The Datai, Langkawi!!

After a long, much needed hug from Robert, who met us as we got out the taxi, Laura snuck up and jumped on Kate who was in deep conversation with another couple staying at the hotel. A few emotional tears and long hugs later, we enjoyed a drink and a brief catch up before checking in and being shown to our room. We hopped onto a buggy which drove us down the winding path pulling up outside a huge villa in the middle of the jungle, cleverly positioned giving it the feeling of complete privacy. We had been upgraded (again!), but this time into a luxurious villa that words can't begin to describe. On stepping inside, it opened up to reveal an enormous yet still homely king-sized bedroom with high ceilings and the biggest and most breath-taking bathroom we have ever seen, equipped with a giant bathtub, his and her sinks and a rain shower. On discovering the complimentary iPod full of every artist you can imagine, we put some music on and quickly freshened up ready for dinner. After gravlax three ways followed by mouth-watering steaks with roquefort sauce and mashed potato (something we had been craving for a while), we collapsed into bed and were asleep before our heads hit the fluffy pillow, eager for Ian and Heathers arrival the following day.

Up early for a champagne breakfast and a quick glimpse of a sly monitor lizard, we excitedly waited for Heather and Ian, who thought we were on the ferry from Thailand, to arrive. As they were welcomed at reception Charlie jumped out to surprise them and there were more emotional hugs all round! Once settled into their new room, we all met on the beach where the weather wasn't being particularly welcoming with overcast skies and no appearance from the sun. We enjoyed a long lunch with beer, wine and cocktails and spent hours endlessly chatting amongst us. Later that afternoon we all had a wander along the beach to the mangrove creek where we spotted a wild boar with her piglets roaming across the sand. After a relaxing afternoon of shade bathing and napping, we enjoyed drinks in the lobby watching the giant hornbills and dusky leaf monkeys feeding in the fig tree before a delicious thai dinner in a unique restaurant located high up on stilts amongst the towering trees.

The following day was spent doing much the same, with more average weather and shade bathing with our first spot of the macaque monkeys. Heather and Charlie both spotted six cute little faces poking out of the waves which turned out to be the giant otters, a very lucky and rare sight! All six of us followed them as they moved along the shore, but our legs were no match for their speed in the water. Eventually we gave up when they were just pinpricks in the distance, gutted that not one of us had our camera with us! After another long and relaxing lunch inside the restaurant due to the rain, and a comical moment when Ian realised he had accidentally picked up another guests shoes thinking they were Heathers and had them under the table for the whole of lunch, we all headed back to our rooms. Heather enjoyed a relaxing body scrub at the peaceful spa, with open air rooms overlooking a crystal-clear river. Dinner was enjoyed by all at "The Dining Room" whilst Charlie and I had gravlax and steak for the second time that week!

Yet another relaxing day spent on the Datai beach and cooling off in the pool, spotting monkeys roaming the grounds, a couple of monitor lizards (one climbing a tree) and some giant squirrels feeding in the tree next to the pool. That afternoon Charlie and I enjoyed a long walk along the beach before getting ready to head down the bay to the Andaman Hotel for cocktails before an entertaining dinner at the Japanese tempanaki restaurant. With a tasty and colourful starter of salmon and tuna sashimi and a swirling bowl of miso soup, we were ready for our main course of duck and chicken for Robert and beef, scallops and prawns for everyone else, cooked in front of us by the charming tempanaki chef. After a few warming carafes of sake (rice wine), we were the last table to leave the restaurant and headed back to the Datai for a peaceful nights sleep. 

