Panama

Some people are just not suited to staying in dorms and I can't get my head around why, if they can't sleep through a little noise, they don't just do everyone a favour and get a private room. We encountered one of these types on our first night in Panama. We had landed in Panama City quite late and it was probably around 10pm when we were checking into our hostel. The guy showing us our room, switched on the lights so that he could point out our beds to us. Almost as soon as he vacated the room some very rude 'gentleman' popped his head out of the fortress he'd made for himself on the lower bunk using towels and sheets, and started gibbering away to us in Spanish. Having only spent a mere couple of hours in our first Spanish speaking country, he was given a couple of perplexed looks from Kay and I, who had not one clue what he was going on about. Not to be put of by this, he continued to talk to us in Spanish until I remembered one of my only Spanish phrases, "No hablo Español". He quickly switched tongue to English and told us to switch off the light. Ok, I told him, and then turned towards my bag as he disappeared back into his fortress. Less than 30 seconds later his ugly little head was peering through again demanding that the light be turned off. I understand that people need to sleep, and particularly if they are getting up early, which he wasn't FYI, but people also need to be able to get ready for bed when they've just checked in. This wasn't our only encounter with the man unfortunately, he would also tell us to be quiet if we had the audacity to speak in our room at 3 in the afternoon. I mean, how very dare we?! Get a room to yourself or invest in an eye mask and ear plugs, which are priceless commodities to anyone travelling and staying in dorm rooms. 

Panama

We spent our first day in Panama City figuring out a plan for our time in Panama and also deciding how we would get from Panama to Colombia. We had been told that the only options were to take a sailing boat, which took you first through the Caribbean San Blas Islands and then another two or three days sailing to Cartagena in Colombia, or to fly. We were told that both options would cost roughly the same and so before we arrived we decided the boat trip was a better option.  We got talking to some fellow travellers at our hostel who told us that there was actually a third option, this would be to do a two or three day trip to the San Blas Islands and then take a flight with the new low cost airline Viva Colombia. This sounded ideal because with it coming into the winter, there was a high enough chance that it wouldn't all be smooth sailing, and I didn't much like the thought of 5 days of rough seas. 

The next day we went to see the world's greatest shortcut, the Panama Canal, and spent some time walking around the old town. 

From Panama City we took an overnight bus to David and from there it was a short bus ride to a small town called Boquette which sits about 5000ft above sea level. While there we trekked to the top of Volcano Baru which is an active volcano (it hasn't erupted in over 500 years) which stands at 11,000ft. We started our trek at midnight so that we would be at the top for sunrise. We set of as a group of 9 but it wasn't long before we'd split into three smaller groups. We walked the whole way with an English guy and another guy from Germany. We spent the whole time swapping stories and keeping ourselves entertained for the 13.5km to the top. I stupidly wasn't drinking enough water and so by 8km I started to get cramp, and by 12km I was in agony with it, but I carried on none the less and we made it to the top for sunrise and were rewarded with an amazing panoramic view. We had the Atlantic sea to the East of us, the Pacific to the West and Costa Rica to the North.  If we had thought that a six hour uphill walk was tough, we were in for a treat with the 13.5km back down. The horse riding we had planned to do the following day had to be cancelled so we could spend the next day resting our weary legs. 

We spent our time in Boquette relaxing, horse riding, shopping at markets and generally just having a lovely chilled time. 

We went from there to Bocas del Toro which is a collection of islands on the Caribbean side of Panama.  We decided to stay on an island called Bastimentos which doesn't have any roads or vehicles, only one small path along the sea front.  The weather had turned a bit wild, the first night we were there it rained all night long.  It had thankfully cleared up by morning so we decided to walk over to Wizard Beach and do some sunbathing.  What was supposed to be a thirty minute walk along a dirt path turned into a slip and slide that lasted over an hour.  The heavy rain the night before had turned the path into a mud bath, we ended up taking our flip flops off and just walking through the mud in our bare feet.  We finally made it to Wizard beach, drenched after being caught in a down pour and covered in mud, to find that the tide was too far in for us to be able to walk around to the next beach, Red Frog Beach.  Wizard beach doesn't have any bars or restaurants on it and we hadn't brought any food or very much water with us, so after a quick walk along the beach with a dog that had adopted us, we had to take off our flip flops and get muddy again.  

There was an amazing thunder storm that night, the lightening was so bright and the thunder so loud, I've never experienced anything like it, it was right over our heads at one point.

