Hitting the Bottle.

Just when you thought we may have disappeared off into the sunset, here we are back again! We had a fairly convoluted trip down to the islands from Bangkok then headed for Bottle Beach (thanks for the recommendation, Col + Beth, Dave + Louisa). This involved getting a sleeper train from Bangkok, setting our alarm for 3.30am in anticipation of our 3.44am arrival (and not wanting to sleep through the station a la a drunken night on the tube), realising that the train was going slowly and waiting patiently for it to arrive around 6am, getting a van to Chumporn port, a 2.5 hour boat journey (ahhh, wonderful sitting on the top deck, our white bodies blinding fellow travellers as the sun bounced off), then we chilled at Koh Tao for a few hours, got a one hour boat to Koh Phanang, a truck to the northern port of Ao Chalok Lam, and a longboat to Bottle Beach, aka Haad Khuat.

Not too much to be said of the following five days on this glorious, idyllic beach, but a list of the bits that stick out in my mind:

- Thai versions of "Zombie" and "Ladylumps"
- Fugees and Nas to excess
- power going off for about 4 hours a day
- cold showers
- awesome bungalow: Right. On. The. Beach - yeeeah!
- only one shop which sold soap, mars bars, sunscreen and little else
- four restaurants to choose from
- reading, reading, reading - Q and I got through four novels each
- no mobile signal
- attempts at going from white to brown (had to take it slowly, and still have a way to go)
- day trippers coming in every other day, including the Snoop Dogg boat, come on!
- the best hits of 1990: MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, House of Pain, loving that!
- Russian girls posing at the waters' edge like they were in Sports Illustrated
- aloof Israeli lesbians in the next bungalow
- reading by torchlight
- trying to cross the stream in the pitch black, across a shaky bridge
- bit of a tummy upset on my behalf
- Nic getting the giggles at dinner
- delliiiiicious squid on the last night

So now we have moved to Haad Rin on the South East coast of the island. Yes, this is the home of the ghastly Full Moon party (if you've never heard Quentin and I bleat on about how much we hate trance/ravers, you definitely will in future). We've made sure we have turned up safely in between either the full or half moon parties just to be safe. We'll stick around here for a couple of days no doubt, so will take advantage of a couple of the more touristy things, like day trips which take you to the waterfalls, can't wait. We may even get brave enough to hire motorbikes, but I'm wary of walking away with a "Koh Phanang tattoo" (i.e scars from falling off the bike).

We're at this cafe researching visas and the different legs of the ensuing weeks, so no time to upload photos today, but stick around and I'll show you some of Quent in his Speeds (just kidding).

Love to all! Thanks for all the emails. xxx