After about 2 hours we finally mustered the willpower to reload ourselves with our luggage and begin the 15 minute walk to the city centre, but we got totally lost and ended up in the suburbs. We asked for directions toward the city centre and found that no one spoke any English out here, but the lady we asked found us someone who knew a few words. 

This guy then tried to get me and Dave and our bags onto his motorbike, and tried to persuade us to put our faith in him by saying "trust me, I'm a policeman". Aye sure you are pal. We walked off back towards the ruins to find a tuk tuk and went back to the centre, where we spent the next 5 or 6 hours in a bar getting steadily drunk with a Dutch family. At 23.30 we dragged ourselves over the road to the train station, boarded our train and promptly passed out. 

Sunrise from Chumphon

The bus to Koh Tao was a large double decker with excellent air con - almost cold enough to wear a hoody. The Lomprayah bus left Bangkok at 21.30 and arrived at Chumphon pier at 5am, so we then had to spend 2 hours waiting for the ferry, but there was a shop and a restaurant, so we weren't totally bored. I bought a pack of crisps and made a dog do tricks for them as entertainment. The ferry left at 7am and arrived at Koh Tao at about 09.30. In the pier the water was clear and you could see shoals of fish swimming in the shallows. We went over to a guy holding a Simple Life sign (the school we had booked with) and he gave us a lift over to the SL divers resort. We checked in, met our instructor, (a Londoner called Luke) paid for the course, then finally got a shower - we were feeling pretty grotty. We had just enough time to pop for lunch before the course started. 

The view from In Touch

There was a lovely bar on the beach called In Touch that ended up being one of our favourites on the island. We sat on the beach whilst local children played on the rope swing, with little care for their safety. One kid got his leg stuck I'm the swing, and was swinging around by his leg, upside down. His mother seemed uninterested and his friends made sure they had a good laugh before helping him down. That afternoon we started the academics side of our diving course. This was a gruelling 6 hours watching videos answering multiple choice questions. The questions weren't hard, but staying awake was. After the first day was finished, Dave and I crashed as we had an early start the next morning. By 9am we were in a freezing cold, but very refreshing swimming pool starting our first confined dive. We finished this about 13.00, grabbed some lunch, and then went back to the classroom for another 4 hours of videos. That night we decided to go out and see the fire shows on the beach as we weren't starting until 12.00 the next day. This probably wasn't the best idea, or maybe it's the buckets that were a bad idea...

Fire shows on the beach

Still, we managed to get up and out in time for our first open water dive.

Once the boat had moored up on the dive site, we were told the jump off the second storey of the boat and swim round the boat - just to make sure we could swim. On this swim we all kept feeling these little stings, and later found out we had swam through a swarm of small jellyfish. After this we got back on the boat, kitted up and got into the water. Seeing all of the tropical fish was awesome, and very distracting when Luke was still trying to teach us skills we needed to know. Our second dive was almost straight after this one, over a reef. We saw Groupers, eels, crabs and tonnes of really brightly coloured fish. If you turned over and swam on your back you could see the sun beating down, and hundreds of fishy shadows above you. The dives lasted 35 minutes each, and never seemed to be long enough. We were finished for the day by 5pm, but had to get an early night as the next days dives began at 7am. On this night Dave and I decided we needed another night on Koh Tao. After Bangkok it was so relaxing. On the last day we finished about 13.30, and were fully qualified open water divers. That means no more training, and taking out your regulator under water, just fun dives from now on. We decided to rent some mopeds and go to the post office to post a couple of postcards, and after we were to head up to a few viewpoints in the hills. Turning out from the post office however, I totally stacked it and took half the skin off my arm and gave my foot a good graze and bruise. 

My war wounds

After I was cleaned up, we headed for Mango Bay. This ride is not for the faint hearted. It is for experienced riders and idiots - Dave and I fall into the latter category. It was a steep ride up there, and took us almost an hour. About 40% of the road was tarmac, the rest was sand with huge ruts in it where it had rained. It was easy for your back tyre to skid out into the rut, and then you were in real trouble. This is where Dave had his crash, straight over the brow of a hill and into a bush. But luckily Dave was unscathed. 

Halfway up the hill

Eventually we got to the veiwpoint bar at Mango Bay just in time for sunset, which was simply spectacular, definitely the best one all week. 