We had to leave Bocas the next day having only been there for two nights, we took a taxi boat back to Isla Colon which is the main island in Bocas del Toras.  We arrived nice and early so we could spend some time there and also get to a cash machine so we could pay for our bus.  We dumped our bags at the dock and then went in search of the one and only cash machine on the Island.  We arrived at the cash machine and were greeted with and Out of Order notice, we entered the bank hoping that they could give us some cash using our bank cards, they told us that they could not issue us with any cash but assured us the ATM would be fixed between 3 and 4pm. Our boat was leaving for the main land at 5pm, where we would get a bus to Panama City.  Without any cash we wouldn't be able to pay for our bus but they told us the cash machine would definitely be fixed before then.  We headed off with the last of our money and had some lunch and a wander around Bocas town, after spending some time there we had wished that we had just stayed on the main island and taken day trips to the other islands instead.  There is no beach on the main island which was our main reason for staying elsewhere but the town has a really nice feel to it and it seems to be quite lively. We went back to the bank at 3pm sharp and when we tried to put our card in the machine, a booming voice told us "No!" from the other side of the machine, I guess they were still fixing it then.  We decided to sit outside the bank and wait patiently for it to be fixed.  We were running over our options of what we could do if they didn't fix it when sure enough, the ATM engineer came out and told us, and everyone else that had started to congregate, that the ATM wouldn't be fixed until the next day.  We were told by another backpacker that one of the local shops could give you cash back at a 10% charge and so we dashed off there, trying to beat the crowds of others needing money, but somehow took a wrong turn and ended up back at the dock.  We nipped in to the office quickly on the off chance that they would accept a card payment from us instead of cash.  They were very good about the whole thing ( I'm sure this happens a lot with there being only one cash machine) and allowed us to pay once we got to the main land, they said the taxi to the bus station would take us via an ATM...crisis averted.  

We arrived back in Panama City at the crack of dawn, got ourselves a taxi to our hostel, checked in, and then crashed out on the couches in front of the tv.  We spent the day getting ourselves ready for our trip to the San Blas islands.

The following morning we were picked up at 5am, collected 4 more Brits, all from London, and made our way to where we would get our boat to San Blas.  San Blas is a collection of 378 islands in the Caribbean and is in every way an unspoilt paradise of crystal clear waters and palm fringed white beaches. We arrived at the Island we were to spend the night on, dumped our belongings in our rooms, met some other guests who had arrived the previous day, and set off on our first island trip.  The first stop for us that day was a gorgeous uninhibited island where we all got to know each other while sunning ourselves and drinking rum. For the next stop, we were taken to an amazing sand cay where we could have a bit of a swim to cool ourselves down and there was, of course, more rum drinking. We had a nice lunch at yet another island before heading back to our own island so we could relax for the remainder of the day. The evening was spent with the four lovely Londoners, listening to music, playing drinking games and yes, you guessed it, more rum guzzling. 

The next, and our last, day was spent on yet another stunning Caribbean island where we sun bathed, had lunch and if you wanted to partake, more rum drinking. I was unfortunately feeling a tad worse for wear after all the rum the day before and so opted not to get involved. 

We left late in the afternoon and took a boat and then a very overcrowded jeep back to Panama City where we would spend one last night before flying to Colombia. 

We used Colombia's answer to Ryanair, Viva Colombia, for our flight to Medellin, Colombia. Although the flight was dirt cheap, it was one disaster after another which resulted in us almost missing our flight. Cancelled tickets with no notification, no english speaking staff at the tiny airport, no option to pay by card at the airport, a rush trip to the nearest ATM, joining the wrong queue and finally, no announcement that our flight was about to leave without us.  Yes, we were those idiots having to peg it over the runway to our awaiting flight.  Phew! Leaving beautiful Panama for one of my most highly anticipated destinations of our trip, Colombia! 

Los Angeles

We arrived at LAX in the afternoon and Nosh, our friend who you might remember we met on a train in Thailand, collected us from the airport, we were going to be staying with him and his lovely family during our stay in LA.  The two of us, Nosh, his wife Kio and their cute son Zelzen went out for dinner at a great Italian place close to their home.  When we arrived though, they advised that they were shutting soon so we ordered some very tasty pizzas to take away with us.  We ate dinner and then hit the sack, myself and Kay were exhausted after flying from Singapore and very jet lagged since we had crossed the date line and gained 15 hours during our flight.

