*****More photos and updated entries added below****

The Last few days on the island...and a bit of recapping

Well, after the detox we had to leave The Sanctuary as it was quite a lot for the accommodation there, by local standards however,  absolutely worth it as our hut was lovely, and way beyond local standards with a huge bed, mosquito net, lovely bathroom, totally secluded balcony with sea view.... sigh.... it was soooo hard to leave. 

We just moved over to the next bay, to Had Juan which is probably the best beach on the entire island,  is again, only accessible by boat, or hard trek on foot. Like Haad Tien, where the Sanctuary was, there is no traffic noise, just the occasional shout of “Haad rin, Haad Rin” from the longtail boat taxi men). 

The beach is quiet and clean; and on these beaches, with oh! such perfect sand... the kind that is so soft on the feet and so easy to walk on it doesn’t slip out from underneath your feet or swallow them up; white and clean and beautiful next to the turquoise sea, the palm trees and rounded rocks that frame the view complete the scene in a view so perfect it makes you feel that your eyes can’t possibly drink in all this perfection, and your brain can’t adequately describe it.

is even a parrot who is one of the local residents here in Had Juan.  He is green with blue head, red belly and beak, wth a yellow neck band  and he visits your table for food when you are eating adn will sit on your hand, or shoulder, or particularly likes to perch on sunglasses if they are up on your head when you are sitting on the beach.  He’s a bit of a celebrity here I understand.  I met him again today and was able to take a photo.  He is a total poseur and looks great in this picture... where as i look dreadful.

We trekked over the rocks (the fabulous Kerim even carried my backpack for the hardest bit) we decided to stay at Bamboo Hut, a lovely little group of good solid huts set on the rocks overlooking the bay, and accessible from the beach by a great little bamboo walkway and rocky path around the edge and over the rocks.  It’s very relaxed and chilled and tolerant and has the best restaurant, (not cordon bleu, but good food nevertheless) over looking the bay. Definitely worth staying at.

Next door .. just on the tippiest tip of the rocks on the bay is Eden Bar, probably one of the coolest bars on the island.  With the greatest views, and superb artificial beach attached to the bar,TV room with sofas and pool table and absolutely great Sunday night parties with a really friendly crowd it’s and accommodation is excellently priced.

Realisation of Kerim’s going to Cambodia the next day kicked in and we had our last dinner and went to Eden bar for a few more beers, our first since Full moon, and the detox. The next morning I went with Kerim to Haad Rin to see him off on his journey, after eating breakfast like it was a last supper... slowly ( eating enormous bacon sandwiches becomes more difficult when reluctant to stop holding hands )

Waved until I couldn’t see him any more then cried pathetically for about two hours whilst trying to blog and answer emails in a webcafe. Went and sat under our full moon dragon tree and looked at the beach and the turquoise sea, marvelled at the beauty and berated myself for getting swept away in things, and that I was sat in paradise crying and I should jolly well pull myself together.

Decided to go to the party at Eden bar tonight to sort myself out and cheer up.

Eventually got a boat back, chilled on the beach, watched a girl who was hula hooping badly but seemingly tirelessly on the beach... at first it was mildly mesmerising for the first hour, until she started to try and walk whilst doing it, which forced her into stupid body contortions that began to really annoy me until i wanted run over, shake her violently by the shoulders, break her hulahoop, slap her round the face and to scream “Stop fucking hoola Hooping You look like an idiot”

Realised I was probably churlish and over reacting  and so went for dinner and over to Eden for the party.

Friendly crowd, lots of UV body paint and great music... and despite the empty seat I kept noticing next to me, I finally negotiated my way back over the rocks at about 4 or 5am. 

Dragged myself out to eat at about 3 in the afternoon when someone from the hotel staff knocked on my door to check I was ok... they noticed I slept all day and were worried that I was ill an came to check on me!  How lovely is that?!!