Sunset from Mango Bay

Just before dark we began the ride down, which wasn't half as bad as the ride up, despite having to do half of it in the dark. We got back to the resort in one piece, showered and hit the beach. We met the Canadians from our course, had a few buckets an began the beach crawl. Everything's a bit of a blur, but I remember doing the limbo under fire, and failed to light my cigarette off the flaming bar. I then met some lovely Thai masseuses who were very chatty and friendly, sometimes a bit too friendly despite my protests (just kissing me on the cheek though). I lost them pretty speedily and found Dave who was barely managing to stay upright (not that I was any better) and we headed off to get rustlers style burgers for 50p from the 7/11. The next day, feeling pretty rough, we booked our tickets back to Bangkok on the night boat, sacked our plans of going over the sand bar (it was high tide anyway, we'll go when we come back around) and headed to the pier to find a taxi. On the way there was a small river running down the steer causing moss to grow. I slipped and fell flat on my ass and got moss all over the back. I emptied my pockets and washed off in the sea, then got into a taxi whilst soaking wet up the Natural High Bar. 

The view from Natural High Bar

This is a treehouse bar with free pool and wifi above the forest canopy on the side of the hill. The view from there was damn good. We met a guy from Dundee and chatted away for hours. We came up with an idea for a TV show where you get someone incredibly drunk, strap a go pro to them, and set them loose into a city's nightlife strip. This kept us entertained for quite a while. We headed back down after sunset to grab some dinner and head to the pier to catch our boat. The night boat had rows of bunk beds that were actually fairly comfy and I managed to get a decent nights sleep. The ferry reached Chumphon at 5am where our mini bus was waiting to take us on a hot and sweaty ride to Bangkok.

On our first day in Bangkok we got up bright and early and took a Tuk tuk over to the Khao San Rd to look for a cheaper room. It took us about 20 minutes to find a dorm room for 250THB each. We dropped our bags off and headed out. We got another tuk tuk  to Lumpini park. Whilst on the bridge over the river leading up to the entrance, Dave spotted something that looked like a crocodile, it wasn't, it was a large lizard swimming in the river. We took a few photos then watched it catch a turtle for lunch. 

As we went into the park we realised we had arrived at the perfect time - all the plants were being watered, and the sprinklers/hoses with holes in them were a welcome relief to the heat. We headed for the lake and rented a pedal boat for 40THB for half an hour. Whilst pedalling around the lake we saw more lizards - that we're much smaller than the first - and turtles and a small bird that looked and moved like a heron. 

After this we took a wander around the park. There was an outdoor gym where a load of muscular men were lifting weights. Why you'd want to do that in the heat, I don't know, but they weren't the worst, there were people running too! We sat down under a tree to cool off but there were hundreds of large red and black ants everywhere, so we headed for the exit. At the exit, there was a tuk tuk driver waiting for customers. He offered to take us to a couple of temples for an hour for 50THB each. We agreed since we thought it would be good to get a few put the way. The temples he took us to were not very famous ones, but they were still spectacular. 

The roofs of the temples were particularly impressive. In the first one (I think it was called Wat Kalarlum Po) there was amazing air conditioning so we stood in front the unit and watched the monks praying.

The second one was a bit boring really, apart from the paintings on the wall. 

After we'd had a quick look we went back to the tuk tuk and he took us to a tailors so he could get paid for bringing customers. We reluctantly agreed and spent 5 minutes in a shop with men pestering us to buy a suit, and then left. The driver wasn't willing to take us to the Khao San Rd afterwards, but he did take us to the Marine Dept and told us to get a boat taxi to near KSR. The ride cost us 14THB each, not bad really.

We stopped at a restaurant en route to KSR and got some dinner, proper noodle soup. Tasty.

Afterwards we headed back to our hostel to grab a shower and get ready for the night out. It felt so good to be clean, but with ten minutes the sweat beads were forming once again. We found a bar that did very strong Long Island Ice teas for 100THB a glass and set us up perfectly for the rest of the night. We moved to another bar where we met a lovely Canadian couple and got chatting about travelling in Asia. We tried a bit of scorpion, which was quite crunchy but not too disgusting, then moved to another bar on KSR. We ordered some drinks and laughing gas, which wasn't really all that, but at least I can say I've tried it. After this the night becomes a bit of a blur - most likely due to the bucket of vodka red bull - but I'm confident it was a good night, and an excellent birthday.

In the morning I woke up and experienced what true dehydration is like. Every muscle began to ache. We both had showers an then lay on Dave's top bunk bed which was right in the path of an oscillating fan.

 I'm not sure if this made it worse though, as the ten seconds it took for the fan to come back around felt like an eternity in the fires of hell. We eventually got our stuff together and headed to the Lomprayah office to leave our bags during the day. Then we went and bought water and coke, and chugged the lot. Water has never tasted so good.