The next morning Kio dropped us off in downtown LA where we had a nice breakfast and then took a bus to Santa Monica where we spent the day enjoying the sun at the beach. We made our way back to Downtown and Nosh collected us from there and the three of us went for dinner.  We had some awesome burgers which were enormous, none of us could finish them. My burger was sandwiched between two cheese toasties! Amazing but just too much, I had thought that because LA is so image conscious that the portion sizes wouldn't be as bad as the rest of the US but I was 100% wrong.  We had another early night as we were still very jet lagged and so neither of us had slept very well the night before.

The next day was one for being proper tourists in LA.  We started our day by doing a tour around the Hollywood hills, Beverley Hills, Rodeo Drive and West Hollywood.  I wouldn't recommend these tours as we spent most of our time being shown the houses of celebrities, which neither of us were that interested in.  We then walked around west Hollywood where we saw the Walk of Fame and also the Chinese theatre which is where all the hand prints are.  We spent the afternoon doing some shopping and then had burritos for dinner at a small Mexican place near Union station. 

On our last full day in LA we went for an amazing breakfast with Nosh and Zelzen in the morning, again, the portion sizes were so huge that Kay and I couldn't eat any lunch - we were still so full.  Myself and Kay then took a bus to Venice beach which was my favourite place in LA, there is so much to see and do, lots of cool wee shops, surfers, skaters and street performers.  

That night Nosh took drove us out to see Pasadena which is such a cute looking place, it has the look and feel of a small town even though you're in LA.  We went for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory where Penny works in The Big Bang Theory, the food and drinks were amazing.

I'm really glad that we got to stop in LA for a few days and we were very lucky that we got to see places that tourists don't normally get to see.  I won't be in a huge rush to return though, LA just isn't for me. 

Singapore

After touching down at Singapore airport and taking the underground out to our accommodation, we checked in and tried to make the most of what was left of our day.  We went to see a local market but there was a big thunder storm while we were there and so we ended up staying a lot longer than we had planned.  We had our dinner there and then decided to have an early night and get up early the next day to try and see as much of Singapore as possible. 

We headed for The Gardens on the Bay in the morning, they have huge beautiful gardens along with a cloud forest which was very impressive.  They have built some very tall flower like structures in the gardens and you can go up to a canopy walkway which connects two of them.  It's all very futuristic looking.

We spent most of our day there and then went to China Town for some dinner.  We went back to the bay side after the sunset so that we could watch the light shows that they put on every night.  When we arrived, everyone was sitting outside the shopping centre but we thought that it would be a rubbish place to stand for a good view.  So, in our wisdom, we left the crowd and walked further around the bay to where we thought we would get a good view, we were wrong...very wrong.  We walked through the shopping centre to the second light show of the night, at the gardens, and then made it back in time to watch the first light show again, this time from the right place!

Singapore is such an amazing city and it was a shame we only had one and a bit days there.  It's not anywhere near as expensive as people say and so I would recommend to anyone travelling in that area to spend a few days there.

Malaysia - Borneo

We arrived in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the state of Sabah, and had a bit of a lazy day.  We hadn't gone to sleep until 2am and were up at 6am to pack our bags that morning.  We checked into our hostel, lazed about and then went for dinner and a cocktail with the Turkish guys.

The next morning we all made our way to a tribal village where we were shown the skulls which are still hanging in one of the long houses.  These skulls were 'collected' by the last head hunter of that tribe.  They told us that when you wanted to ask a girl to marry you, you first needed to go into the jungle, find a rival tribesman, cut of his head, and then present it to the parents of the girl to show that you were capable of looking after her.

We all got to try using a blow dart, I was even allowed to shoot it at a balloon which the guy was holding between his legs.  Luckily for him, I didn't miss.  We got a musical show and were invited up to play with them.  They also taught us how to make fire before we headed back to town.  The guys had to head back to KL and so after dinner they headed to the airport while myself and Kay went back to our hostel to try and make some plans for our short time in Borneo.

We decided that we wanted to go to turtle island and stay the night at a turtle conservation but the next day we couldn't find any agencies that could offer us the trip. We booked a bus over to Sandakan, which is close to turtle island, in the hopes that we could book something over there.  There was plenty to do in Sandakan and around so even if we couldn't we would still have plenty to do.  We arrived in Sandakan pretty late and checked into our accommodation, lucky for us, we had a whole 8 bed dorm to ourselves.  We must be the only lunatics that opt for a fan only room in that heat.

The next morning we went in search of somewhere to book the turtle conservation.  The first place we went to were looking for over RM700 (£140) each to spend one night there.  We were a bit hesitant and told the lady that it was a bit much and we would need to have a think about it.  She, very kindly, told us that if we went to the pier we would be able to book the trip directly with Crystal Quest, who run the conservation, and we would be able to get it for much cheaper.  She was not wrong, we managed to get both of us staying for one night for about half of what the agency wanted.  