Went and lay on the perfect beach, swam in the perfect sea, watching perfectly tanned and lithe 25 year old boys playing volleyball and football together on the beach, (such a chore) as the perfect breeze fanned me and got massaged by a mad Californian hippy, and tried come to terms with why I felt totally dismal at the loss of my compadre, and also justfiably annoyed with myself that the very second  the skankles had finally stopped looking like I’d been staked out on an anthill with my legs smeared in honey, I fell down the stairs last night and grazed my foot, ankle, shin and knee.

Today i must go to Haad Rin to get more batteries for my camera, more elastoplasts for my knees, and more credit for my phone, and to put all this on my blog. 

Nice photos of Ko Pha Gnan

Had Tien beach... with lovely raft

The sand bar that links a little island with Ko Pha Gnan... not there at high tide, so you can only walk to the resort at certain times of the day

The friendly cockatoo by the moped hire shop.  He showed me with his hand exactly where to scratch his neck to make him make little growly noises which were cockatoo for "MMmmmm" 

Happy Kerim with our massive fry up the morning after the fast.... and what an amazing view!!

Blogrrrrrr

Lots of power failure on the island at the moment which makes it far less easy to blog.  wrote reams last night and saved loads of photos and put it all on a USB to take to Had rin today only to find that the ony computer i can use won't accept it!

So I STILL cant' upload my photos of the beautiful place i am staying at or a photo.

I can however guarantee that theere is a huge backlog of stuff i will upload for you as soon as I can!

Fasting finished, refueling fun begins again! (photos to be added)

Well, we finished the FAST! We completed the course! I lost 2 kilos - hurrah!! but Kerim lost 3, the lucky bastard, I feel so hard done by as it was my idea to come and I feel like he lost MY kilos!


Still, We both look healthier and happier, though feeling better is hard to quantify. Basically I certainly feel better than I did on the first day of the fast, but am not sure if I feel better than I did before I started the fast! We were surrounded by people saying “oh yes - you get so much energy back” don’t’ know if that’s true, but WE haven’t - we can barely walk up the stairs to the bungalow, though we have made an effort every day to try and swim out to the raft in the bay a couple of times, and everything round here is hilly enough with steep enough stairs to get your heart pumping hard several times a day.

According to the spa, we were supposed to break our fast with fruit today, and then raw vegetables for 2 days perhaps followed by cooked, and then finally moving back to complex carbs and meat within 7 days...

BOLLOCKS to that! They also said "trust your body to tell you what it wants"  and we decided that our bodies wanted Pizza - and it was absolutely the most wonderful thing I have ever eaten. Photos to be added as soon as I can, but suffice it to say that Kerim, who usually, as you may have seen even when smiling somehow looks in pain was genuinely grinning from ear to ear and my face ached with smiling!

It was a Friday when we finished which had an all night party at a bar further down the beach, and another bar where you can sit and watch TV on a big sofa. So we set about the pleasure of retoxing ourselves with vigour.

We settled down, after dinner and watched a couple of episodes of Family Guy in another bar, snuggled on the sofa, over looking a beautiful bay, glittering lights from the beach bars reflecting in the calm dark sea, laughing, chatting, I realized that I was utterly, utterly happier than I have been in so long, sitting with a very special person doing things I loved.

 Someone even passed us a…. herbal cigarette, whilst we sat on some rocks looking at the beauty of it all, and my night was complete – though it was an interesting journey picking our way up the steep stairs and over the mountains on unlit paths with just my torch to get us there.

However, we also realized that Kerim’s visa ran out on the 12th, and he has decided to go to Cambodia to see what I’ve been banging on about, so we went for a goodbye dinner last night and I waved him off this morning.

For the last 2 weeks we have been described as “inseparable” by onlookers who assumed we were a couple, and we do seem to have spent every waking moment together – and due to the nature of the fasting, colonics and support we have shared, incredibly intimate, so I am now sitting crying in an internet café trying to plan what to do to fll the time I hve spent talking and laughing with him. Hopefully we will meet in Bangkok for my last nght in the country before I fly off to Oz, which is only in a weeks time! OMG!!!!

Pics added asap....

Ooooh! 9th of the 9th of the 9th!

Well today wasn’t too bad actually. 

