We're back...sorry....we were enjoying the beach too much

Hi everyone, and sorry once again for the total lack of posts recently. The very expensive and slow internet we have been faced with lately has only made spending time on the beach that much more enjoyable!

So, here I go trying to recap the last 3 weeks:

First and foremost was the lovely Koh Samui. Brendan and I were really looking forward to making it back here - it was where we spent our honeymoon and we really do love this place. This time round, on a "slightly" smaller budget, we still had a great time. We stayed in a little guest house only a street away from the beach (which was also nice and close to the hotel we stayed in last time which has a great pool...we may have made a couple of visits to check out the pool again).

We also caught up with Madeline and Roeland - friends we first met in Cherating, Malaysia. They are currently working as dive instructors in Koh Samui and we were lucky enough to have Madeline as our instructor for our advanced diving course. Yes - Brendan and I are now officially advanced scuba divers...but wait there is more. We decided to do a deep diving specialty so that we can dive to a maximum depth of 40m! The diving was fantastic and we had a great time hanging out with Madeline & Roeland - thanks guys for a really good time and showing us all the best dancing and drinking places around. Of special note was the night we hit the town, drinking red bull mixed with absolutely dreadful but very cheap Thai rum. The night ended at about 4am after a lot of dancing, people watching (in particular the lady boys - which can be quite difficult to distinguish sometimes) and good fun. We will be catching up with them soon in Siem Reap, Cambodia so it should be more good times!

Another thing we love about Samui is the great food. We managed to find some really good new places this time - like our 20baht take away curries (that is about $0.60 Australia) and the best soupI have ever eaten that was pack full of wantons, noodles, chili, and vegies for only 35 baht (just over a dollar)! We both got our chili cravings out of our system during the two weeks in Samui.

Otherwise, we really just laid about and did a whole lot more relaxing - swam at the beach and the pool, watched our cheap pirated dvds and walked the interesting streets of Samui (whilst trying to avoid people flogging us suits, shirts and taxis. Do we really look like the sort of people who want to buy a suit? I would have thought the dreadlocks would have given them a pretty good hint).

It was sad to leave Samui, but we know that some day we will be back again. I think Brendan still has his heart set on retiring here. A place where you can get a long neck of great beer for $1.60 and a curry for $0.60 is a place where Brendan feels right at home.

So that was Samui - next we moved to Koh Tao, an island 62km north of Samui...................
//Kate