Well once again my updates are a little sparse. But rest assured I am returning to the damp, soggy, grey land of England in NINE days, (yes NINE days). I will endeavour to bring the blog right up to date with pictures and everything on my return.

For now a very quick update on where I am and What I’m doing.

Malaysia ended in style on the luxury island of Langkawi (luckily this was open). Here I spent my birthday being wined and dined in some very expensive Malaysian restaurants. Although the whole night actually only cost 25GBP between the three of us!

From there were moved onto the beautiful white sand of Ko Lipe in Thailand, where we sunned ourselves on the beach and enjoyed a few days relaxing. We moved onto Ko Mook, another beautiful Thai island. Here we visited the Emerald Cave – an 80 meter long, pitch black swim through a cave onto a hidden secluded beach on the other side. We also spent some time snorkeling off the coast of Ko Karaden.

Our next stop was Ko Lanta. Here the cheapest accommodation we could find was at the very cheap side of a proper holiday resort. We had everything we could ever want – western toilets, mosquito nets, plus rats, mice and large lizards living in our rooms. But the rooms were some of the nicest we’d had and the resort had its very own swimming pool! We ended up spending longer here than planned, doing… well… nothing! But at least we now have semi respectable tans to return to England in February with!

Whilst the girls were doing nothing on Ko Lanta I went on a day trip diving off the coast of Ko Phi Phi. Ko Phi Phi is the island where ‘The Beach’ was filmed, but not having heard anything nice about the island (apart from it having a pretty beach) we decided it wasn’t worth spending the money to get there! The dive trip was awesome (I will write more about this when I get back). I saw a SEAHORSE, a SHARK and a TURTLE all in one dive. The shear number of fish were incredible – definitely some of the best diving I’ve done.

We are now on Ko Tao (and haven’t spent a night on the mainland since the 27th January!) The reason we came here was because it is reportedly one of the cheapest places in the world to learn to dive. I intended to do my Advanced Open Water diving qualification. Although on the way here I developed an ear infection and am now preying it will have cleared up sufficiently by tomorrow to allow me to begin my advanced course. Fingers crossed.

Well that’s about it for now. I’ll try and check in again soon, but if not there will be a lot of updating going on in about ten days (once I’ve recovered from the excitement of getting home and realised nothing has changed in the last 18 months!)

* Posted by j150vsc on 10/02/2008.