We went to a nice Chinese place on the waterfront for dinner and spoke to a lady who had been travelling for 18 years (jealous!) and she gave us loads of tips about booking cheap hotels and flights. 

We made our way the next day to the orangutan sanctuary which is just a short bus ride outside Sandakan.  Twice a day they leave food on platforms for them and if you are there during these times you'll get to see loads of oranguatans.  After we'd had our fill of the amazing creatures, we went across the road to the Sun Bear sanctuary.  It wasn't so easy to spot these tiny bears, but a nice lady that worked there pointed some out to us and also showed us some on a telescope.

We went for a walk along a canopy walk way in a huge big forest close by after lunch and then caught the last bus back to Sandakan.  

There were only 12 of us taken to turtle island the following morning,  they only allow a small number of people of the island at any one time, which is nice.  The island was like paradise, the sand was soft and white and the water crystal clear.  We had some free time after lunch to lie on the beach or go swimming, so we rented some gear and went snorkelling.  After dinner we were shown a video about the conservation centre and what they do which was really interesting.  Then we played a game...the waiting game.  We were called a little after nine to go down to the beach so that we could watch one of the turtles laying their eggs, they only disturb one turtle each night.  The ranger takes the eggs away straight away, but the turtle isn't aware that this is happening and still tries to cover them over once she is done.  After this we were taken down to the water to release the baby turtle that had hatched at the centre that morning.  What an amazing experience that was!

We woke up early the next morning to have breakfast and then we were ferried off the island and back to Sandakan.  We caught a bus back to Kota Kinabalu that morning and from there a flight down to Kuching which is in the state of Sarawak.

When we booked our flights to Borneo, we booked one flight into Kota Kinabalu in Sabah and the next flight out of Kuching, Sarawak.  What we didn't know at the time is that there is no way to get from Sabah to Sarawak overland without going through Brunei.

Thankfully, the flights in Malaysia are super cheap!

Our first day in Kuching was spent walking around the town and doing some shopping. Even when my bag is bursting at the seams, I still always manage to find room to squeeze one more thing (or two) in.  

We took a local bus the next day to a place called Bau, from here we were planning to catch another bus to the fairy caves but when we got there the next bus wasn't leaving for another two hours.  This wouldn't give us much time at the caves if we wanted to catch the last bus back to Kuching so we opted for a taxi instead. It didn't really cost much, about £8 for him to drive us to the caves which we twenty minutes or so away, and then wait an hour for us to explore the caves and then take us back again.  The caves were so pretty, well worth the million steps up to it!

We caught a boat ride down the river at sunset which was also very pretty.  A stunning orange and red sunset was a fantastic backdrop for all the unusual buildings in Kuching.

We took a bus and then a boat to get to Bako National Park.  The boat ride there was very good, the guy driving the boat pointed out a proboscis monkey sitting in the trees and also a crocodile. I was glad we saw those things because we didn't see anything on our trek.  It was a lovely, albeit tiring, trek through the rain forest. 

On our return, we showered and packed our bags ready for our flight to Singapore the next morning which will be our last country in South East Asia.  These last 5 months have a flown in.  I know time flies when you're having fun but I just wish I wouldn't go quite so fast.

Malaysia - peninsular

We left Railay around 10am and were put on a long boat to Krabi, from here we got a mini bus to a place called Hat Yai which is close to the Thailand / Malaysia border.  We had been told that there was a lot of trouble going on in the very south of Thailand.  A bit of a civil uprising of sorts,  but it seemed nice even if we did have to go through an airport security type process just to get into a shopping centre.  

From Hat Yai we got our overnight bus through the border and onto Kuala Lumpur, where we arrived around 5am.  Thankfully we were dropped off close to our accommodation and after more or less pleading with taxis to take us the short distance with our bags, we finally took their advice and just walked.  We were able to check-in almost as soon as we arrived and went for a wee disco nap since we'd not much slept on the bus.  

I woke around lunch time and found a million small bites all over my back! We were thinking this must be bed bugs.  We usually sleep on a bed bug sheet just to be safe, but we had been so tired that we'd just collapsed on the bed.  This had been, thankfully, our first experience of bed bugs while being away.  We put our clothes in to get washed and asked to be moved to another room.  We saw later that they had put someone else into our old room! 

