Hello everybody! Sorry it’s been a while. I, Miss Hope will update you this time and firstly I must apologise for for the delay in getting this blog up, we are a little bit behind to say the least. Normal life has taken over now and our travels in Asia seem so far away, however that info will follow over the course of the next few months as we have still got a bit of SE Asia to update you on first.
We left Cambodia on another uneventful flight, to Bangkok in Thailand. I am not sure why but after travelling on this journey I now hate flying, it scares the life out of me, yet at the beginning it didn’t bother me in the least – how does that work? I am sure you are all aware that Thailand at that time had been a bit volatile to say the least so we made the decision to stay near the airport and wait the couple of days before our lovely friends Emma and James (aka Boz) arrived. What can I say, we waited for 2 days in the middle of god knows where in the Bangkok suburbs, there was literally nothing to do and so we became Mr and Mrs Alan Partridge for those days, ah-ha! Cant really update any more on this part as it involved eating, sleeping, watching TV, oh yeah and I got my hair cut by someone who couldn’t speak a word of E
nglish!
During our times in Thailand with our friends we visited Ko Pha Ngan, Ko Tao and Ko Samui on a bit of a island hopping adventure. Emma and Boz have already updated to you what on we got up to so other than say we drank lots, ate too much had a fab, fab time and I was very upset to see them go – you can read this as balling my eyes out and not even being able to look at them as we said our goodbyes in a taxi! We did have a rather eventful end to our hotel which involved staying is a terrible hotel with no water for 3 days which was a shame however we got all our money back so that helped soothed things. Anyone wanting to go to Thailand, my only advice would be to avoid Ko Samui.
The next part of the journey was for me and Andrew to head over to the other side of Thailand to Krabi. I had managed to blag Andrew into allowing me (im good at this now) to book flights from Ko Samui to Krabi which took less than an hour, as oppose to a 13 hour hellish journey across Thailand involving bus-ferry-bus.
My favourite mantra is - Always a flashpacker, never a backpacker! Andrew always kicks up a fuss when I choose the less time, more expensive route (think flying back from Nepal to Goa via Delhi in India as oppose to another 3 day train journey - which one would you choose!) however he is always grateful when he is at the other side especially when I remind him that he would still be in Ko Samui if we had done it his way! Men, know your limits!
Whilst in Krabi, we were staying just out of Ao Nang where we had a lovely hotel which we had all to ourselves (ah-ha!) which had a lovely little pool and jacuzzi which we used everyday, even when it rained as it was the monsoon but luckily we had some lovely weather during our stay. We had lots of things that we wanted to do, had planned etc whilst in Krabi including visiting the James Bond Island, go to Phi Phi etc but of course this meant we ended up doing nothing, and stayed in Krabi longer than planned as we loved it so much!
After drinking solidly for 2 weeks with Em and Boz our insides were glad of the respite. We soaked up the scenary of the beautiful limestone surroundings, buzzed into Ao Nang for walks along the beach front and dined in this beautiful restaurant up in the hill tops over looking the bay. Krabi along with Ko Tao was by far my favourite places in Thailand and we really enjoyed our time here.
But it was time to leave as we had to make our way up to Phuket where we were due to fly to Singapore in a few of days to meet up with our friend and go to SingFest. Whilst in Phuket we had arranged to meet our new friends Claire and Paul again, who we met in Vietnam on the lush streets (pub) of Hoi An .. which could only mean one thing… alcohol!
We took a taxi bus from Krabi to Phuket which we were all squeezed in like sardines at one point but then Andrew found a seat next to the driver allowing his long legs to have space as it would have been a rough 5 hours otherwise. After 11 months on the road our choice of hotels was continue to rise in quality. I think/know that we were getting slightly fed up of being on the road and living our of a suitcase, however as it was low season you could get some great deals and we had our best ever room on our trip in Phuket where we could walk out into the lap pool straight from our room, which we just loved!
I am not going to be able to update you much on meeting Claire and Paul, the night is one complete blur. But just so you know that I am not a complete flake I do remember….. me and Claire leaving a bar as they didn’t give us enough wine in our glass, Andrew and Paul donning their tattoo tight arms (which I may add roll up and down), stupid hats with bells on (still got them Claire), man with some metal under his skin claiming it was body art, prostitutes spiking my drink (I swear they did), spewing all down myself (Claire kindly helped moped me up, you are a friend for life now), me inviting everyone back to a party in our hotel room, bottle smashed, everyone left. Sleep. Stinking hangover the next day which didn’t let me leave my bed. That sums up the whole memory of Phuket for me.
If I am honest for me personally, Thailand was a huge disappointment and is not somewhere I would look to rush back to (apart from Ko Tao and Krabi) . It has been a place which I had always wanted to visit but the places we visited there was nothing Thai about it. I found it trashy, over developed and basically like a expensive European tourist destination with a real seedy side. Although I will add that Ko Tao had the best ever snorkelling, we have seen on our trip, it was just amazing, we had never seen so many different colours and types of fishes and you could see so far out as the water was that clear, that was really incredible and something I wont forgot.
