Tom and Joel are not in Australia

Okay, so here's what happened...

After arriving in Bangkok we eventually met up with Kaare and Angie, the Canadians who Sam, Bernie, Oonagh and Ed met in Kuala Lumpur. They were only part of a hulking mass of Canadians who also happened to be in Bangkok. While the Canadians went down to Ko Tao, we stayed in Bangkok perhaps a little too long (Khao San road is not a pleasant place) and then Sam flew back to England, with a whole suitcase full of stuff we wanted to send back with him. Sad faces all round.



Then we too made our way down to Ko Tao, a really lovely island right near Ko Pha Ngan. We met up with the Canadians again, and spent the days with them snorkelling, boulder climbing and doing some very suspect karaoke. We also got the boat over to Ko Pha Ngan for this month's full moon party, then danced into the morning and got the first boat back. Our intention was to leave straight for Singapore, for our flight to Australia on the 23rd. However, the hulking mass of Canadians convinced us otherwise and we went to Ton Sai with them. No worries, we thought, we'll just change our flights to the 29th instead.



Ton Sai (remember Railay? That's right next door) is also a really great place, much smaller and friendlier than Railay (it also has limited electricity, accounting for the blogging lack). The centrepiece of this stay was the much-fabled 'Pirate Party', now on its 3rd year running. What this consists of is everybody dressing up like pirates, and Kaare and Angie setting us a long list of pirate-related challenges to complete in and around the peninsula. The costumes looked great, the challenges were tough, the accents were terrible - we were 'Team English', and we were all ready to go, when...






The 25th of June 2008 suddenly became THE WETTEST DAY OF ANYBODY'S LIFE EVER.
The monsoon lasted all day, but does a little rain stop a bunch of pirates?
Of course not!
We hiked a very steep jungle treck, navigated some slippery boulders and made a sea monster out of sand. Because we refused/were unable to get a boat back to the very inaccessible Ton Sai beach, we came back to the party a few hours later than the others, and considerably wetter. HOWEVER! We had completed most of the challenges. I'd say it was a success, anyway.

So remember how we changed our flights to Australia? Well, that didn't quite happen the way we planned. In fact, nothing happened at all because we were unable to reach Sanjay, our helpful travel agent.
Well, we thought, new flights will cost us a few hundred pounds, but who can put a price on this kind of fun? We've made a lot of great friends and memories. Oh well.
So today we got a boat back to the mainland with all our stuff, and while Bernie, Oonagh and the Canadians are waiting for a bus back up to Bangkok, we're killing time and putting off teary farewells.
So to kill my time, I go into the nearest internet cafe and sit down at this computer to check my email, and read this:

Hi Joel,

All changed to the 29^th of June 08

Regards

Sanjay

And so, to that end, see you in Australia.


(This post is dedicated to Kaare, Angie, Jesse, Juanita, Carly, Jake, Haley, Scott, Adam and Steph for being good Canadians)