We took the monorail to Little India which is an area of KL where I'm sure you can guess is full of Indian restaurants and shops.  We had some lunch here and bought some lovely Indian sweets from a stall.  From here, we took the monorail again to see the Petronas Towers.  We had decided against paying the £20ish to get to the top viewing platform and instead settled for taking photos from the bottom and thought we would come back that night to have a drink at one of the sky bars close by which would give us a great view of the towers at night.  Unfortunately though, I had been feeling not very well after waking from our nap, and by this point in the day I was feeling very unwell.  We headed back to our accommodation and shortly after I started to be sick.  I spent the rest of the evening back and forth to the bathroom hugging the toilet.  Sorry, I'm sure that was too much information.  Thankfully I woke the next morning feeling better which meant we could spend the day shopping in china town.  We had only been in Malaysia for two days by this point, but I was already sure I was going to love the place.  The people are by far the nicest we have met.  They are unbelievably friendly and so helpful without wanting anything from you in return. 

That night we took another night bus to Kuala Besut where we got a speed boat in the morning to Perhenian (small) Island.  We were dropped of on Long beach and Kay set of to find us some accommodation.  After checking in, we spent the rest of the day lying on the beach or swimming in the crystal clear turquoise waters.  One of the restaurants at Coral Bay, which is a few minutes walk from where we were staying, shows a film every night on a projector.  That night they were showing Horrible Bosses 2 and so we settled ourselves down on the couches and watched our first film in over 4 months.

The next day we did a snorkel trip around the island.  We were taken to Shark Point first, where myself and Kay unfortunately didn't see any sharks, but everyone else on the boat had! Gutted!  One girl said she saw one so big that she freaked out and came back to the boat early.  We stopped at another place after and saw some amazing fish, so big and colourful, it's times like this that I am so unbelievably thankful that I bought an underwater camera.  We were then taken to a spot where we saw turtles which was such an amazing experience.  Lunch came next which was followed by yet more fantastic snorkelling sites.  We had dinner and then want back to the restaurant showing the films so that we could have dessert there and watch The Hobbit 3.

The following day, I had a very relaxing day while Kay did another scuba dive.  

We then arrived in George Town very early, having 'slept' on an overnight bus.  We headed straight for our hostel, dumped our bags and then went in search of some breakfast.  George Town is famous for its hawker stalls and it wasn't long before we found one selling Roti Canai which is Roti with eggs.  Some nice local men, who were also having their breakfast there, helped us to order this and also a hot chocolate each.  We sat with them and they spoke to us about the Malaysian economy, which was a bit deep for 7am.  When they went to leave, they told us they had paid for our breakfast.  Our breakfast was so cheap, about 40p each, but even so, it was very nice of them to do that.

Even though we hadn't really slept, we decided to take a map from the hostel and walk around the area we were staying in to see what there was to see.  We stumbled upon a festival sight and after talking with some guys who were working there, we found out that it was a world music festival that had been on the previous night but that was also on that night too.  They told us that we should take the train to Penang Hill to get the panoramic views over the city.

We needed to make the most of our couple of days in George Town, so we went back to the hostel after that so we could make a plan for the day.  We decided to go on the Hop On Hop Off tourist bus which would take us to the bottom of Penang hill and other sights in the city.  

From the bottom of the hill you need to take a short train ride up a very steep hill to the top which is 700m up.  The views of George Town were amazing and the breeze up there was very welcome.  We made it back down to the bottom of the hill just in time to catch another bus.  We only went one stop to a massive buddhist temple which was up on the side of the hill.  On the way up the many many steps to the top, we stopped at a bit where they had hundreds of tortoise in a pond.  There was actually far too many of them for the size of the pond, but it was fun getting to feed them.  We decided our last stop of the day would be a bit out of George Town where there was a market, the traffic was really bad though, and by the time we got there, it was shut.  We headed back to the hostel and had a BBQ for dinner and then opted to have an early night.  We were supposed to go the the festival with the others from the hostel, the guy running the place had told us not to buy a ticket and that we would all just go with some beers and sit outside and listen to the music, but we were just so exhausted by this point that we couldn't bring ourselves to go.

The next day we went to a mall close by hoping to get the lens on Kay's camera fixed.  We finally found a shop that could fix it but he was looking for quite a lot, so Kay decided to wait and see if they would do it cheaper in KL.  We planned to go to the National park that afternoon but the traffic was so awful because of the Thai water festival that by the time we got there on the bus it was starting to get late.  Kay went to a beach close by to do some sunbathing and I went back to George Town to do some sight seeing in the area where we were staying, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.  

We ate some lovely food from the hawker stalls for dinner and then watched the first episode of the new series of Game of Thrones back at our hostel.