It was a bit rainy which meant that it was cool ish in the morning with a nice breeze, and we could just chill and read in hammocks overlooking the beautiful beach.  By the third psyllium husk and clay shake of the day I actually found myself thinking “mmmm.. creamy”. which is so much better than befre where i was even eyeing the tomato sauce bottle with greedy eyes.

Even Kerim managed to get down a bowl or 2 of vegetable broth without looking suicidal and muttering about burgers.  Here he is contemplating the end of the fast... or coffee or something....

Not only that, but we have decided that the colonic is actually our favourite part of the whole regime, in fact it’s getting quite competitive now.  Kerim and I have colonic rooms next to each other so you can call through the wall “I’m already down to the second line” or “just got whole litres worth in and I’m still going!!”

Truly madness has set in. 

However, despite losing a kilo at yesterday‘s, and a further half during the day, I had gained a kilo and a huge swollen stomach after today’s colonic so was feeling demoralised, bloated and uncomfortable, but at least an extremely hard massage by “the bone cruncher” as she is known, down the beach earlier, had made me feel a lot better... It was the first massage that really almost beat me since I’ve been away, but I took the pain and didn’t beg for mercy. Kerim wussed out with a light oil massage for big girls blouses once he saw what I was going through and heard my joints cracking.

So!   Not as exhausted as yesterday, not really hungry, though there has been points throughout the day where you think it s a normal holiday, think “ooh I’m hungry, lets’ go for lun....oh.” and then reality dawns and I’ve been close to tears just smelling  food and knowing I cant have it.

Also annoyed with myself for not taking a before shot so I can take an after shot the day after tomorrow to show if there is any difference at all. 

The only thing we both now is that neither of us feels any healthier yet, and every conversation, however differently it starts ends up about food.

however here i am before the massage.. and here i am after

Out of the frying pan....

So we packed up our troubles and headed away from tenko on the moped, dropped it off, and then got a taxi to had rin again to get a water taxi to our next destination, a health spa, where I planned to do a 3 ½ day fast detox program, and Kerim had decided to come with me as he thought it might also help him give up smoking and lose weight.  Brave of him I thought.

We arrived and indeed this was FAR more like paradise. The beach was beautiful, the room was a gorgeous bamboo hut, no holes in the walls, locking windows, strong fan and a lovely bathroom built against the side of the mountain tiled, but also rocky...with a roof but sides open to the trees, so that it had lots of light and never seemed dank and smelly.  Oh yes!! 

Much more like the paradise I wanted to try... but then of course much more expensive!  But I have decided for this week, it’s worth it. 

^{The only thing is that we clearly looked like we’d been to full moon and so therefore had drunk alcohol in the last 2 days, so therefore we were too toxic to detox, which meant 2 days of eating nothing but raw vegetables and drinking nothing but water.  Confirmed carnivore Kerim was aghast, and had to be physically restrained from leaving the island for a coke and a burger immediately, however after 36 hours I passed the saliva test so well that said I was ready to start the fast and Kerim got a free pass t do it too. (Not sure how that works) Kerim was told that he didn’t pass due to stress, and he replied that ths was probably because he had been forced to eat nothing but dreadful raw vegetables for 2 days.}

^{It was actually really hard, but we did it mainly by letting ourselves get so hungry before attempting a meal that whatever we had was great.  Sadly the fruit shakes they do here, all sound delicious but taste really awful, as if to leave you in no doubt that you are drinking some thing very VERY healthy.}

^{Here is our schedule}

^{7am          Psyllium/clay shake}

^{8.30          Herbs (6 massive capsules of grey and green stuff)}

^{10am        Psyllium/clay shake}

^{11.30        more herbs}

^{1pm          Psyllium/clay shake}

^{2.30          More fucking herbs}

^{2.50pm      Lymph flush (I hoped this would be a massage but apparently it’s a drinkL)}