With Robert opting to relax at the hotel, the rest of us spent the morning and early afternoon on a short tour of the island with planned stops at a couple of waterfalls (especially for Charlie!), a beautiful beach and a fruit farm. After a short drive we arrived at Langkawi's tallest waterfall, Temurun Falls, and after a short walk we reached the main tier where we took some photos and paddled in the deep, emerald-green pool. It was impossible trying to fit the whole waterfall in one photograph! The second stop was a short stroll along a beautiful white sandy beach (if you ignored the eyesore of the cement factory at the far end of the bay) with limestone rock formations jutting out of the sea. After a quick refreshing drink at a local restaurant, with the mums being shocked at the price difference of a fizzy drink compared to those at the hotel, we headed for the second waterfall. On parking the car, Heather and Kate darted straight into the nearest shop where they both purchased lovely dresses, before we all climbed up hundreds of lethal steps to the base of the second waterfall where we took yet more photographs! Our final stop was a tour of Langkawi's Agro Technology Park, learning about some of the 20+ fruit types, seasonal and non-seasonal, that they grew in their orchards. Species included starfruit, dragon fruit, jack fruit, pineapple and mangosteen with a visit to the fruit tasting corner where we sampled several different fruits, including our favourite the incredibly deep neon-purple dragon fruit. After some amusing photos with jack fruit and pineapple, we remember Robert all alone at the hotel and headed back for a late lunch at the hotel. Finally, the sun was out and blue sky was in sight! The rest of the afternoon was spent soaking in the rays on the beach before a delicious indian feast for dinner at the Gulai House, in the middle of the jungle. 

Waking up extremely early, watching the monkeys feeding in the fig tree whilst eating breakfast, we headed down to the beach where we went body boarding as some sporadic waves were crashing on the shore. It was another stunning day and all six of us spent it on the beach on the sun beds. After lunch, we headed to the spa where we had full body aromatherapy massages in the couples room, another open-air room with the relaxing sound of the stream running past outside. We were, however, interrupted by the squeal of a wild pig outside, making us jump out of our skin and quickly remove the eye masks. We did manage to relax and enjoy the rest of the massage, with both of us nearly falling asleep! We had to quickly wake ourselves up for a trip to the busy local market where we browsed the stalls selling everything from smelly durian fruit to fake abercrombie clothes to local food delicacies to baby chicks and ducks. In need for an ice cold drink after walking around the market stalls in the sticky heat, we headed to a nearby italian restaurant where we were enjoying our pizzas until the waitress apologised to Charlie and Kate for not cooking their pizzas for long enough!

Another beautiful morning of sunshine and we were up early, enjoyed another delicious breakfast and headed straight to the beach where we soaked up the sun before before deciding it would be a good idea to kayak out to the island just offshore for a snorkel. Whilst Robert stayed on the beach enjoying his kindle, Charlie (professional paddler) led the trio of kayaks across to the quiet island where we dragged the boats ashore and unloaded our towels, sunglasses and other belongings. All kitted up, we swam around the corner where the first coral appeared and had a short snorkel spotting various marine life including a scorpionfish, a great barracuda that stared daggers at Laura and thousands of sparkly silver fish that surrounded us. As we swam back to shore, with Kate remembering that she had read the 2004 Tsunami had obliterated the reef here and that snorkelling wasn't particularly great, we suddenly heard Heather shouting behind us. A large clan of evil macaque monkeys were eyeing up Ian and Heathers kayak and belongings, and seemed particularly interested in Heathers sunglasses. With Ian running to the rescue and shooing the creatures away, we slowly crept closer to watch the hilarious characters sifting through the rubbish on the beach with our favourite being  a little monkey that couldn't take the lid off a bottled drink so bit a hole in the bottom and sucked the remains out! The rest of the afternoon was spent sunbathing, reading magazines (luxury) and going for a walk along the beach. In the evening we all went on a rather hot and sticky nature walk with Wendy, a very excitable naturalist, who knew the answer to any question you had about the wildlife here like the back of her hand. In search of colugos we didn't manage to spot any and Wendy's highlight seemed to be the woodpeckers that flew overhead, causing her to hyperventilate with excitement. She also particularly loved spiders, showing us a tarantulas nest with a mother hiding inside and several tiny baby tarantulas, not too far from Kate and Roberts villa! For dinner we had a light meal in the lobby next to the oversized frog pond dotted with fuchsia pink lilies whilst listening to a fascinating duo "singing" in the background.    

