The Big Trip...

Hey everyone

So this is my final update from SE Asia as i am heading back to Bangkok tomorrow and then off to Hong Kong the following day.

The second day of diving was just as good as the first..and i took an underwater camera down with me so I have lots of pictures of all the aquatic life! However, i think i was poisoned by the falafal restaurant (serves me right for not eating thai food) and i spent teh day on the boat feeling sick and not eating (which are not the best conditions for diving).

I came back after the course was finished and just had a chilled out night and went to bed early cause I was feeling ill, while Jo went out with the group of lads that are in the room next door to us.

The next few days passed in a blur of lying on the beach, going out for meals, and partying it up until 5am every night. The the full moon party came. Now, this island is absolutely lovely, and really really quiet and that is why me and Jo love it here. Once the full moon party approached the population increased tenfold and teh island became almost unbearable. The day of teh full moon party, you could barely walk down the street without haveing to say 'excuse me' every 2 seconds to get people to move out of the way!

The party itself was overrated. Far too many people, too hectic and just not that much fun...but it was an experience and we are glad that we went. My biggest recommendation to anyone would be to go to the 1/2 moon party over the full moon..100%.

Anyway, we left the party at around 4am (we are lightweights) and went to bed. At 11am the boys next door started banging on our door, woke us up and dragged us to teh after party on the cliff top overlooking the beach....the boys hadnt been to bed yet. And neither had anyone at the after party. Except us. Who were sober as a judge and everyone else was still drinking beer. Craziness.

Remembering the mess of the night before, me and Jo decided to give the beach a miss as we feared it would be covered with passed out bodies, shards of glass and general dirt. Instead we found a lovfely 5* resort that would let us use their pool and facilities for 100 baht for teh day (about 1 pound 50..so pretty reasonable). And so the past 3 days have been spent lying by a stunnin gpool and pretending we are living the life of luxury..only to go back to our cheap (yet cheerful) room at the end of the day.

To maximise time in the sun (and to work on my tan) we decided that the best possible option to get back to bangkok would be to fly...so tomorrow night we fly from Samui to Bangkok at 10pm, meaning i have another night of sleeping in the airport before my flight to Hong Kong the following morning. Jo is leaving to go home at 1am...so its all going to be a little bit rushed for her at bangkok..c'est la vie.

Anyway, next time I update it will be from Hong Kong and onto the final leg of my trip.

Hope everyone is well at home and counting down the days till I return.

love danielle xxx

Hey everyone

So, we left Samui first thing the next morning after an entertaining evening sitting through 4 hours of Muay Thai boxing (not my choice but Jo is obsessed) and then checking out the Samui nightlife.

We got a boat over to Ko Phagnan which is about half an hour away from Samui (so not too far!). On arrival we were met by this really sweet girl who recommended a place for us to stay. Following her advice we turned up at a bunch of shacks on the beach in the middle of nowhere...we were not too impressed! Later we found out that she had not been 'shopping in Samui' as she told us but she actually gets on the boat to round up idiots like us who belive anything nice people tell us! We setteld into a bunglalow..and, yes, they had a beautiful view, but not our cup of tea, and set about getting a taxi over to Haad Rin where all the activity on the island is.

Impressions of Haad Rin were excellent so we quickly got a taxi back to our stupid bungalows in the middle of nowhere with every intention of telling teh really friendly staff that we were not going to be spending the night there. However, when we got back the lovely staff had made us dinner and set about teaching us to use firepoi! So obviously we could not tell them that we wanted to go, so we ended up staying for one night.

The following day at 7am we sneaked out (dont worry...we paid!) so nobody could see us leave and got a taxi to Haad Rin to settle into our accomodation which we would be staying in for teh next 2 weeks (although did not know it at the time).

There is not too much to tell about my time on this island..the day normally starts around 10 or 11 am, we have a leisurly breakfast before hitting the ebach, sunbathing and swimming in the sea, a spot of lunch and then dinner followed by partying on the beach at night. Its a lovely life.

The main thing we have done is go to teh Half Moon Party. This is held on every half moon, which is twice a month, and its a huge party in the middle of the jungle, with around 5000 people there and neon body paint for everyone to have. Its such a sight. Anyway, all 'neoned' up, and armed with a couple of buckets, we set about to dance the night away until about 6am when we retired to bed, leaving the hardcore partygoers there until around 10am!

The other thing I am doing is my advanced diving course. Currently through day one of the course, it feels amazing to get under the water and i did a dive today at Seal Rock (which is the only 5* dive sit in the gulf of Thailand) and went down to 35metres. I have lots to tell about my diving, but you will have to wait for the pictires for that.

Anyway, my course finishes tomorrow and then me and Jo are hanging around here until the Full Moon Party, which is a massive evernt with up to 50,000 people all partying on the beach for around 24 hours.

