Koh Phi Phi

On Tuesday March 17th we headed to Phi Phi to meet the norwegians for some fun :-)
We happened to be sitting next to Henriettas boyfriend on the boat unbeknown to us until we almost docked and spoke to the girls and we then realised - very strange!
Oh whilst we are on strange things happening..... We were standing in the reggee bar talking to some swedish guys about the fact that i couldnt believe Nat was making me watch the yids play when another guy came up behind me and said "I take it your a gooner then" so we got taling and Nat was talking to his girlfriend. Later on he said so where are you from London then, so I explained that we were from Essex and he said they were from East London so I was like oh cool. Thern we said " So where are you from in Essex then" so i replied with " Its near Southend do you know it" and he said " yeh, so where exactly..... Leigh on Sea, Rayleigh, THUNDERSLEY?????"
I coudltn believe he came out with THUNDERSLEY, sopme people i know who live in Southend dont even know of Thunderlsey Village! haha! Turns out his friend lives near Thundersley common. Small world or what!

Anyway back to Phi Phi. After we had docked we went with Jarl ( Henriettas boyfriend) to book our accommodation as he has been here twice before. We booked into bungalows up the hill as you can get away from the noise if you want....this was the biggest trek I had done on the whole trip so far. Actually it brings home how awful it must have been when the Tsunami hit as to climb the hill to get away from the devastation must of been one hell of an experience. Infact you can still feel the atmosphere that the tsunami caused here. Just pulling into dock was sad as it was these very waters that caused such a tragedy, its quite hard to get your head around and you can still see it in the locals eyes. Once the girls arrived from Phuket on thier boat we headed straight to the beach to find Ciao Bella. Ciao Bella is a restaurant that was set up by an Italian guy.....very long storyu but we read this mans story in a book George gave to us in Bangkok. it touched us all as it was his account of the Tsunami and also some of his friends and it made it all so real rather than just small stories we saw on the TV four years ago. We wanted to see if he had re opened another restaurant - and he had! We were all star struck, very funny.
After a couple of hours on the beach we went to Ciao Bella for a drink when Natalie went as white as a sheet. I knew she didnt look well, so asked if she was ok and hardly got a response. She had been drinking lots of water but to no avail. I will spare details but Nats has had a poorly tummy since Cambodia so I knew something had to be done. Mummy Burr had to put her foot down and I told her me and the girls would have to take her to hospital, miss stubborn Vaughan didnt want to but I knew it was best. So we started to walk to the other side of the island (oh there are no cars or motorbikes allowed on phi phi, travel is by foot only!) We hadnt got very far when her legs went from under her and luckily we were holding her up, she had to be taken into the massage shop across the road. After a while the "ambulance" turned up.......! This ambulance consisted of a scooter with a rickety old trailer attached to the side! Kathryn was holding onto Nat while i got nats camera from her bag and decided to capture the moment. Im glad she finds it funny now. Cutting a very long story short here. We got to the hospital, they decided Natalie was very dehydrated and has a common Parasite in her tummy - not good. So drips were in her straight away. Myself and Kathryn left to go back to the room to get some PJ's, books, cards and other suppplies. On route back we stopped to get some pizza at Ciao Bella, then onot 7 eleven for some water..... it was then that the heavens opened. We waited for a while but no luck so Kthryn bought umbrellas and we braved the weather. We were soaked top to toe in seconds. The rain in Asia is crazy. Ok wait for it. As we turned a corner i stepped up onto some wooden slats to hide from the rain, slipped and flew into the air, landed elbows first onto a big stone step! Well done clumsy Burr! The whole bar came to my rescue, I wanted to die i was mortified! Anyway after they lifted me up and had ice put on it I decided to get on with it and carry onto the hospital. We honestly waded through knee deep water for about half a mile. I was not happy bunny!
By the time we got back to the hospital Nat looked abit better which helped my mood as I was worried. The weather was so bad all four of us girls spent the night in Phi Phi hospital! Wow! This was just our first day on Phi Phi!
They let nat go the following day with the suggestion of lots of rest. So thats what she did and its almost better now. Me and the girls spent the days at the beach. Phi Phi was full of people our age so was a little 18 -30's but who were we kidding we loved it! It was like a little piece of Ibiza in Asia! On our last day Nat felt better so we both went on a boat trip around Phi Phi, snorkelled, saw Monkey island, Turtle island, the national park and of course Maya bay a.k.a the beach ( from the leo dicaprio film). Brilliant day followed by dinner with the girls to say bye. Phi Phi was over in a flash :-( but we had lots of fun despite poor Nats and her hospital incident!
We are now in Krabi where we are satying for one night and leave for Langkawi tomorrow morning. Off to the night market tonight. Thats it, Thailand is over! Malaysia here we come!
We are meeting our dutch friend Jet there, she has booked us into a 2pounds a night place ( good job jet!) we are really looking forward to seeing her. Signing out for now

Koh Lanta

So we decided to go to Koh Lanta after Koh Phangan as were told Koh Samui was full of couples and really just not very good.... so Koh Lanta it was for some chilling on the beach. We left Koh Phangan early and arrived in Koh Lanta quite late after a long drawn out journey. We booked our accommodation on route just for 2 nights for ease when we got there. After our rabbit hutch in Koh Phangan we assumed it couldnt get any worse and booked into a bamboo hut for about 3 pounds a night each. When we arrived our room for two nights looked to be a badly built garden shed on stilits with a rubbish tip underneath ( yes worse than our rabbit hutch!) There were holes on the floor, ceiling and walls. Then i discovered there wasnt anything underneath the mattress just a hole leading to the rubbish underneath the hut. We are all for cheap places to stay and have put up with a fair bit of grimness but this was another level, we might as well have slept on the beach. We asked to be moved and we were but this one only differed with a piece of wood under the mattress and no holes in the floor.....oh well! So we setlled down for a bit after our long day, Nat reading her book, me just chilling out and all of a sudden i had her book in my face. A HUGE spider had fallen out of the ceiling and onto her head. She screamed the shed down! That was that we HAD to move into the brick built bungalows, double the price ( yes only 6 pounds each i hear you say but thats a lot when you're a poor traveller haha!)
Anyhow we were much happier here and had a nice couple of days chilling out on the beach. We did howver move after our two nights here onto a place down the beach for another two nights as it was only 3 pounds each again. We loved it here because although it wasd a bamboo hut it was really well built, our bathroom was down a few logs ( steps) and only had a roof so it was basically outside. It was like staying in the Flintstones house, everything was made of wood, shells or coconuts. We had great fun taking pictures! Koh Lanta didnt have much going on but after two weeks of diving, walkign and of course a few party nights thrown in there we didnt mind and were glad to take it easy for a few days. We met some really nice people in a reggeebar on the beach too so all in all we had a nice time here :-)