On our final day we had arranged to go on a mangroves tours and after yet another champagne breakfast we spotted about ten of the dusky leaf monkeys sitting in a line along the railings surrounding the pool. We watched them as they groomed each other before jumping off, running across the patio to a clump of trees, climbing the first tree and jumping right in front of Robert (who was upstairs in reception looking over the balcony) from one tree to the next. We met in reception and were driven down to the Andaman hotel to meet Wendy. After no success with colugos the night before, she led us through the Andaman grounds where she had spotted a colugo earlier resting in one of their favourite spots. A few photographs later of the fascinating gliding mammal, we walked further along the path and spotted a kingfisher and a great view of a giant squirrel. On our way back to the car, an extremely excited Wendy whispered as loud as she would let herself that the colugo had a baby and that it was poking its head out! After gazing at the adorable yet bizzare, piglet-looking animal we were melting and had been attacked by mosquitoes so headed back to the welcoming air-con of the car. 

After a short car journey we were greeted by our boat driver and as he navigated through the maze of mangrove trees, submerged underwater due to the high tide, Wendy educated us on the life-cycle of the mangroves. We then drove further inland where we passed another boat feeding the local white-bellied sea eagles and brahminy kites. There must have been fifteen of the beautifully gracious birds of prey, swooping down to catch the chicken fat that tourists were throwing out and, despite us all disapproving of feeding the wild birds, Charlie managed to get some great shots and it was lovely such amazing views of them. Further along the journey, after passing some naughty macaques, the boat driven turned off the engine and we floated up next to an angry-looking mangrove pit viper who had been curled up in the same tree for a couple of days digesting his most recent meal. After getting more fantastic photos and frighteningly close to the poisonous reptile which has a striking distance on 1m, we carried on towards the mangroves fish farm. As it started to rain we spotted three giant otters playing on a floating pontoon and watched the sleek acrobatic creatures until the rain became so heavily that they slipped into the water. Once at the fish farm we watched them feed the giant trevally, with their dorsal fins slicing through the waters surface, and then hand fed the gentle giant stingray which Heather seemed to be particularly fond of! Moving on from the fish rain once the torrential rain eventually subsided, our last stop was visiting a bat cave where 1000 bats were resting. Having been told to keep our mouths shut when we look up, we eventually made it out of the cave and back into the light, spotting the tiniest macaque babies. One even stuck his tongue out at us! 

We had a late lunch back at the beach club, where we spotted a troop of the dusky leaf monkeys who look as they have had clown make-up applied to their comical yet sweet faces. One even had a tiny baby, bright orange in colour meaning that he was less than one month old, clinging to the mothers tummy as she lept from branch to branch. The afternoon was spent packing, relaxing in the villa and sorting out what to give our parents to take back to England. Our final dinner was at "The Dinign Room" where, for the third time that week, we both had gravlax three ways and steak, followed by a mouth-watering chocolate fondant. After seeing neither flying colugos or flying squirrels during the whole week, both species surprised us with a acrobatic after-dinner show in the trees with a flying squirrel chasing a colugo which made an unbelievably long and fast glide right above our heads into the distance. A few flying squirrels then spent a while glide from different spots in the trees, feasting on the figs. With Laura's parents refusing to get up early to wave us off (thanks!) she said goodbye to them after dinner, but not before Kate, Charlie and Laura wandered through to jungle to have a last look at the tarantulas nest to see whether the monster had come out of the hole. With several mini-tarantulas surrounding the nest, we decided the mother must have gone hunting until Charlie said "oh WOW" and spotted her on the other side of the tree. Relieved that this nest was nowhere near our room, but worried about how many there were surrounding us, we headed back to a final nights sleep in the comfiest bed in the world! 