We woke up super early the next morning to catch the first bus back to KL as our flight to Borneo was leaving the following morning.  

We arrived in KL about lunch time but had so much to accomplish that we just dumped our bags at the hostel and headed straight out.  First stop was try and get Kay's camera fixed.  We went to a massive electrical mall and asked every shop there, but none could fix it, none of them even had a new lens she could buy.  We went to another mall to the Nikon shop to see what they could do, but they advised that she would need to send it away and it would take two weeks to fix.  We eventually found a place that had one in stock that she could buy, it cost almost as much as the camera, but needs must.

We went back to china town, not before getting on the wrong bus and going in the wrong direction for 15 minutes, and then got conned into buying some iPads.  They were crazy cheap (£130) but we thought they were fake which was why they were so cheap.  Turns out, we had actually signed up for a mobile phone contract and it took almost two hours to get them to cancel the transaction and give us our money back, all this eating into the very little time we had already.  

After finally getting our money back, we had a very quick dinner and then we went to our hostel to get showered and ready to go out to yet another sky bar for a drink and a view of the patronas towers lit up at night.

All this had taken so long that we made it to the bar at 11.30pm, last orders was midnight.  It was just as well anyway with the drinks being £10 each!

We met some lovely Turkish guys and ended up going for a couple of drinks with them after the sky bar.  We told them we were headed to Borneo the next morning which drew blank stares.  Even though I'm not convinced they were entirely sure where we were going, they asked if they could come with us?  Thinking they were joking, we told them that of course they could.  

They actually came to the airport the next morning, bought tickets and came to Borneo with us!! 

The first of many very cheap internal flights in Malaysia! 

Railay Beach, Krabi - Thailand

I wasn't hugely upset to be leaving Pai.  The place is so pretty and has a definite charm to it, but we had been so unbelievably sick, I don't think I've had a bug like that since I was a child, that I was starting to get a bit fed up with Pai and the four walls and uncomfortable bed that had been my home for too long.  

We left Pai and did all 762 turns in reverse to get to Chiang Mai, and from there we boarded a sleeper bus to take us to Bangkok.  We had hoped that once we arrived in Bangkok in the morning, we would be able to get a train to Surat Thani and from there, another bus to Krabi.  Unfortunately, when we arrived at the train station in the morning, having said our goodbyes to Jess who was meeting with a girl we'd met in Laos to continue her Thailand adventure with her, we were told that the 8am train was already full, and that there were only seats available on the overnight train.  Having not really slept on the bus from Chiang Mai, we couldn't face another sleepless night and so opted to spend the night in Bangkok and catch the train the following morning.  

We met up with Jess, Rheann and Rheann's friend Siobhan for dinner that night before myself and Kay hoped in a taxi to The Dome skybar.  This is the skybar which was used for filming scenes in The Hangover part 2.  We'd read that there was a bit of a strict dress code but with nothing but flip flops or hiking boots to wear on my feet, I put on my nicest dress and my hiking boots, jokes, flip flops, and hoped for the best.  I'd love to say it was "No shoes, no shirt, but I still got service", but I was politely told that there was no way I was getting in with flip flops.  Thankfully, some ingenious woman has started selling shoes from her shop across the road, this happens a lot I guess, and so I bought the ugliest pair of pumps you'll ever see, and off we trotted back to the bar.  Apparently, the hideous shoes are much more acceptable attire, and we were granted access to the lift which would take us up to the 64th floor.  The views from up there were absolutely breathtaking. They weren't demanding you buy a drink, which was nice, but we decided to treat ourselves none the less to a drink each, at a grand total of £28. We had just spent four days in Pai doing nothing, and eating even less, so I think we deserved a wee treat.  Only enough time ( and money ) for one though as we needed to be up before the roosters to get the train to Surat Thani.

We met a lovely Canadian on the train to Surat Thani who invited us to stay with him, his wife and three year old kid when we go to LA.  Seriously contemplating it, he seemed very genuine and said he would show us the sights around LA.  We took a bus from Surat Thani to Krabi and stayed there the night before getting a boat to Railay Beach the next day.

We got off the long boat and were advised, by some idiot, to head to the other beach about ten minutes walk away where, he said, we would find plenty of cheap accommodation.  This was complete nonsense, but we walked the ten minutes, with our heavy bags on our backs, and had to find this out for ourselves, the hard way.  I went for a walk and eventually found some nice cheap accommodation back on the beach we had previously been on.  We spent the afternoon walking around Railay, having lovely fruit shakes and booking things to do while there.  There was a big crowd of scots staying at our accommodation, it was lovely hearing the accent and not have to explain my name to them.

