Koh Tao - Koh Phan Gan

Well it's been a little while and we have packed a lot in...the rest of Koh Tao we spent visiting different beaches, view points and of course restaurants! Oh yeah Claudia almost got attacked by a monkey in Koh Tao - it was huge and on the back of a bike, we went to look at it and it literally almost gauged her eyes out! Never seen anyone so scared before!! Relaxed and prepared for a week of partying in Koh Phan Gan! The boat ride over was gorgeous, calm seas and perfect weather. We arrived and booked into our little bungalow and went to enjoy the sun by the pool. Lots has happened while we have been here:

> First night beach and a mad pool party - watched some fire throwing on the beach with a bucket of alcohol, headed to the pool party with a random entourage of people who followed us there - lots of dancing and meeting new and bizarre people!

> Spending lots of time by the pool or on the beach in the day listening to good music, enjoying fresh fruit shakes and reading lots of good books.

> Valentine's Day - great meal - seafood platter, everything you could imagine from the sea barbecued to perfection! Followed by lots of dancing on the beach - fireworks, lanterns, fire dancing!

> Half moon party! blooming amazing, party in the middle of the jungle, loads of great people, U.V. everywhere you look, the best fire dancing we have ever seen! Great music and partying into the night! Managed to get home at 4am...

All in all Koh Phan Gan has been good to us...next stop Koh Samui!!

Vang Vieng - Koh Tao - No snow in sight!!!

Well well we are staring at pure lucious white.....SAND, ha ha oh well we are sure it's fun in the pure lucious white snow! Anyway back to our adventures...

Last few days in Laos were perfect, sun, tubing, good cheap food, music and fun...We hung out a lot with the Sakurah girls JoJo and Amy and bid them a fond farewell before we headed off...destination Vientianne(the capital of laos) which is on the border of thailand. We had a supprisingly quick journey and ended up in this bizarre place. We spent the next couple of days at the Thai embassy and it took 4 hours to hand in and pay for our 2 month visas, but at least it will mean we wont have to do any border runs. It only cost 20 pounds which is not to bad. It is so annoying now they have changed the law - if you travel into Thailand by plane you get 30 days but if you go by land you only get 15 days so if we wanted to spend 2 months there we would have to do about 3 visa runs....

Vientianne is not the most inspiring of places, quite unappealing in terms of architecture and not much to do - as you would normally find in a capital city, so we wanted to leave there and get down south as soon as poss....

So visas in hand we literally travelled for days...travel to Bangkok stayed for the day (swimming pool and stocked up on some retail therapy) and then more travel to get down south....so all in all 48 hours of travelling, no sleep!! But we are here now and it is beautiful...koh tao, it really is such a gorgeous little island. We found a great place to stay, its got its own little beach at the end of the long beach and its this great fancy hut on stilts, we managed to haggle the price down to half as we said we are staying till next wednesday...so we are paying 600 baht a night instead of 1200... the people are really nice who own it and they help out with anything and the food is ridiculously cheap and amazingly fresh, so in all we are paying 3 pound a night each for this luxury place in the perfect location and to make it even better meals are about 80p its a pretty quiet island as most people who come here go scuba diving, so they are all out in the day and then to tired to go out at night, its so nice and relaxed and just what we needed after 4 days of pretty much no sleep....

Luang Probang - Vang Vieng!!

Our last days in Luang Probang we spent exploring the town and around, we went to see the pak ou caves but enjoyed the journey there more than the acctual caves!! fun dirt track, passed 3 elephants on the way, life is bizarre here! Good food and night markets rounded off our Luang visit....

Following a not so long but equally as bumpy and beautiful journey through Laos we reached Vang Vieng. We have been here 5 days now and staying till sunday...we've met some great people to enjoy the night life with, they are all a bit mad and we have steered clear of sharing that mad concoctions in their buckets! I had a fantastic birthday, tubing down the river and we went to a bar where we had made some friends the night before and they had made me a birthday cake and the whole bar sang happy birthday!!! :) was a perfect day!

