Ko Tao

We Arrived in Ko Tao two days after setting off from Laos, absolutely knackered. We planned to have a quiet night in but met a guy from Wigan, Dave, who actually went to Lancaster uni the same time as me. We ended up having a few quiet drinks in our beach bar which turned into a full on beach party until 6am in a place called Lotus bar until 6am.

 Main beach and Lotus Bar

Ko Tao is an amazing island, really chilled  and has a really nice atmosphere compared to Bangkok. The beaches are the cleanest and quietest I've seen almost anywhere theres a gorgeous sunset. But at the same time theres a really good nightlife.

 Sunset at our hotel beach bar.

 Our hotel was called Wind Beach Resort. Our room was literally a 30 second walk to a quiet part of the beach in the main town, Saari. But it was also about 200 metres away along the beach to Lotus bar and the rest of the nightlife so was in a really good spot. The staff were awesome as well, all a good laugh who ended up drinking with us in the bar on our first night.

 Our hotel bar and the beach.

We had originally planned to stay in Ko Tao until our flight out of Singapore but we discovered there was a Half Moon party on nearby Ko Pangnan so after 2 nights and 3 days we headed over there by boat. I would have loved to have stayed on Ko Tao for longer though and its somewhere I'd definitely go back to.

Laos

After our last night in Bangkok, we got a sleeper train up to Laos. It was really comfortable, more so than the hostel we'd stayed in the night before!

Getting into Vientiane, the capital of Laos, was like going to another world after being in Bangkok. So much more chilled out and relaxed with no annoying Tuk Tuk drivers hassling you on every street corner. Hard to believe they're both a capital city. It was a French colony so its like a little European town, with loads of French restaurants along the banks of the Mekong River.

After one night in Vientiane we headed northwards to Vang Vieng. This is a little village in the mountains with some amazing scenery on the banks of another river. Its mainly a stopover for backpackers coming down from China, through Laos on their way to Thailand.

Its on the the banks of another river and is famous for Tubing. Basically, you get a rubber ring and float the 3 or so miles down the river. On the way there are loads of bars along the banks of the river who fish you into them. They have rope swings and slides going into the river and crazily cheap drinks. Met loads of people when we did this because its basically a big party all the way down. This is me and Nash doing a tandem zip line.

Me and Nash tandem zip line

After two nights in Vang Vieng, we had another chillout night in Vientiane to recover from tubing before getting another sleeper back to Bangkok on our way down the the islands in the Gulf of Thailand, Ko Tao and Ko Pangnan, where we are now.
I was going to put some photos up with this blog but somehow the computer I was on has just wiped my memory card! I'll get some from Nash's camera to put on next time I'm online.