The Holden-Fells Explore....... : Sunsets, scooters, Singha and white sand in Thailand.

Hey folks, it's been a while since our last blog, but we didn't want to bore you with tales of white sandy beaches and photos of glorious sunsets! Nevertheless we've been busy, working hard on getting a tan and and expanding our minds with a lot of literature.

Singha or Chang beer?

After Cambodia we had a night stopover in Bangkok and then flew to Krabi to officially start the last leg of our tour (beach and relaxation on South Thailand's beaches). First stop, a very touristy area called Ao Nang, near Krabi. Mistake!!! Too many tourists, very expensive and poor beach. We soon realised that we'd actually been there some four years earlier and had not been too impressed then either. Fortunately our wooden bungalow on stilts with "natural air conditioning" (aka holes in the walls) was excellent and we enjoyed many games of Pétanque with our French host, helped along with the odd bottle of beer. We did spend a day on the scooter visiting some amazing beaches along the coast hunting for a better place to stay but unfortunately all the totally gorgeous, secluded beaches with fantastic views are dominated by 5 star luxury resorts so it not an option for us. We also took a longtail boat to the semi-secluded Railey beach but after three nights we were ready to move on to somewhere quieter, perhaps more like Otres beach in Cambodia.

The second destination in Thailand was to the island of Koh Lanta, a few hours bus and a short car ferry south of Krabi. Unfortunately we were both ill for the best part of the week we stayed there and so perhaps didn't really see all Koh Lanta had to offer. Again, we weren't really enamoured by our beach which despite having 4 km of beautiful white sand, lacked a little atmosphere and nightlife so we spent another day on the scooter checking out the other beaches on the island. No luck once more but we whiled most of the days away with a few hours on the beach trying to recover from our stomach bugs. Koh Lanta has some lovely beaches but something wasn't quite doing it for us. Maybe it was because we were ill, or perhaps we were longing for something more like Otres beach.

After much deliberating, we decided to move on from Koh Lanta and head for Koh Phangan, famous for it's Full Moon Party. Thousands of drunk kids vomiting on the beach is not really our scene, but to our delight, outside of the Full Moon dates, the island is very quiet, un-touristy and under developed compared to other locations and the locals are much more friendly. There are many cracking beaches (and seriously hilly roads), which we discovered when we took a scooter out for a few days. Finally we'd found our haven and so surprisingly we decided it would be our home for the remainder of the holiday.