^{4pm          Psyllium/clay shake}

^{4 – 6pm     Colonic}

^{5.30          Herbs}

^{5.50          Fresh juice}

^{7pm          veggie broth}

^{8.30          herbs}

^{9.30          Probiotic.}

^{Last night we just lay in the hammock on the balcony and talked about food.}

^{The shakes were not as bad as they looked, neither were the herbs, but it seems to be time for another one before you ever want one, and Kerim keeps muttering things like “yes, just rare please, with the mushroom sauce” or “sausage bacon and mash?”, and frankly we’ve both been eyeing the dog on the beach and thinking about barbecues.}

^{I was so hungry by the third shake I was almost looking forward to it, but when it actually came, I could barely stop myself from crying.  I felt absolutely exhausted, and miserable, however, then it was time for the coffee colonic.}

^{Just watching Kerim’s face as the full horror of it all dawned on him as he saw the colonic room was enough to have tears of laughter leaking from me.... and I weighed myself before and after.. And I lost a KILO!!!!!   So I have cheered up considerably!}  

^{We also had a nice herbal steam and dip n the plunge pool so things were looking up.  In fact, we were actually looking forward to vegetable broth this evening...(it was horrible though)}

September 5th was just a day of recovery..

and today, the 6^th we headed off from Tenko... at last.

Kerim had to nip off somewhere before we left and so I said I’d be by the pool... the owner said as he passed, “one last taste of paradise before you go?”... My mouth just gaped. 

So let me take you on a little trip around Haad Gruad Beach Resort & Spa, which boasts (I quote from the brochure)

• ·         delicious home cooked food,
• ·         spotlessly clean rooms with lots of natural sunlight
• ·         most rooms have a clear ocean view, some on the beach, some surrounded by a natural garden
• ·         fan or air conditioning
• ·         Jacuzzi on the beach
• ·         Wifi and hi speed internet access

And this is what we got.  it doesn't look so bad from the outside, but I couldn't see the sea... or rather I could, if it had washed up underneath my hut, through the hole my foot made when it went through the floor, and the massive gap that was allready there...


Oh, and the hammocks felt like they had been made from razor wire.

This is my "spotlessly clean" bathroom,

 which not only did I share with aforementioned centipede and giant cockroach, but when I got back after full moon my soap had what I can only assume were rat teeth marks in, as they seemed too big for mouse ones.  

As you may be able to see the bathroom mirror is actually one from a moped (which gives an interesting fish-eye effect) held up by a piece of electrical wire which has been twisted through a ventilation brick. 

Kerim’s room had no mirror at all, anywhere, and when he asked for one he was told there was one outside the public toilet if he needed it, about 30 m from his room..On the other side of the restaurant

I had virtually no light in my room at all, the bulbs so dim that even with the curtains open (there were 3 windows but only 2 stained and mouldy curtains) I needed a torch to see into my bag.


The "delicious home cooked food" was patchy at best, with gravy so salty it could have preserved the steak on which it was served for several millennia. 

There was no wifi “because of the humidity”, the computers worked intermittently because the power was intermittent, and this was the Jacuzzi on the beach.

The pool, which was definitely the best feature of the place, was sadly overshadowed by a building site, from which emanated the continuous sound of drills and angle grinders.

Although it was quite nice when the builders sang together.

The beach on the brochure was only there for about 2 hours a day when the tide was in, other wise you had to walk across vast swathes of agonising razor sharp, foot and knee gashing dead grey coral to get to the water.

However all this would have been tolerable if it wasn’t for the horrendous customer service.  It was as if they had worked exceptionally hard to gain some bizarre qualification in appalling management and customer relations.


As mentioned before, 5 sets of people (not just 5 individuals) came to complain about their rooms, having been totally lied to as to what they would be like, and the staff simply shouting back at them. 

When I asked if I could link my laptop to the LAN line for 5 minutes as there was no WIFI, I was refused despite there being no-one on the computer.  When I asked why, the manager said “Why you ask so many questions?”