Once we'd brought ourselves back to life, we got a tuk tuk over to Jim Thompsons house. The house was built by Jim himself, using traditional Thai methods. Some of the buildings were brought from other areas of Thailand and reconstructed. Jim became a silk merchant when he moved to Bangkok, so whilst here we saw traditional silk making in practice, which is fascinating. 

We also learnt that Thai people believe spirits travel along the floor, so all the thresholds in the house are raised to keep spirits out and provide entertainment in the form of people tripping over them. Once we'd finished here, we went back to KSR to waste the rest of the day waiting for our bus to Koh Tao.

We flew from Birmingham to Dehli and then from Dehli to Bangkok. Before the flight we grabbed a quick pint then headed off to our gate. 

Pint time!

Planes seem to have changed a bit since I was a kid, apparently now everyone has their own screen and can pick what they want to watch, pretty awesome. We watched Jurassic World then Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation with a curry for dinner AND FREE ALCOHOLIC DRINKS!!! Obviously we were chuffed about the free drinks - even if we were limited to two. The man sitting next to us must have took pity on our measly amounts of alcohol, as he decided to offer us a drink from the large bottle of whiskey he had stashed by his feet. We were grateful for the first drink, then the man kept trying to get us to drink and would too up our drinks even as we said we didn't want any. Obviously this man hadn't seen the informative video on tea etiquette - if someone says they don't want tea, don't make them tea.  Talking of tea, for our meal Air India served us curry - surprise surprise - which I promptly spilt all down my brand new hoody.

After that, Dave went to sleep doing the classic "head nod" whilst I managed to stay awake all damn night.

Ugh so tired

Currently dreading having to stay up for at least the next 16 hours or risk wasting days on jet lag. Why oh why can't I sleep on a damn plane?!? -.-

At 4am uk time, breakfast was served, and our friendly neighbour continued to try and make us drink. At least he didn't try and make Dave drink whilst he was sleeping.

Screens showing flight details

We landed in Dehli at 10.45am local time, and our connecting flight had already been delayed by an hour, so we spent ages in the airport aimlessly wandering round and dying of boredom. Yet still we managed to nearly miss the final call and had to leg it to the gate to be the last ones to board.

Dehli Airport

Once boarded, we spent about 40 minutes on the runway moving nowhere, but still with the engine running. Again the food was curry, and this time it was Dave who spilt it down his new hoody, so we're even now. I still haven't slept since Sunday night, and it's now about 1pm Tuesday UK time. Somehow I'm still functioning, but I'm sure I'll enjoy my bed tonight. We should arrive in Bangkok in about an hour, and hopefully (If I've filled in my arrival card correctly) we should get through airport security and into Bangkok City centre hassle free...

Landed!

And it was hassle free! They didn't even check to make sure we had an outbound flight. Once outside, we struggled to flag a taxi before finding out you needed to get a ticket first from the machine. The taxi driver however had no idea where he was going, but still sped towards the city centre with my hotel booking in his hand whilst trying to ring the hotel to ask them where they were. Eventually he veered down a tiny alleyway and dropped us off, directing us down an even shittier alleyway, to our rather nice hotel for the night... apart from the shower.

Yogyakarta is a bustling town of some half a million people and the most popular tourist destination on Java, largely thanks to its proximity to the temples of Borobudur and Prambanan. The town is a hub of art and education, offers some good shopping and has a wide range of tourist facilities. The climate is similar to Jakarta, so we'd better get used to the rain, and it's sure be sticky weather with temperatures are in the high 20s. Rooms can be found from 85,000 rupiah. The best way to get around is by horse cart or trishaws.

There are some great examples of colonial architecture here, there is a Dutch fort located just in front of the presidents palace called Benteng Vredeburg. You can also see some prime examples of Javanese architecture, just visit Kota Gede, the ancient capital of the Islamic Mataram Kingdom. It now hosts the famous "silver village", home to many silver workshops, and a great place to buy custom jewellery. It's quite a large area, so you may need to hire transport to get around. 

Alternatively you could visit the Sultan's pleasure garden, Taman Sari. The complex is partly ruined, but still charming.  Towards the back of the complex is the original entrance to the pools, which used to be a small dock connected to a long-since-vanished river; a bit of snooping beyond this entrance will get you to a back street, where one can freely visit a fascinating network of tunnels and rooms, including an Escher-like series of interlacing staircases over what looks like a disused well. The guides usually expect tips, and it's 7000 rupiah to enter. plus 1000 for a camera permit. Open 9am to 3pm.