Tuesday 28th May, 15:39, Don Det, Laos, by Mamie

Thailand has offered little in the way of blogging and it is only now, as we begin our travels through Laos, do I think to post something. Whether this is due to an unsatisfactory lack of culture- the last temple we visited was in Ayutthaya- or a silly amount of partying and lack of sleep thereof.

I feel sad to leave the south of Thailand however. My family has always visited Europe and America so Thailand was my first taste of luxurious white beaches and beautiful little islands surrounded by clear, turquoise sea. Amy said I wouldn't tan, but I'm excitedly happy to say that I no longer appear Irish. Not quite French or Swedish, but I'm getting there.

After we left Phuket (here I should mention that we went back and stayed a week with the Power Storm Crew, every night spent dancing away at their favorite club, 'Seduction'), we headed for the relaxing island of Koh Phi Phi. This 'recovery island' turned out to be party central. Day one and I'm winning the fire limbo and cartwheeling through fire rings; day two and I'm being carried by a local fire dancer under a 60cm fire limbo... At one point, we were told the quietest and best beach was a lovely forty minute walk away and so we began the journey, hoping that a walk and some good views would bring us back to a cultural balance. The forty minute walk was actually a sixty minute trek through the jungle where any hesitation resulted in a number of mosquito bites. Amy reached the beach with maybe eighty or more bites and in exasperation and despair having lost me at the very beginning. But let's console ourselves on how lovely the beach was.

The real recovery island was Koh Lanta where we splashed out on a resort bungalow, downed Fanta in an effort to increase our glucose and therefore energy levels, and indulged in amazing food and puddings.

The final stop in the South was the infamous Full Moon Party in Koh Phangnan. We arrived with doubt, thinking we would hate the party but come just for the experience. By eight o'clock the first evening however, we were feeling the buzz and the atmosphere and regretted our decision to scuba dive the next day because it meant an early night. The scuba diving was incredible though, and I've decided to get certified at my next opportunity.

A nice touch to Koh Phangnan were the people we met there, both old friends and new. We bumped into Todd from our tavels in India, Eli from Nepal, Michael who was Amy's friend from London, Joe and Sarah whom we met in Ayuthaya, Max and his friends who we met and saw a lot of in Phuket and two London guys who we did a boat tour in Koh Phi Phi with. We then met three Indians and three Malaysians while diving who we got on really well with and partied with later, Leighton from New Zealand who became our roommate, and of course in true Mamie-faghag-style, I made a new gay best friend called Adam. This was just to name a few of the people we met and spent time with, but it was amazing to have such a mix of backgrounds and friends all in this one big party vibe.

I'm going to mention now that the Full Moon Party was not as bad as the rumours say. Yes most people were very, very drunk and in typical Thailand- tourist style it was pretty crazy, but it wasn't too bad and we escaped unscathed and unscarred. Initially we were worried about our hotel room after we were told it was often broken into because it was positioned right on the main beach, but everything was okay in the end. Anyway, the burglar alarm which I constructed from Amy's rape alarm was foolproof, right?

Now, after two days of travelling (an unbelievably hungover Amy, a very packed boat which almost sank, an overnight bus trip back to the old Khao San road and our first Thai train towards the Laos border) we are almost at San Pha Don: the four thousand islands. We have twenty one days left, and a lot to pack in. Maybe no more partying?

Wednesday 22nd May, 14:08, Ko Lanta by Mamie

Some shots from Central Thailand (waterfalls in Erawan National Park, Kwai Bridge, Death Railway) and some shots from South Thailand (basically beaches, islands and wakeboarding around Phuket :) )

Saturday 18th May, 16:50, by Amy

I have a feeling that the stream of nerdy posts may have to permanently come to an end... depending on your definition of what is 'cultural'. If it is visiting temples and museums, then yes. If it is sunbathing on a beach and watching local breakdancers, then no. Whatever the change, we're definitely having plenty of fun!

Before we left Bangkok for Phuket (which Mamie has already spoken about) and after we visited Kanchanaburi and Ayuttayah, we did spend an afternoon in Khai Yai National Park. For me, this was a particularly memorable afternoon as I've never held so many weird creatures in the space of a few hours. We felt on the edge all the time; we came across a suspicious number of creepy crawlies, probably courtesy of our banterous guide Jo who we loved (and hated slightly). Whilst I was about to have 'Jimmy' (a creature I can't remember the name of - I was slightly preoccupied by the number of legs) on my hand, I thought I'd ask the question: 'is Jimmy poisonous and will he bite me?', just to be safe. I mean, I thought I knew the answer. Jo replies 'yes and maybe' followed by a slightly devilish giggle. To this day, I don't know at what points he was joking. So now I have held a scorpion spider (the one that gets tortured in Harry Potter), whatever 'Jimmy' is and a rather large millipede... also placed on my neck - this was before I saw the parasites crawling all over it! We also saw a tarantula.

All of this took place while we simultaneosly attempted to dodge guano falling from above. That's right, we were in a bat cave! The biologist in me got quite excited. It was also a unique bat cave because it was one where monks come to meditate. We struggled to see how anyone could relax in a dark cave with diving bats, creepy crawlies, snakes and spiders, but fair enough.

Another highlight was witnessing millions of bats flying across the sky from their cave, periguin fawlkans circling around them. The shapes the bats created reminded me of sparrows back in England. It also happened to be a night when termites fly (rather like the night of the flying ants) which was amazing to see, if slightly uncomfortable. Mamie had a slight freak out. This was an interesting backdrop for our night swim in a natural spring, which ended the nature-filled afternoon.