Anyway that sums up our Thailand trip, we shortened our time in Thailand so we could head to Singapore (again) and Penang in Malaysia before catching our flight to Perth, Australia! To be continued……
Love Sarah & Andrew xxxx
Here are some more photos of our time in Thailand......
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| Kung Fu Boz throwing himeself off the boat in Ko Pha Ngan |
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| Andrew & Boz snorkelling on our boat trip |
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| Miss Lloyd a bit worse for wear! |
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| Everyone trying to roll there tongue, as you can see I have major trouble doing this, which everyone found hilarious |
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| Again trying to roll and not suceeding |
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| Andrew in Thailand Tesco buying a buddhist monk outfit (no joke!) |
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| Boz the monk! |
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| The lovely Miss Lloyd |
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| Boz with a random |
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| Em and Boz taking a cocktail ride on the pink bus |
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| Fish anyone? |
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| Boz having a massage, dont think he got offered any "extras" |
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| Em & Boz |
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| Us all have a drunken night on the beach, the boys had a bucket us girlies stuck to the cocktails |
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| Andrew having a thai massage |
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| Em enjoying her cocktail in Ko Tao, our favourite place on on our holiday |
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| Em and Boz in Ko Tao, waiting for the sunset |
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| The local mode of transport |
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| In Krabi - this was a restaurant on the hill that was beautiful, more cocktails whilst we watch the sun go down |
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| Us with our cocktails |
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| Our fish supper, it was lush |
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| Our lovely hotel in Krabi |
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| Me and Claire with our stupid hats on, im trying to cover my face for some reason |
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| Andrew wearing the silly hat with his tattoo arm |
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| The weird body art man |
Hello again! Yet again it is me, Sarah, who will update you on the last of our adventures as Andrew claims he does enough work at school; but don’t worry I will get him writing again soon. We are nearing the end of our Asian adventures, so this will be our last entry for Asia…. Boo :-( 
We arrived at our hostel in Little India and it was looking promising as we checked in, not too bad at all I was thinking, this is going to be fine. I am going to be fine. However then we got to our room and there was a double bed (more like 1.5 of bed) with wall surrounding it and a locker for our bags; you couldn’t even swing a mouse in there. OMG. The bed was hard, the pillows like rock and a piece of material that was allegedly a cover, but it was more like a brillo pad. As for the communal showers, don’t even get me started; not sure they had even heard of luke warm water! Plus, you even had to rent out a towel of you needed one… I picked one up from the front desk and it was the filthiest rag you could imagine, yuck! It was a case of shut your eyes and dry. We normally stayed in the Aqueen Hotel on Lavender Street which was only 15quid more and you got your own bathroom, own comfy bed, mini bar, cable TV, own clean towels, hairdryer and toiletries and generally decent conditions and you could get a lush breakfast of Kaya on toast (one our favourite finds on our trip!) 
Me and Andrew were down to the last of our funds (our credit card was in constant use at this stage) so real cash was a bit tight, we had a couple of wines and beers and then thought the best way forward was to get leathered on Jaigermeister, which we did! I must say the highlight for me was The Vines, we had not watched them before and for us they were the best of the night. 30 Seconds to Mars were a load of tosh, god knows what Jared Leto is about these days and I am sorry to say that the Smashing Pumpkins were a huge disappointment. We eventually met up with our friend who furnished us with more alcohol which resulted in us having a huge row about nothing, Andrew lost his brain - which he has a tendency to do when he has Jaiger (this is not me being horrible, he will tell you this himself) and so we disappeared into the night back to our uncomfortable hostel room without saying proper goodbyes (although sure our friend was glad to be rid of 2 drunken fools).
On our last day, we did arrange for two cycle taxis to give us a tour of Penang via the historic culture trail. This was a lovely way to spend our last day and we really enjoyed it. We visited the Islam museum, Chinatown, Little India and some very lovely temples, one of which was used for the filming of Anna and The King featuring Jodie Foster (yeah, I ain’t watched that one either) finishing up at a chocolate factory. 
Well, what more can I say, that is the end of our SE Asia tales. We honestly had the best ever experience and have so many memories that we will treasure forever. We have some amazing pictures, many of which haven’t even made it to our blog and I am sure that we will look back over them in disbelief over the following years that we actually undertook and completed such a mammoth trip. We absolutely love Asia, it is so vibrant and different from anywhere else. It tends to conjure all sorts of emotions; one minute you love and the next you hate and within seconds you like it again! I personally am very proud that I actually made it to the end of our Asian travels as I know a few people (my little brother being one) thought that I would be back home within a few months. To be fair, there were occasions when he was right, I so could have hopped on a plane back home. Back to a place where our life would be so much simpler but luckily I didn’t; mainly because I had Andrew by my side encouraging me and generally making life easier for me (although harder for him no doubt!). Actually I wouldn’t change a thing, some of the worst experiences have actually, in hindsight been the best and of course they make for the best stories. 
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