With our alarm set very early, we finished packing the following morning and said goodbye to Heather and Ian who weren't leaving until later that evening. Saying a sad farewell to an incredible week at the magical Datai, we were driven to the airport where we waited for our flight to Singapore. 

Koh Tao Diving Part 2!!

After a long and hideous journey, we finally arrived back on the welcoming Koh Tao, where we headed to our accommodation for the night and were "upgraded" to a beach front villa. We walked straight up to Roctopus where we booked places on the Sunday Sail Rock trip, and ended up listening to the stories about the numerous whale shark sitings all the dive schools on the island had been having over the past week. We were persuaded by Sammy to get straight back into the water and head out to Chumpon Pinnacle, the whale sharks favourite, the very next morning! The evening was spent catching up with the dive school staff and other divers we had met previously on the island, none of whom were surprised that we couldn't stay away from the addictive Koh Tao! 

Waking up early to the sound of waves crashing on the beach, we checked out of our room, lugged our backpacks up to the dive school and left them in the office whilst we packed our kit in the familiar blue bags, ready for our first dive back on the island. After the taxi ride down to the pier, we clambered over five or six boats, finally reaching the Roctopus dive boat where we set up our equipment and lay in the sun for the 40 minute ride to the pinnacle out at sea. After twenty minutes, we noticed that the dive site seemed to be unusually busy and P-man (the skipper) started making the whale shark signal, informing us that there was in fact a whale shark there! Immediately butterflies filled our stomachs and the last twenty minutes of the journey seemed like an age as we prayed the whale shark would stick around. We geared up and performed our buddy checks as we approached the dive site. Shep, our dive master said that we wouldn't wait for the captain to moor the boat and we would just hop in as we cruised over the pinnacle. It was time and we all jumped in, cleared our masks, and deflated our BCs as we descended down equalising to make sure we had no problems with our ears. We all noticed a wall of bubbles the other side of the pinnacle and Shep led us in that direction. As we got closer to the wall of bubbles, that looked like an upside down waterfall, it appeared, around four and a half to five metres long, the blue-ish grey giant, splattered with a striking mosaic of white spots and lines unique to each and every whale shark. It cruised passed the flapping divers trying to keep up with it with a single majestic sweep of its tail, the excitement on Laura's face, in fact everyones faces, was priceless. We spent a good twenty minutes with the shark as it circled the pinnacle before it cruised into the blue beyond our reach so we carried on navigating the dive site and as we were reaching the end of our dive time it appeared again over our heads creating a stunning silhouette above us. It got to the point where we had to say goodbye to the shark and ascend back to the surface. 

However, during our surface interval, we spent about 40 minutes snorkelling above the whale shark, taking as many photos and videos as we could, who remained near the surface the entire time, even coming up to 1m below the surface right next to the boat so everyone, including the skipper, got a great view! We quickly geared up for our second dive with the shark, jumped off the boat and descended, quicker than ever before. Watching people trying to rush underwater is a pretty funny sight! One of the great perks of diving with Roctopus is that they leave about an hour after all the other dive schools, meaning that dive sites are quieter when we get there. By this point, everyone at Chumpon had finished there second dive and were leaving, allowing us to dive with the shark alone! Rather than having 30-40 divers crowding around the stunning, spotted animal, the five of us spent about fifteen minutes swimming along with the shark all to ourselves, getting some great photos and having as close a look as we could. Mikey, the videographer filming the open water students, said that his footage from our two dives that day was the best footage of whale sharks that his company had and that we were so incredibly lucky to spend so much time with the shark. All together, we spent well over an hour either swimming with or above the shark. As we clambered back onto the Roctopus boat, exhausted both emotionally and physically, we couldn't speak to each other for a good few minutes. Almost in shock, we enjoyed the boat journey back relaxing in the sun and talking at a speed we didn't even no was possible, about the morning. For both of us, it was the most exciting, memorable and special time of our trip. 