This was, if you consider India, the last 'cultural' thing we did!

Saturday 18th May, 16:50, by Amy

I have a feeling that the stream of nerdy posts may have to permanently come to an end... depending on your definition of what is 'cultural'. If it is visiting temples and museums, then yes. If it is sunbathing on a beach and watching local breakdancers, then no. Whatever the change, we're definitely having plenty of fun!

Before we left Bangkok for Phuket (which Mamie has already spoken about) and after we visited Kanchanaburi and Ayuttayah, we did spend an afternoon in Khai Yai National Park. For me, this was a particularly memorable afternoon as I've never held so many weird creatures in the space of a few hours. We felt on the edge all the time; we came across a suspicious number of creepy crawlies, probably courtesy of our banterous guide Jo who we loved (and hated slightly). Whilst I was about to have 'Jimmy' (a creature I can't remember the name of - I was slightly preoccupied by the number of legs) on my hand, I thought I'd ask the question: 'is Jimmy poisonous and will he bite me?', just to be safe. I mean, I thought I knew the answer. Jo replies 'yes and maybe' followed by a slightly devilish giggle. To this day, I don't know at what points he was joking. So now I have held a scorpion spider (the one that gets tortured in Harry Potter), whatever 'Jimmy' is and a rather large millipede... also placed on my neck - this was before I saw the parasites crawling all over it! We also saw a tarantula.

All of this took place while we simultaneosly attempted to dodge guano falling from above. That's right, we were in a bat cave! The biologist in me got quite excited. It was also a unique bat cave because it was one where monks come to meditate. We struggled to see how anyone could relax in a dark cave with diving bats, creepy crawlies, snakes and spiders, but fair enough.

Another highlight was witnessing millions of bats flying across the sky from their cave, periguin fawlkans circling around them. The shapes the bats created reminded me of sparrows back in England. It also happened to be a night when termites fly (rather like the night of the flying ants) which was amazing to see, if slightly uncomfortable. Mamie had a slight freak out. This was an interesting backdrop for our night swim in a natural spring, which ended the nature-filled afternoon.

This was, if you consider India, the last 'cultural' thing we did!

Friday 17th May, 13:18, Khao Lak by Mamie

Where are we, what are we doing?

We're in Khao Lak because a nice lady told us this is where we stay if we want to kayak in the Phang Nga Bay. Turns out we passed that 65km back and now it's raining heavily so we're stuck in this little, and expensive, town. Lets go to the beach! we said last night...

Urgh. Missing our Power Storm Crew back in Phuket.

In more positive news, we actually spent five pounds EACH last night on a meal. It was the most amazing luxurious meal and we felt like royalty.

Thursday 16th May, 11:33am, Phuket, by Mamie

We've been in Phuket, a hub of trashy tourism and revolting ping pong shows, but we've had a really brilliant time here. Our first night led us to some street performers breakdancing. Putting that aside for now, we then began roaming Bangla; the road of nightclubs, bars and the part of Thailand which Amy and I really hate; the culture for Thai girls to be strippers and performers and literally sell themselves for cheap, all for the shitty tourists who encouraged this business. Anyway thats a whole chapter to itself and not something I'm going to go into. Instead, we made some friends and went clubbing at 'Seduction' which became our go-to every night following. It was here that I recognised the dancers, and perhaps a little alcohol fuelled (sorry parents!), said hello and told them about how I used to breakdance. Of course, standard, the next day we end up in a breakdancing lesson with Rain and Mikey. As embarrassing as that was, we remained friends.

That night we watched their dance show in Seduction like groupies from the side and later were shown a cool local club. The third day was one of our favourites on this trip. They took us wake boarding and we got to properly meet the entire crew. These are their nicknames by the way, their real names are much more difficult: King, Mikey and Hsk (brothers), Rain, Porn, Extra and Twister. To put it simply, they're just really really cool. They're also through to the next round of Thailand's version of Britain's Got Talent. They're all really close and it's so cute it's almost as if it's from a movie. That night at the club there was some fierce competition. A weird (maybe French?) man attempted to impress us with some weird body rippling and locking stuff while some other men were also trying some odd moves. Our boys looked on for a while but eventually it got too much and they decided to shut them up. One second Amy and I are laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and the next minute we're cheering on Rain who's spinning in the middle of the dance floor with some really impressive breakdancing. Boom. We felt like groupies at first but that night, went home feeling proud of 'our boys'.

What's kind of interesting is that we can parallel the group to the Nepali boys; Sagar, Santosh, Prashant and Smiley. The Rapidrunners team is a large group of boys who have worked together for years and formed a strong bond. While we only met a couple of them, we still felt the impression of that bond and now we can compare it to that of the Thai boys. It's been really fun here, and though they invited us to watch them in the big competition in Bangkok, unfortunately we have to stay down South. We're going to miss them but good luck for their competition and maybe we'll come back to Thailand one day.

As for the wake boarding, Amy struggled to stand up while I managed that part but got really pissed off at the corner of the cable ski. Fuck you corner. It was definitely something I'd like to try again but my body is now whacked after both that and the breakdancing. I might go find Amy now and beg for yet another massage...

Today we planned to get up at 7:30 on only a couple hours of sleep. Of course, it's now 11:30 and we're still lying in bed. We're now heading to the Ko Phi Phi island today for more beautiful beaches and sun. Wooo!