We had a few days to play around with in order to see all the islands before hitting Ko Phanghan for the Full Moon Party on the 10th. We headed for Reilay by longboat - stunning scenery as we sailed along, surpassed only by the beach itself when we got there. But it was really hot and Gareth and I had our bags with us so we wanted to get to Ao Nang as quick as we could to drop
all our stuff into our hotel and chill on the beach. Another beautiful boat trip later we landed in Ao Nang, a cool beachside town with a pretty good buzz about it. After finally dropping our stuff we had a much deserved dip in the sea for the first time all trip - fantastic! That night we went for a session with some people we met in a bar, a good combination of Swedes and English - Gareth and I are beginning to think that there is no one left in Sweden with the amount of them that are travelling!We moved on the next day to Phi Phi....absolute paradise - its a small island in the south that was
completely devastated by the tsunami in 2005 and has slowly begun to rebuild itself. Its a tiny sandbar of a town creating two big bays either side, and walking through the town (which takes about 15 minutes to do a full circle!) you get a real pirate town vibe from the place, we really liked it. We decided to book ourselves on to a sailing trip for the next day - to bring us around the islands and do a couple of activities too. Strolling around the town then we bumped into two English we had met in Chiang Mai, so random! And they had booked the same sailing trip the next day - small small world! The rest of the crew were made up of Canadians, Dutch and more Swedes. It turned out to be a great day - we hit Monkey Island first to feed monkeys then continued on to a nice snorkelling spot (with the aid of a life jacket!). We continued sailing across to Phi Phi Lei which is a smaller uninhabited island, made famous by the movie The Beach. We did some cliff diving....and i SURVIVED which is always good, in fairness though I had a crew of people standing by with an assortment of life jackets and kayaks! We then climbed over onto the famous beach itself, absolutely stunning place - to be seen to be truly appreciated. After more exploring around the islands and some insane caves we pulled up to watch the sun set on a great day.Most importantly too was the fact that the Ireland England game was on that night and we had found somewhere to watch it - absolutely rubbish game but fantastic result - the owner of the bar was Irish was celebratory shots were on the house! Needless to say we were nursing ourselves back to health for a few days after! We made a quick stop in Phuket but we got caught in a lightning storm that was due to last for a few days so we hightailed it out of there to Ko Samui and some sunshine! The rain was too like home for us! On the trip over we got chatting to this Canadian who turned out to be a big Asian tv star....so random! His brother is a UFC fighter and was once 4th in the world! He was telling us how he wanted to come here to get away from the fans bothering him the whole time....jerk! But actually a really nice guy!
Ko Samui is yet again, another slice of paradise - we booked into some bungalows right on the beach in Chaweng, quite a romantic setting if I do say so myself! White sand, blue water...the works! The 6km stretch of beach ranges from romantic get aways and spas to, further along the stretch, beach bars and restaurants pumping out music and cocktails all day. So our "relaxing time" quickly turned into partying on the beach until all hours - met a bunch of guys I used to play hurling against from Judes, true Dubs! Also, yet again...randomly bumped into the two English girls - beginning to think they are following us! So we will hang here for a couple of days until the 6th when we hit Ko Phanghan to meet up with a ton of people and get ready for some Full Moon induced madness...its gonna be an experience!
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