Most memorable quote from the management when being told the bathroom in the hut was still filthy despite being "cleaned) " (ie they threw in a bucket of water around a bit)  “well if you don’t like it, you can leave”

Also when Kerim said that it must be frustrating for them to be constantly losing power what with the computers and everything he was just told sulkily “No, what pisses me off is constantly having to explain it to the customers”

Kerim does say in their defence that the massage lady was very good as she also bandaged his foot and the manageress said that he was the most handsome man there. So he is biased

However, in support of my argument, the manager "paedo man" or "PM",  with his vile stained teeth, withered frame, bad glasses and unpleasant demeanour and a smile so creepy it would make Garry Glitter feel uncomfortable is reason enough never to go there. (There is absolutely no evidence he was in any way a paedo, he simply looked like he ought to be one).

WELL!! Full moon party EH?

After having so many people say – “oh it’s dreadful” – “really busy” “nightmare”, “terrible music” and thinking we were just going because it was something to experience.....actually it was superb! Sometimes these parties can have up to 20,000 people, which I agree would be a nightmare; however there were probably no more than 500... and it was great fun.  

We arrived in a pick-up taxi, with about twelve 18-25 year olds in the back feeling really old.  They bought some luminous body paint so we got some put on us too... though I am pretty sure I sweated most of mine off fairly quickly. 

We eschewed chemicals for a “special shake” from mushroom mountain....danced on the beach for half an hour... having  a great time... then made the schoolboy error of going to get another shake before this one had really kicked in, but made it back down the stairs to the beach past the whooping teenage boys wearing just speedos and body paint, the bikini-clad dreadlocked spinning girls, and the man carrying his girlfriend bodily up the many stairs.

We lay on the beach and watched as the sky warped and the moon spun it’s cocoon of silver cloud and the tree turned from fluffy green candyfloss to friendly dragon’s heads and back to fluff again as smiling people danced by and said hello, or gave us fun things to play with like my fluorescent glasses...or photographed us. 

Everyone was friendly, and good natured, (though someone had painted “I touch kids” and “i’m from Iran” on his friends back which made me giggle for ages)

More dancing and general madness wandering through the meleé from one sound system to the next... all very good I thought, really good old school stuff that reminded me so much of my raving days...but finally the we surrendered to tiredness and eventually headed back to “Tenko” at 4ish in another pickup with some boy’s from Maidstone, one of which kept thinking I was his sister which made the journey home more interesting.

Here we are when we got back as sadly neglected to take camera to party.... took a few on my phone but have no idea how to get them off.  Oh VERY dear....

Full Moon Party was superb!!

Cant' actuallly type at the moment though... so willl have to tell you all about it later :)

******skankle update********

Quite substantially less skanky actually.  However just got bitten by a mosquito the size of my FUCKING HAND on my arm!! And a cockroach 2.5
inches long skuttled out of my plastic bag which I keep my shampoo and stuff in....

(Have created new folder on my computer entitled "Creatures I share my shed with" but there is no wifi here so I cannot blog in private... so much more of this to come later once I've escaped.)

3rd and 4th.....is it REALLY September??

Decided to do a little more exploration yesterday, to get away fromn the shed, (my foot went through the floor yesterday cutting it a bit , but I had a feeling that rather than offering me medical attention, they would probably charge me for breaking the floor....)

so jumped on to Kerim's moped which at some points didn't have quite enough power to get us both up to the top of the steep hills around here... and went to a herbal sauna had a massage.  This was great except for poor Kerim discovering a giant spider with massive fangs had just slid down him and was clinging to his sarong and when he came running out i tried to remove it by squirting him with ice cold water from a hose..

Went and saw a famous big tree, 14m around,  - it really was a very big tree and then went for a really really unhealthy lunch, before checking out Had Rin, in preparation for the chaos of full moon in the fourth and dozing off the beers for a while of the gorgeous beach

Today we headed further north, to a beach which is joined by a sandbar at low tide to a little paradise island... or that is what it said in the brochure.. but of course things in brochures are rarely truthful. But it was ok...  bit  dirty and  bit too sharp and rocky to swim, aas stays shallow for ages,   bit windy to sit for too long, but the beach was not busy , and we had a nice time.

Full moon tonight, so I am fully prepared.  Deeted up to the eyeballs and beyond, clothed sensibly, and hopefully prepared for any eventuality..... 