Until next time..i'll try and send you some sunshine

love Danielle xxxx

Hey everyone

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe because the weather is a bit overcast...but its the first time since my last update that there has not been beautiful sunshine...so i'm taking this golden opportunity to update this blog.

Ko Phi Phi was absolutely beautiful. Plenty of people told me not to go there because it has become far too commercial and it is a bit of a construction site because they are trying to rebuild the town following the devastating effects of the tsunami. However, me and Jo were pleasantly surprised with the island.

On our first day, Jo was really ill and spent teh day in bed so i went off exploring, and found an amazing beach and lovely little market stalls scattered around. I didn't do much else as I was exhausted from the previous night sleeping in the airport!

Day 2 on Phi Phi was spent lying on the beach, doing a bit of snorkelling and hitting a few bars at night.

Day 3 - we went on a fishing trip with some boys we met from edinburgh. Having never fished in my entire life, i was really happy to catch 3 fish during the course of the day (ok, i know its not a lot but still...better than nothing!). It was a really relaxing day sailing around all the different islands.

Day 4 - today me and Jo (along with the edinburgh boys) went on a boat trip for the day around the phi phi islands. We visited the island where the film 'The Beach' was filmed and various others, where we could go snorkelling and kayaking. It was great day where we sailed around and then stopped off at magnificient beaches for an hour or so, before getting back on the boat. We had a huge night out that night because it was our final night on the island, so off it was to the many bars on the beach to drink many many buckets filled with god knows what alcohol! We knew we would never make the 9am boat when we stumbled into bed at 5am!

Day 5 - after missing the 9am boat (there was absolutely no chance on earth we were gtting up after 3 hours sleep!) we booke doutrselves onto the 3.30pm boat to Railey Beach. Feeling slighty fragile, we spent the day going from coffee house to coffee house wasting the day away. At 3.30 we got on teh boat for one and a half hours to take us to Railey Beach. Railey is probbly the most beautiful beach i have ever seen in my entire life...stunning white sands surrounded by cliffs that people go rock climbing on (I however, did not partake in this). We stayed at a lovely resort because there is not really any cheap accomodation here, but only for one night. I would reccommend anyone to go to Railey. The only downfall is that they have yet managed to build a pier so when we arrived (and left) we had to wade through knee deep water in our flipflops and carrying our 15kg rucksacks...its not a surprise that i fell over on the way in!!!!

Day 6 - We left Railey for Krabi Town..now, everyone told us that we must visit this town, but me and Jo were not too impressed with it so we booked ourselves onto a bus and boat to take us to Ko Samui the following day.

Day 7 - we spent the entire day travelling to Ko Samui...apparantly we were supposed to arrive at 4.30pm, but we somehow didnt get into our hotel until 8.30pm! Great! Anyway, we met some really nice people on the bus and boat and ended up having a great day, follwed by dinner and drinks in Samui until the wee hours. Samui is very commercial and very big and even has a starbucks, burger king and piza hut on the road we are staying on! Its a bit too much like home for us so we are off to another island tomorrow morning probably.

Hope everyone at home is well

love danielle xxxxxxxxx

Hey everyone

So, I left bangkok at 6pm and did not arrive into Chiang Mai until 8am the following day. Luckily i had 2 seats to myself on the overnight bus, but the air conditioning was at full blast and some random Thai film was blaring in my ear, so all in all it was not a very pleasant journey!

I went straight to my hotel and was pleased with the quality of the place..so far so good with teh travel agent i booked this leg of my trip with. I didn't do much that first day as I was completely exhausted, so I just took a wander into town where it became apparant that the Thai New Year water festival was already in full swing. After getting completley soaked (and i was unarmed so it was really unfair) i headed back to the hotel and just chilled by the pool for the rest of the day. That night I had been handed a free Kantoke dinner evening by the travel agent because i booked a lot with them, so at 7pm I was picked up and taken to this huge dinner thing. I have never been given so much food ever, but it was all really good, and once everyone had finished their meal, thai dancers came onto the stage and performed some traditional dances. Then we went outside and some performers did some fire dances which were really spectacular.

The next day I went to an all day cookery class which was really worthwhile. They picked me up at 9am and we got taken to the cookery school. This time I was safe in a car with the windows locked, so we did not get wet en route. The drive was so random...thousands and thousands of people had lined the canal that circles the city of Chiang Mai and all had water guns, big buckets of ice cold water, or mere water balloons. It is the most bizzare thing I have ever seen.

At the cooking class we made green curry paste, pad thai, green chicken curry, papaya salad, spring rolls, banana fritters, basi chicken and some more things i cant rememeber. Oh, and we ate everything we made, so I was completley stuffed by the time 5pm came and it was time to go home. I met some really nice people on the course and we all headed out to the Night Bazzar that evening for a little bit of shopping.

