Then got on the smallest bus ever... I was sat (wedged) in a seat that was barely wide enough for me, then realised that 3 thai people normally squeeze in. A thai girl did wedge herself next to me and rested her bag of very hot, freshly cooked food on my leg... I was in agony the whole journey. (on the bright side, the hot food pain took my mind away from the cramp that was setting in on my right leg... but hey, the journey only cost around 15p for 17km...

We took the night ferry to Koh Samui, departed from the port at 11pm (we arrive at the port at 8 and took the opportunity to drink a fair few bottles of chang beer to make the journey more confortable) and arrived at koh samui at 5am.

The sleeping arrangements were quite tight especially when youve got Al Fiad (fat bloke) sleeping next to you... in the end (after 10mins) i decided to go down to the bottom deck, which was relatively empty (due to the extremely noisy engine) and found a good corner to curl up in and go to sleep.

We are staying in a beach hut right near the sea in Mae Nam... it is so quiet and peaceful... bliss!!

We have also completed a 4 day diving course and im pleased to say that we both passed with flying colours!

We are now both certified PADI open water divers and have been trained with safety in mind, by a 20 year veteran, Adi (dive master) in the pool, from the beach and also an 18 metre boat dive. It was a fantastic course, although a bit difficult on a couple of occassions (i panicked a bit the first time i had to remove my mask underwater, i think i wanted to start breathing in through my nose or something, which just doesnt work, but after a few more attempts i got the hang of it... the other moment was when i had to switch to pauls spare regulator and put it in my mouth upside down... this was in the pool (2 metres) and a very good way to learn quickly of how not to do it!! :)

The first 2 dives in the sea were really good, although we had to redo all of the excercises practiced in the pool again... now at 5 metres... no problemo! the visibility was only about 4 metres, and there wasn't an awful lot of marine life to see...

The final 2 dives were from a boat at the national marine park, a group of rocks and reefs about 30 kilometres out to sea from Koh Samui.

After all of that strenuous excercise we have gone back to relaxing and blending in with the locals... we have a local drinking hole here and are regulars now... (just like the beaufort - empty, apart from a couple of old fellows and us).

Yesterday we went to Chewang to do some shopping etc and on the way back visited the second bigest buddah in the southern hemisphere (or maybe in thailand... will have to check my lonely planet for that one). We signed a paving slab (and gave a donation) to the temple... so the legend of Colin and Chalky will live on...

And last night we got chatting with an extremely funny cockney pub landlord Nick (at one of our local bars) and after closing we all went into Chewang on a bit of a drinking session, was very amusing... head hurts a little today though...

After 2 weeks on Koh Samui, what a time we had! The full moon party over on Koh Pang Ngan was awsome, although the speed boat ride over was a little hairy... the boat was really overloaded and the sea was quite choppy!

We partied all through the night, needed a few redbulls (sharks) and vodka to keep us going!! and it was definately worth it to see the most magnificent sun rise over the ocean which turned every shade of pink, orange and yellow... it was a sight not to be missed!

We stayed on Samui a few more nights, Aussie Joe (a local) took us on a short trek around Mae Nam and showed us all the sights... we also saw a squashed viper on the road (danger danger, venomous snakes!!) apparently there are also a lot of scorpions on Samui... didn't see any though... went out looking with my flash light and Steve Irwin shorts on... :)

We also had a go at wind surfing which was fun... after many hours of falling off, i can now climb on to the board, lift the sail up, move about a metre, and then fall off!! excellent fun! Paul is also as experienced at it as I am! (we were definately better at drinking vodka than windsurfing!!)