lindsey, not that she looked it, but she is 30….yay, another oldie! Lindsey lives in the Lake District and is on her umpteeth trip, destined after 6 months of travel to work in NZ for a while…how long she isn’t sure yet. She was hilarious and had a film quote for everything, she also had a love for All Saints (Shazney All Saints, not over priced crap clothes that fall apart All Saints).

The final chap was a Chinese guy living in the states, Peter. Ben sat down, and was greeted with ‘do you want a fight?’. A little stunned, Ben replied ‘what, right now?’ Kind of nervously playing along, and Peter said ‘no, in the ring later’. Phew. He was a very funny character.

We all chatted and learnt of each other’s tales, as you do, Naomi had popped a Valium and decided not to come out tonight as she was whacked from the night prior still. A couple of chaps came down the stairs from the upper dorm, one with his guitar, said hello, and asked what everyone was up to. Their plan was to head to the beach with the guitar so we decided to all go together. That wasn’t before he was persuaded to get his guitar out. What a mistake. Tomas from Lithuania came downstairs with James, we later learned he could breakdance, but after doing the fire limbo and burning his knees he was a little injured!

James, from Majorca, (but originally Norwich) was then playing every request under the sun, Naomi continued to shout out Rihanna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and anyone else who was a pop chart hero, he of course, knew none of these. And no matter how many times we asked him, he definitely didn’t know Justin Bieber. Nor did he know ‘Stacey’s Mom’ but Peter kept requesting it. Once some John Mayer, The Beatles, Bob Marley, The Libertines & many more had graced our ears, we finally went down to the beach around midnight.

Picking up some convenie beers on the way we sat in a traditional circle away from the boom boom as much as we could. The tide was coming in, we were going to get wet, but the mini gig commenced. Everyone requesting and singing along, it was great. Really interesting to learn about people’s music tastes aswell as their guilty pleasures. Raimi was feeling it by now, and released his dacha Firece, Romone…..Romone was from Newport, California. Hilarious. He had me in stitches pretty much that moment forward for the rest of the time we spent with them. His stories were just great, he had no filter button.

It was around 2.30/3am when we decided to grab some food on the way home. Most of the group, did exactly that including James, but then somehow Ben, James, Tomas and I ended up loitering in the streets a little longer. Long enough to bump into JP, Ricky, Barry & Steven. They were all suitably drunk. This time, it wasn’t JP who was wasted. Steven and James got chatting so all sat on a wall outside 7-11, James was playing again. 

Next thing you know, there is a crowned of about 50 people gathered around us listening, singing along and dancing in the street. I don’t know how, but we stayed here for another hour and a half! A man popped his head out of this balcony and caught James attention…..they’d taken the boat to Phi Phi together earlier in the day, so he shouted his request down into the street, and James played Wonderwall for him. Ben had been adopted by a group of Argentinian guys who were screaming football chants, and gave Ben a ‘Newells Old Boys’ bracelet whilst I held the fort on the 7-11 step. It was now almost 5am, I was whacked so we headed home leaving James with his crowd. What an awesome night.

Monday 11th January

I’d not drunk last night in the end, so although a little tired felt ok. Ben however was feeling terrible. Three nights in Patong and a night in Phi Phi had finished him off. That and the Thai Whisky (Rum) that we seemed to be consuming faster than water. We all woke up and filled Naomi in on the evenings events. Raimi felt awful too, he was having a bed day. I later learnt that he’d been violently vomiting, very strange.

The mornings check outs left, and Way, the house keeper lady came into the dorm. She was a funny little character, who tried to get people to stay longer and longer so that she had less work to do and fewer beds to change. Nice ploy! The power cut, it happens daily, and out of nowhere, this little Burmese who has been throwing herself around the bunks just let go of the pillow she was stripping and said ‘F*cking Sh*t’. We all looked at each other in disbelief and the laughed. She has obviously heard so many people say that when the power goes out that she picked it up, a bit like a kid saying something they heard their mum say. It was bloody funny in her broken English accent. She laughed with us too, and then said ‘I no see, I no work’ and pointed to the door. She hated working, a lazy little thing, but funny with it. Very entertaining.

Given that Ben wasn’t moving, and the hostel wasn’t as bad as we first thought, we decided to stay. I went and bought myself the most amazing chicken wrap I have ever eaten, it was huge, and full of tasty fresh salad and beautifully coated chicken breast, and a new bikini. A black and white number.

We were going to have a chilled day really, but everyone else (bar Raimi) was heading in a boat trip so we decided to go along. Initially I was hesitant as every boat tour we have done has been rubbish, and people say to go in the morning for better visibility, but it was only 350baht so not the end of the world. It included a visit to Maya Bay, where the movie The Beach was filmed (despite being written while the author was in the Philipines), and the three girls needed a fourth All Saints member to do a Pure Shores shot so I had to go really.