The next day we went on a snorkel trip.  This consisted of visiting a few different islands, some snorkelling and then a BBQ on a quiet beach.  After sunset we got back on the boat and went out to sea again so that we could do more snorkelling, this time at night, with phosphorescent plankton.  This was one of the nicest island trips we've done.  Railay beach and surrounding are just breathtaking! Swimming with the plankton was unreal, so so cool seeing it light up in the water. 

The next morning we got up bright and early to do some rock climbing. We were taken to an area at the end of our beach where we got to do five climbs each.  It was quite hard going at times but the view from 30 meters up was well worth it.  We had lunch with a lovely canadian girl who was climbing with us and then the three of us spent the afternoon catching some rays on the beach.   

We spent our last day at Railay exploring some of the beaches in the area.  We walked some ridiculous jungle path to get to Ton-sai beach.  We sunbathed for a while but as it was pushing 40 degrees we did the sensible thing and went for a long lunch. After lunch, we met a nice New Yorker on the beach and she spent the afternoon with us sunbathing.  There is a path over the rocks at the end of the beach that will take you back to Railay.  We decided this was a much better option as the jungle path was a bit of a killer and Sarah (NYer) had already been to Railay this way that morning and assured us it was much quicker and easier.  It probably would have been, if we hadn't got a bit lost, walked far too high up the hill, and ended up coming out at some random point on the beach, startling the couple sleeping in the shade.  We spent some more time sunbathing and swimming in the crazy hot water, which wasn't particularly refreshing.  Myself and Kay left late in the afternoon to walk to the view point which was up in the hills that we had been rock climbing at.  Sarah decided against it and made her way back to Ton-Sai, hopefully using the right path this time! 

We had expected a bit of a rocky path up to the view point as some Scottish people we had met at our accommodation, who had already been up, advised we wear "proper shoes".  What we were not expecting, was to have to scramble up the hill for about twenty minutes.  Our clothes and bags were completely covered in the red dust from the hill by the time we made it to the top.  It was worth it for the stunning view of all four beaches and the beautiful sun set.  

Our last time in Thailand this trip.  Feeling a bit sad to see the back of it, we've been here so much now that it's starting to have the familiarity of home.  But onwards to Malaysia we go for more fun and frolics.

Thailand - Pai

We had a very lazy day, spent most of the day by the pool. The weather in Pai is a bit weird, it's quite cool at night and in the early morning but by 10-11am it is sweltering. We walked down into the village and had strawberry shakes and myself and Jess also had muesli with fruit and yogurt. This is the first place we have seen nice strawberries, and not at crazy prices either. I went for my first unresearched wax today and thankfully she did a really good job. I've been too chicken before now to just rock up any salon and get a wax. You hear so many horror stories! While I was doing that, Jess went for a foot massage and pedicure. I suspect hers was marginally more relaxing than mine. 

When we walked back up to our accommodation we enquired at another place about rooms. Our place is nice but the wifi is terrible and the toilets are really far away from our dorm room. We got a private room closer to the town centre, better wifi, our own toilet/shower and tea or coffee in the morning, all this for less than we were paying. The only down side is that we now don't have a pool.   We will be doing things during the day from now on anyway and so probably wouldn't have time to laze at the pool anyway. 

We watched the sun set behind the mountains and then showered and put our faces on so that we could go out for some dinner and drinks. 

After our night out in Pai we checked out of Circus and into a hut further down the hill.  This was a private hut with our own bathroom and supposed better wifi, and cheaper so, winning all round.

We had a super lazy day which consisted of naps followed by food followed by naps. 

The next day we decided to rent bikes again and see some of the things on offer around Pai.  First though, we had the obligatory police stop 5 minutes into our trip.  Thankfully for me, they didn't know the difference between a provisional licence and a full UK divers licence and so, it wasn't long before we were on our way again, fine avoided.

Our first stop were some natural hot springs about 10km outside Pai.  The pools were ridiculously hot, much hotter than I would even make a bath at home.  This coupled with the scorching hot weather made the whole experience a bit uncomfortable. We did buy some eggs though, we were told we could cook them in the water.  The lady in the shop told us, or we thought she told us, that you could cook them in any of the pools.  We shoved our eggs and our legs back in the pool we had been in.  About ten minutes later we tried to crack our first egg, this was a bit of a disaster and Kay ended up with egg all down her front.  We decided then to take a walk further up the hill and around the springs.  It was here that we found the pool that was 90 degrees, the one we should have been boiling our eggs in...oops.  We left them in there while we applied some sunscreen, our first of the day, again, oops.  We removed our eggs after a further 5 minutes or so and carried on with our walk around the hot springs.  We found a cooler pool further down the hill which was much more bearable to have our legs in.  Since we didn't want another egg-gate, Jess cracked them open near to a bin.  Unfortunately they still hadn't fully cooked and so we didn't manage to have any eggs that we'd cooked at a hot spring.