The day that folloiwed was not so relaxing, (except for the lovely cycle there) we will keep the memories in our minds for a long time....PITCH BLACK CAVE!!! crazy weird Laos tour guide....40 minutes trek in the dark with a measily flash light...finally reach this so called lagoon...not what you are picturing, it is a massive pool completely dark, freezing, sat in a dingy...and the guy thought it was hilarious to turn off the flashlight....we didnt stay long, lets say I think he got the hint we werent really enjoying the horror...just imagine The Descent...we lived it! 40 minutes stumbling trek out of our worst nightmare...(yet we laugh now) we reached daylight....evening partying away the madness and more sunbathing and here we are half way through our Vang Vieng visit....

The sun is shining, the river is fantstic, good cheap food, always something to do, even if it is just sunbathing in a hamock over the river...the scenery around us is fab! We really recomend a visit!! Much cheaper than luang probang also...

Chang Mai - Luang Probang

Our second night in Chang Mai we were joined by Marianna and friends and it was great to see a familiar face and to go out with someone who knew what was going on. We did some partying in good bars with some locals - crazy thai guy who said sophie looked like his fish....nice! also went to this place which was massive and had a great live thai band on. Chatted and danced with locals and had a good couple of days.

Next stop was Chang Rai - a slightly smaller town than Chang Rai, we found a great guest house tucked away, did some more drinking- this time in at tipee bar- the decor was hmmm...mental, music was hmmm...80's and it was a good chilled out night. After a days rest by the pool and a trip to the night market for some food from the stalls for 20p we said our farewells to the last of our buddies...

The next couple of days involved a loooottt of travelling - chang mai to chang kong to huay xai a very bizarre non existent town (but we had a great meal here where we bar b q our own fish!) then to Luang probang - killer bus journey ( was supposed to be 10 hours....actually 13 but worth it!) the views were amazing and the villages we went through were unbelievably basic and incredible to see...we were on a local bus by the way, traveling also with about 20 bags of rice, 15 or so locals, a chicken, some small birds and a puppy. Definitely a journey to remember :)

Luang Probang is stunning, the people friendly, the food very good but less spicy than thai. By the way Laos coffee....5 stars!! We had a perfect day eating by the Mekong river, mopeding to waterfalls and generally loving Laos....2 more days then off to Vang Vieng for some tubing!

Bangkok - Chang Mai and NEW PLANS!

we had a good flight over, and stayed a night in bangkok, we ate yummy pad thai and went to the bar which looks over the city, which was beautiful and even though the cocktails cost a lot but its worth one for the view!! after a few more bars we slept off our jet lag and then did an mbk center stop quickly to pick up some bits and bobs and then headed in a mad mans tuk tuk to the train station...

chang mai is a good place for shopping at the night market - much is the same as you would find in bangkok but cheaper - food stalls are good and a bargain!! the city is very relaxed and a good base for doing trecks etc...we have mainly been enjoying some sunshine, eating and drinking and meeting some people this evening which will be nice to see a familiar face!!

CHANGE OF PLANS ALLREADY!! we have decided after a long chat about what we really want to do, that we are going to skip vietnam this trip, and instead after laos head straight to the south so we get the best of the sunshine and can relax a bit more and not keep rushing around, as we want to have time to settle into places a bit more, so our new plan is, laos over the next 2 weeks - down to the west side on the south thai islands then do a weekend in malaysia to renew our visa, then up the east side of south thailand, head towards cambodia to do a week trip to see the main sights (again renew our visas) - then head back to bangkok via koh chang and koh samet!


so thats if so far, having fun but tired of city life and looking forward to realxing a bit more by the river!!!

We set off this week!!

Well the day is almost here, this Sundayday at the crack of dawn we jet off to..... the Far East!

We are having a last manic week of packing and panicking.... but in all we are ready to hit the road. We hope to see as many of you before we do head off but if not have a great few months and we look forward to see you when we are back, when we will look like bronzed goddesses :)

lots of love Soph and Claud xx

The plan is finally coming together!

We are almost on our way! Claudia is so excited, just blooming look at her face!!! Ahhh what am I letting myself in for, spending 3 months trapped with this nut job!

Flights are booked and it is official South East Asia here we come. Instead of writing about a million of the same email to everyone letting you know all how we are doing, we figured it is a much better option to have this blog which we will try to oupdate weekly with news and photos of our adventures!

For now the official date we are leaving is - 11th January! We are going to figure out a rough plan outlining where abouts we will be and when, so if anyone fancys visitng us along the way, just send us an email and we can sort something out!!