We went down to the pier for 2.30pm where about 30 of us bundled into a long tail boat. I think that we had all thought it would be about half as many people as that! Our first stop was Monkey Island. After witnessing the horrible little tourist eating monkeys at in Vietnam when we were in Cat Ba, Ben and I had no care for going near the horrible little things. Those in the wild seem fine, it’s the ones who had been spoilt by tourists that are nasty. Ben & I stayed in the sea whilst most piled onto the tiny little strip of beach infested with them. They were all playing nice until one out of nowhere latched onto a woman’s leg. Using its four limbs to cling and its teeth into her calf for extra grip, we could see it pulling her skin away from her muscle. Most people close by screamed and ran into the sea, the monkeys followed part of the way whilst it wasnt too deep, she reacted by trying to shoo it away and in doing so it bit her finger before letting up. She got back onto the boat and the guys cleaned her up. She was sat in front of me. Back on the boat she said how she didn’t have her rabies jab as she has an egg allergy so couldn’t, and how she hadn’t been anywhere near the monkey when it launched at her. She wonders if it didn’t like the flash of her camera. For someone who hasn’t had their jabs and was at the beginning of a 5hr boat trip, she wasnt bothered really. I think I’d have wanted to go back straight away and get sorted out!

Anyway, we continued. A couple from Brighton who were sat next to us told us all about their trip to South America and got us super excited. The girl had loads of various pills on her so dosed the monkey lady up with pain killers!

The next stop was a place for people to snorkel. It was beautiful, a lovely little bay but full of tourist boats. And I mean big ones, not like our little over crowded long tail. The water was full of life jackets, go pros and bikini clad bums bobbing above the surface. The water was a beautiful green colour but unfortunately there was little to see, well where we were anyway. Hannah jumped in and swam for miles. She managed to sees one slightly more exotic fishes – Nemo & Dori! 

Ben jumped in and reported that there were a few little fish but nothing major so I didn’t bother with my mask and just went for a little swim to cool down, such a shame that there was not much around, but I’m sure it would be better round at the other spots. Once everyone was back on the boat, egg fried rice was distributed to all. It was a tiny polystyrene box held closed with an elastic band with literally rice and egg inside. I wasn’t hungry so it made no odds to me, but I’d have been devastated if I thought that the trip was “catered”!

Our final stop was a snorkel / Maya bay combo. A short ride later we stopped, and we told we were there. Well, needless to say we were disappointed not to be looking out at the beautiful bay and instantly thought that they were trying to rob us off. But, in hindsight I’m glad we stopped where we did – just round the corner. The water was too shallow so we wouldn’t have been able to pull up to the beach, so instead, we stopped at a cove where the water was deeper. Here you could see loads of fish without even getting wet! We decided to head to Maya Bay before we snorkelled given that that was what today was all about. That’s when we were asked for 400 baht! We had already read, and been told by others that there was a fee to get on to Maya Bay as since the movie was released its become a National Park but it was still pretty steep! It’s not overly organised, the long tail boat guys collect your admission fee before they will let you off the boat. However, in said commotion, we ended up not paying. Not through lack of trying. Ben jumped into the water to cool down, I stood waving our money in the air and it was never collected, so I got off aswell, and never again was I asked for it.

Funny how the compulsory fee isn’t checked by anyone, and you’re not give a ticket / receipt. It makes me wonder whether it’s legitimate or just a money maker that they’ve all agreed on?

Anyway, we began our adventure to Maya Bay. First we had to climb through a dark wet crevis between two rocks, it was like a skinny cave passage full of puddles. It was a busy little hole, full of people who seemed to forget how to walk once it got dark, bodies were slipping everywhere onto the sharp jagged rocks, and squeals were being thrown around. The other side of the ‘cave’ was a big rock pool, there were loads (and I really mean loads) of crabs covering the rocks. They were black with violet pincers who scurried away when you went near, some were canape size, whilst others looked like they’d provide enough filling for a whole platter of sandwiches!

Beyond the crab field was another obstacle. This was another kind of cave with a much deeper pool full of fish, or a pointed, slippery sharp rock edge. The choice was yours which route you opted for. I went for the rocks, holding the beaten up piece of rope for effect (I mean it was going to help much should I fall!). We were following a group of girls who I would describe as scared of everything, they should have stayed on the boat. They wouldn’t stop saying ‘we didn’t pay for this’. Shhhhhh!!

Then there was just a little walk through a kind of forest, I’m sure it was concrete with sand poured on top to create pathways, and we arrived at Maya Bay.

A beautiful cove, lined with forest covered karsts, super fine powder sand and crystal clear water. The sun was low by now so the bay was strangely quite dark, and the tide was really far out meaning you could walk for ages before the water actually became any deeper than your feet. It was quite eerie actually.

Ben felt really rough so stayed on the beach, whilst me and the girls went out into the water. There were crabs and marine creatures the same colour as the sand, I’ve no idea what they were, but every so often you’d see a little flicker. There were a few long boats at the entrance of the bay but nothing like you see in photos. That was really nice. I was expecting it to be really really busy, and although it was only tourists there, there was so much space that the place felt empty.