Then on the 6th I am heading across the other side of the island to The Sanctuary which is in a bay only accessible by boat, where I am going to do a 3 day detox and meditation yoga retreat. and hurrah! I shall not be too bored as Kerim is joining me as he wants to give up smoking and thinks this might be the way!

Collating some real gems of storys about the "Resort" I am staying at which i shall recount once I've left :)

just been sitting here for 5 minutes and 3 sets of people have complained about their rooms

and the management shouts at them and tells them if they don't like it they can leave...

nice people.

OK Phan Ngan

September 2nd

Well, lying here in the romantic little tent of my mosquito net having slept for nearly 10 hours, the whole place doesn’t seem quite so horrific. My book is getting better, the food last night was certainly better than the stuff I ate when I got here and the atmosphere in the bar/restaurant was quite friendly and pleasant.

Yesterday, whilst I was still feeling like I was trapped in Tenko, I was offered the chance to get a lift to Hat Rin, where the party is to see if I could get a hotel there, which I accepted. But it was with 4 boys from Southend who I then found out called themselves things like “Boozer”, “Gigsy” (because I look like Ryan Giggs), “Tank” (because I like to tank ‘em down), and ... I can’t remember the other one’s name but it was equally dreadful. I then realised that they had been drinking since 7 am, so I was, in the end relieved the jeep rental man said only 4 people only, so that I didn’t have to extricate myself from the situation myself. I’d already decided that I’d rather stay here in a shed forever than go with them.

Soon after that I decided this place wasn’t that bad, the hotels round Had rin are loads more expensive and there is a taxi service from here to the party, so I can go, but come back when I want and be able to sleep.

Anyway, the sun has come out, my hut is heating up, and so I shall pop off to breakfast and beach!

****later*****

Had breakfast and walked, clambered, crunched my way along the coast a bit, huge smooth orange rocks and bitterly crunchy dead coral testing my rubber shoes... broke them a bit, but glad I didn’t wear trainer as there was a bit of wading.....over to a few beaches down with Kerim my new acquaintance here, to see if anywhere else than here had anywhere nicer to stay, but everyone is full for full moon. I’m definitely stuck in the shed for the next few days.

Stayed on a much nicer beach about 3 bays away all day though, but it’s quite rocky to swim everywhere here (the beach at the hut is artificial, but not quite as good as it could be, this one was natural, but it doesn’t get deep very quickly so knee gashing whuil is a potential problem, and the tide is fairly strong despite it being so shallow. Had lunch, beers, lazy floated around in the warm waters, then clambered back round the coast again, which was wetter as the tide has come in, so went and had a swim in the pool at sunset looking at hugest horizon I have seen in a very long time.

Absolutely superb.

Power is intermittent tonight so am I not going to try and connect to the internet of share hardware, and of course no wifi. So this will be another belated entry.  And this was in my bathroom last night.

Just to give you an idea of scale....

Had a nice dinner with Kerim and a gloriously chilled evening listening to the sea. Might try and convince Kerim to explore the island with me as he has a moped, as it looks like tomorrow may not be that sunny as we have not had rain tonight.

Ok, it's not so bad as originally thought....

The sun came out, sort of... well it stopped raining anyway, and so swam in the pool.And it was clean and nice!

The tide came in and the sea looked nice, so have decided to stay til the 6th, do full moon party etc, rest for a couple more days,  whereupon I have made a reservation in the Sanctuary on the other side of the Island where they do fasting, colonic irigation, yoga, meditation, the lot so I can throughly cleanse my body and soul. 

I think this might be ok after all..

Ko phan grrrrrrrrr

Well, after a long and arduous journey I am on Ko Phan ngan, sitting in a shed.

First, after an hour’s wait huddled with lots of wet back packers under an awning outside the travel agent's shop, there was an 8 hour bus ride to Chumpong, stopping inexplicably at 2am for food (the time you are least likely ever to want to eat unless it’s a kebab and you’ve been drinking solidly since 7pm).