On arriving back at Roctopus and cleaning our gear, we were met by a lady who worked at Suksamran Villas, where we had previously stayed and were moving back to for the next two weeks. Having been told the night before that their standard air-con rooms were all full, they rang back to inform us that we could stay in there "very beautiful villa" for 1000 baht a night (the same price as their standard room). We were shown to the "room", which turned out to be the top floor of a huge villa and consisted of a king size bedroom, a stunning and CLEAN bathroom, a huge living area with a plasma tv, sky tv, dvd player and a kitchenette. Already on such a high after the whale shark, we didn't think our day could get any better….but it did! We also later found out that usually this villa cost 4500 baht a night! We spent the rest of the afternoon having lunch at Mint Kitchen and looking through the photos and videos. So excited to tell her parents, Laura rang them back in England forgetting the time difference and woke them up VERY early on a Sunday morning, putting them into a panic that something was wrong (sorry!). We then chilled back in our luxury villa, periodically pinching ourselves to check it wasn't a dream, before heading to Banyan Bar where we watched Mikey's film he made earlier that day and had a few catch up drinks with some Roctopus staff before heading out for dinner.

That Sunday was finally time for the long-awaited Sail Rock trip, a full day trip out to a pinnacle in the middle of the sea between Koh Tao and Koh Phangan where we had two dives. After a long boat journey we finally reached the pinnacle and had two fantastic dives, one exploring the "secret" pinnacle. We were astounded by both the number of fish in the gigantic schools that dwarfed those we have seen at Chumpon Pinnacle and the size of the fish, in particular the giant grouper. One of our favourite moments was when a huge school of hundreds of batfish swam straight past us in the deep blue. It was also great to see smaller things such as varicose wart slugs, indian cushion seastars and tiger cowries. In our surface interval break we enjoyed spicy penang curries for lunch, provided by the delicious Mint Kitchen whilst sitting in the sun. After two memorable deep dives, we headed back to the island for a relaxing evening.

The following day we had a day off diving, enjoying a lie in in the incredibly comfortable bed before heading down to the beach to sunbathe and chill in the warm water. In the evening we enjoyed a delicious pizza at the islands best italian restaurant and headed back to watch a film on our huge television. We decided that the chilled thai lifestyle definitely suits us both!

Back to diving, and we had another early start at Roctopus. We jumped on the boat with our gear and set off towards Chumpon Pinnacle again with our dive master Shep, a friend called Wes (who was with us on our whale shark dives) and open water students, including videographer Mikey again. Again, Chumpon seemed unusually busy and when we got into the water we realised that there was a whale shark circling the pinnacle again! This time we spent the first fifteen minutes with several other divers following the shark who seemed to be slightly more stressed than the one a few days before. People crowded around the shark, with some careless people even stroking it before being told off and put to shame by numerous other divers. We then went for a swim round the pinnacle spotting mackerel, batfish, hunting queenfish and rainbow runners.

The next four days were spent eating a lot of pot noodle and doing nothing but chilling in the villa and at the beach as we forced ourselves to spend as little money as possible and we decided we would spread our dives out over the two weeks that we had on Koh Tao. We also discovered the great restaurant called Pud, where we enjoyed a delicious meal costing less than one pound! 

The following two days consisted of more diving at sites such as Chumpon Pinnacle, Green Rock, South West Pinnacle and Shark Island. On the dives we were lucky to spot a yellow boxfish, porcupine pufferfish, lined butterfly fish, an enormous rhizostome jellyfish and a blue-spotted stingray which we hadn't seen in a while. One evening we managed to pursued each other to go on our first night dive. Rather than heading to White Rock, where most night dives took place, we stopped at Pottery due to the huge and unusual swell that was rocking the boat like a see-saw. We were handed the tiny torches (definitely not the flashlights that we were expecting) and were briefed on how to dive in the dark. We entered the water before it was completely dark, allowing our eyes to adjust underwater as darkness fell. We didn't see as much on the night dive, probably as during most of the dive we had to concentrate on not being thrown against the sea urchin-covered rocks, but we did spot a sleeping porcupine pufferfish, a blue spotted stingray with his eyes reflecting against the light, the largest hermit crab we have both ever seen, a scorpionfish, an eel and a baby octopus. Had there been no swell, we would have enjoyed this dive more as it daunting enough doing our first night dive and swimming against the huge swell was quite a struggle. However, we are proud that we did our first night dive which we would never have dreamed of doing before we started diving and look forward to the next.