We posed for our All Saints album cover, Kindly snapped by. French man who was passing by who let us smile before then saying ‘now pretend that you like each other’, it made us all laugh and made for a cracking photo. We chilled in the super warm, super shallow water and sprawled out on the beach just in case Leo had touched that bit of sand, and after about an hour we headed back to the boat. We realised we weren’t going to have time to snorkel, never mind. We clambered back to the boat, this time attempting to go around the rock instead of through the skinny dark cave, but after Naomi came back saying there were monster crabs none of us fancied it.

The crabs didn’t seem as scared this time, and just hung around. I managed to take a photo of a tiny one, you can just about see its bright pincers! Oh, there was another option to get back….you could climb a cargo net. If you wanted to pay 100baht!?

The final stop of the day was the sunset, I’d not realised we would be out that long, so it was a nice little ending, especially when there were no boats around us. Just the dark grey blue waves and a bright orange sunset that disappeared into the horizon line, looking like it drowned in the open sea. We had to make a pit stop on the way home, to drop off two passengers who were off to see the glowing plankton. Ben was keen to get back as he still wasn’t feeling well, so once he was in bed, the All Saints Squad headed out for some Pad Thai. Raimi stayed home too…turns out he had been really poorly all day! Nothing worse than being ill without your home comforts.

We went to a tiny little place that Lindsey had been to with Peter a few days prior. It was down an alley that Ben & I had walked on our way to the hostel on the first day with the guys from Phi Phi, a tiny kitchen called E-San Ganeang. The Pad Thai was huge! And bloody delicious. I wasn’t even that hungry, but still demolished the lot, admittedly, forcing the last few mouthfuls. I should have just followed Hannah’s example and got the rest in a box to take out!

Everyone got showered etc, and congregated outside pre-drinking, with the exception of Ben. He was still in bed and not liking the idea of being vertical. Hannah and I shared a Strawberry Daiquiri bucket, it was delicious. Made with real strawberries opposed to some sugar laced purée! Yum.

A couple of the German guys introduced me to a new game. It’s an app, but brilliant. Seemed like a lot of people had already heard of it, so I felt I’d been missing out. Anyway, I will forever refer to the game as ‘Forehead’ but it’s official name is Heads Up. Download it! It would make such a good Christmas game, and could be compared to charades I guess. The person in the hot seat holds the phone against their head with the app loaded. The app generates words and the rest of the group have the task of having you successfully guess the word. Yes it’s simple, but the little twist that I love is meanwhile everyone is shouting all their descriptions at you and demonstrating their very best acting skills, the phone is recording them. Great viewing! The winner is the person who has the most correct answers.

First things first….my hair is probably the most amazing it has ever been right now, I absolutely love it ‘ it does what its supposed to, is gorgeously long, my curls are behaving and the sun has lightened it to the most incredible ombre! Ok yes, its in terribel condition but boo hiss to that.

Anyway…..Ben made it out of bed, and we all headed down to the beach bars. Ibiza bar was pretty intense by now, in full flow, so we headed to Stones. Ben still wasn’t feeling good, so we stayed out for about an hour before both heading home. We took the paths home rather than the beach route, and ended up standing outside a bar listening to a band. It was just beyond there that we bumped into Elias (Swedish guy from Laos and Phi Phi!), he told us how Eskil was getting a tattoo, so naturally we went to say hello and see what on earth he was having done. He was pretty drunk, and having the words ‘Salt’ & ‘Syra’ tattooed on the inside of his elbow above his forearm. Nassim was sat in the tattoo chair next to him. Having the same words but in between his fingers, where people kept having moustaches tattooed a few years ago.

I assumed that it meant salt and pepper given that they were chefs, but drunk Eskil quickly told be not to be so stupid. It meant Salt & Sour. Silly me, haha. It’s a Swedish thing, as they love sour. John had joined the guys now with the two girls, he couldn’t stop laughing and rubbing his hands together saying how he was looking forward to their reactions tomorrow once they sobered up. Brilliantly evil! They only arrived on the island earlier in the afternoon.

By the time we were leaving Elias was sat in the chair! They’d all gone for the bamboo tattoos which I’m glad we got to see, it’s very clever, and apparently very painful. Instead of a tattoo machine it’s done completely by hand, essentially stabbing the skin with an ink covered bamboo. A traditional method. Anyway, back to Elias. He was going for a knuckle tattoo – on just one hand. He was having ‘smor’ written. The o hand an umlaut above it. So, the word smor means…..butter. No, this wasn’t a butter fingers pun, this was because as a chef butter is “great and almighty”. I couldn’t believe he was having butter tattooed on his hand!

We left the guys and went to grab a pizza. Lindsey and Rai I had has the pizzas last night and were amazing so I opted for a ham and pineapple in the hope that Ben would have a little nibble and it might help him feel a little better.

He managed some which was good, even if just a tiny bit. Once back we pitched up on the sofas (standard group meeting point!) and it wasn’t long before Amy and Jordan appeared, I tried my best to describe the pizza place and advise that it was worth a walk. I even told them that I would eat another whole pizza just to prove how good they were…..God knows what my logic was with that statement! Raimi had stayed in and slept, but by now was wide awake and about 14 seasons deep on Americas Next Top Model, or something like that – someone wasn’t sleeping tonight!