The following day I was starting my trekking through the jungle, and this was definately an experience. The people all going on the trek from my hotel didn't speak much english and I thought that I was in for a relaly boring 3 days, but we met up with another van load of poeple and they were all really nice people. On the first day of the trek we drove for 3 hours in an open top car (yup, thats right, we got drenched going through the streets of chiang mai, and teh villages surrounding!) to the elephant park, where we rode on elephants for about 1 hour. This was awesome and a great introduction to the trekking. After some lunch we drove to teh start of the trek and then the hard work began. On that first day we literally climed a mountain for 3 hours and I was completely ready to pass out by the time we got to camp. Once we had relaxed for a bit, our guide took us round the village that we were staying in and explained to us the life of the hill tribes which was really fascinating, and I will tell you all more about that wen i get home. It was early to bed because we were so exhausted. The following day was another full day of hiking up and down mountains (i can;t decide which is better..going uphill or downhill because my knees still hurt!). This day was pretty uneventful. The final day was te best...we only walked for about 2 and a half hours and then we went swimming in the most beautiful waterfall to freshen up. After that we drove to the bamboo rafting and we all got on huge bamboo rafts and got taken down the river for about an hour. This was so so strange because the water festival was still in full stride adn lining the river were thousands of people all throwing water at the poeple on the bamboo rafts. I think we were dry for the forst 30 seconds. All along the river they are having a party, drinking beer and eating chiken, and they were including us the whole way...random Thais were coming up- to our rafts with big glasses of beer and handing them out to us...it was so much fun! Its really hard to describe what it was like and unfortunately i do not have any pictures because my camera would have broken with all the water....its just teh biggest water fight and drinking festival ever known to man.

Once back safely in Chiang Mai we all had hot showers before meeting in teh town for a group dinner which was really nice. We stumbled upon a thai boxing match as well and a lady boy parade (ye, there are loads of lady boys here, its very strange and it is really hard to tell if they are real women or not!).

Yesterday i just had a chilled out day and i spent most of the day by the swimming pool having a well deserved rest from the trekking. I met some really cool people and we just did nothing all day which was luxurious. At night me and Luke took his moped into the town (probably the scariest ride of my entire life..thought we were going to crash and die because the traffic here is manic) and we got some thai massages for like 4 pounds. Bliss. We then met up with some more people from the pool and all went out for dinner and did a bit of shopping in the night bazzar. It was a good day.

Today I am starting a 3 day journey into Laos which I am really looking forward to. Hope everything at home is okay and please keep in touch.

Love Danielle xxxxx

Hey everyone

Well i am safe and sound back in the Northern Hemisphere ( ) after a 25 hour journey from Fiji. After being knocked back when asking for an upgrade (yet again..u gotta ask) i realsied i was in the very back seat of the plane and the seat did not recline! i was not a happy bunny. On the plus side i watched some great movies, saw an amazing sunset through the plane window and got chatting to Rob who was sitting next to me. On arrival into Bangkok, me, Rob and some other random girl with a backpack all got into a taxi to the Khoa San rd (backpackerdom). 800 baht, 2 toll road costs, and 45 mins later we were at the hotel and ready to crash. Hotel was absolutely stunning (i had decided to splash out a bit for my first 2 nights) and slept like a baby.

The next morning me and Rob met a couple of guys whilst trying to barter for some fisherman pants, and we ended up spending the day together. After some shopping and pad thai for lunch (which costs around 40 pence here) we decided to get into some tuk tuks. For those of you who don;'t know what these are, they are a cross between a car and a motorbike. Basicalyl very fast, dangerous vehicles that transport you around the city for very little money. We wanted to go to see the Grand Palace and th Giant Buddha. They took us to these sites but then insisted on taking us to 2 tailer shops (and they were surprised when we didnt want to buy anything?!), and a temple that not only was closed for renovation, but there was a funeral going on at the same time! There we were...4 travellers clad in fisherman pants and singlets, wearing flip flops..and we just walked into a buddist funeral. Great. We couldnt get out of there fast enough! Once back at the khao san rd we spend about 10 mins bartering with the tuk tuk drivers for the price, and we left satisfied having only paid 10baht (there is about 70 baht to the pound) for an hour long tour of the city. Sweet.

We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon..went swimming etc and then headed out at night back to the madness. We bought noodles from a street vendor and then had some beer on the side of the road. Was a good night, but me and rob were so tired still from the journey, that we left the other guys and went back to the hotel.

Today i am just getting ready fro my trip to Chiang Mai. I leave at 6pm tonight and spend 12 hours on a bus up north, arriving just in time for the Thai new year where there are giant water fights on teh streets of the city for 5 days. i am going trekking in the jungle for a few days whilst i am there before heading into Laos.

Hope all is well at home

Danielle xxxx