Luckily it wasn’t raining when we got to Chompong as we had to sit on the beach until the “hi- speed catamaran” arrived an hour or so later. It actually wasn’t so bad watching the sunrise, over the beach however then we all trekked along this seemingly endless bamboo pier to the boat where we began another 4 hour journey, stopping at Ko Nang yuan, then Ko Tao (at which point it was PISSING it down, rain lashing at the windows, so I was glad to be carrying on to Phan gnan.

Couldn’t see anything out of the front of the boat for most of the journey it was raining so hard.

Anyway.  Arrived at the island having not managed to get through  to anyone who had rooms by phone and agreed to go to a place n the quieter west side of the island,  the brochure said wifi, private beach, clean ETC. However the bungalow is a shed, with a mosquito net, (i had a Wendy house which was a shed when i was little which i spent the night in, which was better constructed) with a dingy bathroom. And the wifi doesn't work because of "the humidity". It does have a hammock hanging on the porch though which is quite nice.

To be fair though, it's raining and no island paradise looks great if it's grey and dark.....the tide is out exposing broken dead coral, so also, not quite like the brochure, but it might improve.

They do however, hire bikes out.  Motor bikes though.  And as we are in the middle of no where I shall have  no choice but to learn to use one, hire one and find myself somewhere nice to stay very quickly!...  I shall do that first thing tomorrow.

It is raining again, so I shall content myself with a meal and then lying in my hammock listening to my lovely new ipod. J

supple-mental!

Last night has the most unbeleiveable rainstorm i think I've ever seen.  lightening and thunder RIGHT overhead, I've never heard thunder so loud .....water gouting from awnings and overflowing from gutterings leaving my street  4" deep in water that looked like it was boiling.  (apparently the kho san road was knee deep!)  I wish these pics could show what it was really like!
Poor Yosh had to leave for Kanchanaburi at 4am, and i think it was still raining then!

Anyway  it's clearly dislodged something in my brain, as i decided i couldn't hack another journey with a broken ipod that keeps freezing, and a shit book, and after walking miles around the various shopping centres in Bangkok with apple stores it became apparent that no one can fix my old outdated model, so i went crazy, went down town to the big shopping centre,  and bought myself a brand new fabulous gorgeous big fat ipod that has more memory than my computer!!!!  Wooot wooot!

I am almost beside myself with excitement and desperately trying get it loaded and charged for the trip! I can fit ALL my music and all the "make it so" Podcasts on it too !! hurrah!! .

Excuse me, I must go back to stroking it lovingly.  Here's a last look at mad Bangkok before i go....

Stuff and bla...

Booked my ticket to Ko Phan Ngan today and caught up on the old blog.  Bangkok is hot, humid and overcast and has been all day despite the fact that it rained loudly all night and until about 9 this morning so the streets were slippery and full of grumpy Thais!

I leave on an overnight bus tomorrow to connect with a boat to the island the next morning.  Now, i just have to find somewhere to stay when I get there!

I also now have a Thai phone, for emergencies really, so, I'll rarely have it on, but I think you can text me... number's on my facebook page if you want it.

Heading out of PP and back to Bangkok

Had another delightful lunch with Henning, and made him go for his first massage, and now he know's what he's been missing,  before collecting my bags and heading off for the airport.  It was rather lovely as I had had three people waving me off, from outside the guest-house, and many hugs and slaps on the back goodbye.  I have really realised that i do rather love it here.

And as luck would have it, I met some men last night that are a part of an NGO setting up schools and infrastructure in the north of Cambodia who need teachers and fund-raisers and who might actually want to employ me, so i am quite interested in finding out more about that!

The flight to Bangkok was utterly uneventful, no delays and no problems.  Met some boys who told me about the cheap bus to Koah San road from the airport so whilst i was waiting for it I bumped in to the rather attractive Yosh... who didn't have a hotel, so I reccommended mine (I have managed to find a really really good well priced guest house, close to Koah San road, called At Home guest house that is scrupulously clean, with comfortable beds, nice sized en suite bathrooms and only 350bt fr a fan room or 450 for air con. which is really good for Bangkok, especially to find one so well cared for)

So Yosh and we went out for dinner and some drinks.... lovely!