Our next stop was a place called Pai Love's Strawberries where they were selling anything and everything strawberry related.  From jam to smoothies to sweeties.  We then stopped at another couple of view points on our way to a waterfall.  We had been told that because this was dry season, the waterfalls in the area had no water.  This one though, claimed all year round water, so we set off hoping to find somewhere nice to cool down and swim for a bit.  We took a wrong turn and ended up in china town, from here we drove up a crazy steep hill which I wasn't entirely sure our bikes would manage up. We did make it to the top and were greeted by another view point.  We paid the 20 Baht entrance fee and sat drinking our free green tea and admiring the view.  The toilets here were infested with huge daddy long leg type spiders and so we all gave it a miss.  Jess bought one of the lovely tea sets that they severed our green tea in, and while they were packaging it up for her, one of the monstrous spiders crawled out of the box and we all screamed like the girls that we are, much to the amusement of the Thais serving us.

Scary ride back down the steep hill was followed by us taking the correct turning for the waterfall.  The waterfall was pretty useless and the pools full of rubbish and so we did an about turn and decided our last stop would be the canyon for sunset.  We met a nice Japanese guy at the waterfall who had walked the 10 or more kilometres to the waterfalls and asked if we would be kind enough to give him a lift back.  I told him that we were going to the canyon but that I could take him as far as the main road.  I don't really like having people of the back of the bike and so I made him drive back down with me on the back.  

We rode to the canyon and as we were quite early for sunset, walked around it.  It was pretty spectacular even if I was a tad on the small side.  Some of the walk around was pretty scary, especially when the path narrowed and was a steep cliff edge of either side.  We had all brought sensible shoes with us but Kay, in her wisdom, decided her flip flops would be ok for the job.  She was wrong, she did thankfully manage it but some of the clambering up parts would have been much easier for her in actual shoes i'm sure.

After sunset, we drove back to Pai and returned our bikes to the rental place.  We tried to then book a bus to Bangkok for the following day but, unfortunately, it was already full and so we would have one more day in lovely Pai.  A yummy burrito for dinner was followed by us all passing out early after our long day.  

We had a long lie the next morning since we had no plans.  We got cereal from the 7/11 and then spent the morning in the reception bit, using the wifi and meeting other people staying at the same place, this included the friendly Japanese man from the day before.  The Japanese guy, Tacu, told us about some nice organic restaurants just outside the main village and so the four of us headed off to grab some lunch.  We bumped into another guy from our hostel on the way, he was on his way back from the hospital because his shoulder had dislocated, ouchie! He joined the four of us for a wonderful lunch where the four of them had salads and I had fantastic home made granola with fruit and home made yogurt.  

After lunch, Kay, Jess and I walked up to a huge Buddha statue on the hill.  The million steps to the top was torture but the view from up there was thankfully worth it. On our way back to the village we stopped at a gorgeous wee cafe type place where I had some arabica drip coffee which honey.  I've never thought to put honey in my coffee but it was actually lovely.  We stayed there for hours, using their wifi and lounging on the pillows and hammocks.  

About dinner time we walked back into the village and headed for dinner at a place that Tacu had recommended to us.  Just as we were about to order, himself and the other guy from lunch both walked in having had the same thought.  We all had some yummy pad Thai and the the three of us headed off as we were getting eaten alive by Mosquitos and wanted to get some dessert at a small bakery we'd read about on trip advisor.  The boys were heading off to a party which their American friend had been invited to.  We all decided that this was probably the same party we had been warned about that morning by other guests at our accommodation. Apparently there is a ladyboy who owns accommodation close to ours and she often invites unsuspecting male tourists to eat with her, plies them with alcohol and has her wicked way.  Hopefully, they managed to save their friend before it was too late! Haha!

We ate a silly amount of cake at the bakery and fell into bed full and content.

The next 3 days were an absolute write-off.  We all caught a sickness bug that floored us for a few days.  We managed to get our bus changed for 3 days later and only had to pay for the cost of one ticket as they managed to sell 2 of our original ones for us.  

Heading south to spend some time on the beach before heading to Malaysia.