Haad Rin - Koh Tao (Haad Sae Ri) - Bangkok

Yo yo, back again in Bangkok, where the internet is four times cheaper than down in the islands, where they can pretty much charge what they want. We are having no luck uploading pics at this cafe but will try from a different one tomorrow.

Not loooads to report really, we wanted to mad chill the first two weeks of the trip and that's exactly what we did. After Bottle Beach we spent four nights in Haad Rin - too many really as it's pretty much the Newquay of Thailand, but we had a couple of really heavy days' rain and didn't want to go to Koh Tao til the rain had gone. Then we went to Haad Sae Ri on the island of Koh Tao for three nights, which wasn't nearly enough - I would highly recommend Koh Tao, it was incredible.

Some mashed-up memorable bits:

- finally going brown
- 8 hour power cut which resulted in us showering by mosquito candle light
- Faux 7 Eleven
- buckets on the beach (just the one night!)
- eating loads of crepes (they are cheap)
- trance guy in shop really deliberating over which pyschedelic top to buy, giving it the UV light test in the end and choosing both (I think)
- EVERYONE having tattoos (bar Gran and Gramps here)
- watching Miami Vice (the film) with really bad English subtitles ("Where'dya wanna go" = "I like a girl")
- Quent getting a massage, and being the very first customer of a brand new shop
- Animals and insects: a dog every 2 metres; my first centipede; a cockroach in our room (cue Nic squealing when it jumped out of my bag); mozzies; flies; geckos; a rat or two (but not in our room thank god)
- trying not to pat really cute puppies and kittens in fear of getting sick
- "Mr J"'s shop on Koh Tao, complete with hand made condoms (hmmm)
- gorgeous swimming pool: Quent doing bombs
- lowering our literary standards from decent books to crime fiction page turners (the good books are way more expensive)
- dreaming that Karen M's dad was Chris Tarrant
- dreaming that I went to get a job at McDonald's when I went back to NZ (arrrgh!)
- loving our old skool mobiles with torches
- Quent nearly getting sconed on the head by a falling fruit as we dined on the beach by gas lamp
- having to move my last injection of the day to 9pm rather than 10pm cos we are often asleep by then! (Jared, Sheena, Belinda, Gaz: don't pretend you don't miss the 10pm alarm)
- "the sliding cup"
- getting the boat with legless Thai dudes falling over with sharp bits of aluminium in their hands (ace, thanks guys)
- "Country Road" sang in Thai amidst other country faves while we waited for the train
- getting on the train and nearly gagging from the urine smell, me diving into my bag to dab perfume all over my sleeper bed to create an alternative scent
- getting off in Bangkok at 5.30am completely dazed and confused