Koh PhaNgan, Thailand

Finally made it to an island in the south of Thailand. I was living in my own lovely wooden en-suite beach bungalow for 2 pounds a night, and rented a motorbike for the week for 2 pounds a day. This was fun...motorbiking and off-roading around the islands terrible roads and muddy, hilly, potholed steep, twisting jungle tracks - loved it!!! :-)

Unfortunately I got there in rainy season...but then again I have been following the rainy season around the world right from Poland and will continue to follow it right down into Malaysia and Borneo!!! And I left UK to get away from the damn rain...but at least it's not cold here. Anyway it rained nearly 20 hours a day every single day except the last 2, and thats not drizzle rain....but downpour rain, so I couldn't enjoy the beach and sea very much, well never mind, I just lay in my hammock on my veranda, watching the coconuts growing and the rain on the clear blue sea and the crabs on the golden sand, listening to my music, reading my books and drinking fresh tropical fruit shakes....Paradise!

Found a nice bar too, lots of psychedelic music, stoned chilled out Brits lounging on cushions on the wooden verandas under the stars drinking delicious mushroom milkshakes. Ended up going back with some crazy bloke from Leicester, Ron, to his house there, because he let his 16 year old stoned out of his head son drive us all back in his jeep, so I slept out in the hammock under the stars, was fun.

Found the most amazing thai massage place...will be going back for more of that.

But the most incredible thing was the free horn concert every evening by the local buffalo - an amazing sound, thay make beautiful music and the crickets always join in too for a bit of percussion. And I seemed to have adopted a stray dog, a beautiful black labrador who followed me everywhere and protected me from all the other dogs, even slept on my veranda at night, very loyal.

There were some amazing shells on the beach too....huge conches and other shells which I thought you would only find on Mombasa beach in Africa!

Anyway when the weather cleared up, Ron took me snorkling, the tropical fish and beautiful coral....really lovely and the sea cucumber - scared the life out of me! So to thank him afterwards, I sat on a swing on the beach and immediately proceeded to fall off backwards, nicely kicking him in the bollocks in the process.....ended up on my back with a sore head, legs in the air and in hysterics for the next 10 mins. This was the 3rd time this week I had been in this position! The other two times were when I fell out of hammocks!

Found some nice local bars where all the ladyboys hung out, and made some good friends there, they really are the loveliest people.

Well off to Krabie on the west coast of southern Thailand for some more hot springs and real good rock climbing.