On another of our days off diving, we decided to rent mopeds and ride to the south of the island with Wes (whom we had been diving with) and his wife Rachel. On arriving at Shark Bay, we were parking the mopeds when we heard the revving of a bike and turned around to see a young topless american guy who had crashed his rental bike into the wet cement of the road that some locals had just finished laying. Whilst the locals stood in shock with their mouths open, he scrambled out with his hands and feet covered in wet cement and started shouting "help! what do i do?!" to his friends and others that were staring at him, including us! With his friends just rolling their eyes and ignoring him, Rachel told him to pick his bike up and wash the cement off before it set. He rudely shouted "i need some water" to some locals as he pushed the bike back to his friends who were winding him up telling him it would cost at least 60,000 baht to fix to which he screamed "60,000 BAHT?! I don't even have that kind of money?!".  With Wes crying tears of laughter he put on his sunglasses and walked away, as we tried to stop ourselves from cracking up. Some of the locals starting bringing a couple of small buckets of water out for the workmen who needed to relay the cement, but were stopped in their paths by the american who snatched the buckets, poured the water over the bike and shouted back at them "I'm gonna need more water than that!". After five minutes of Rachel helping him rinse cement off the bike, and of us laughing at him along with his unhelpful friends who said that this might finally make him a man, we persuaded Rachel to stop. The boy never thanked her for the help and the four of us spent the walk down to the bay crying with laughter at what an amusing plonker the guy had been. When we got to the water we swam out into the middle of the bay where we spent about an hour snorkelling in search of the black tip reef sharks that are known to inhabit the waters. Towards the start of our snorkel Laura spotted the silhouette of a shark in the distance, but it quickly swam away. Eventually we decided to stop kicking and float on the surface as sharks are known to be nervous and afraid of humans, and within a few minutes a 1.5m long black tip curiously swam right up to us, had a long look at us and and with a few flicks of its tail he was gone. After riding back to our villa where we quickly showered and changed, we headed to Su Chilli with Wes and Rachel for a delicious meal. 

After yet another dive at our favourite Chumpon Pinnacle, we travelled back towards White Rock where we were to do our second dive at the wreck of HTMS Sattakut. We descended down the buoy line, hoping for good visibility which is very hit and miss at this site. We were thoroughly pleased to be greeted with great visibility allowing us to have a long swim around the wreck peeking through the port holes into the wreck which was full to the brim with fish. Once we had swam round the ship, we swam over the top, where we got some great photos of Charlie next to the guns! We then had a short swim around Hin Wee Pinnacle, next to the wreck where we saw all the usual suspects. We had a quiet afternoon before meeting up with Wes and Rachel at Fizz to watch the sunset with cocktails and a nice dinner before they headed back to England the following day. 

On our last dive at Chumpon, we had our fingers crossed for one last glimpse of a whale shark but saw only the usual fish and creatures that lived on the pinnacle. We then headed back to the shallow waters of White Rock, where we jumped in the water and straight away followed all the divers who were crowding around….a whale shark! Unusual to find a whale shark at this dive site so shallow and close to land, we were completely surprised and had completely lost all hope of seeing another one before we left Koh Tao. We managed to swim with it for a few minutes before it raced off into the deep blue, clearly on a mission. Three is the magic number! That evening we headed back to Fizz for cocktails and the sunset where we randomly bumped into Charlie's friend's girlfriend on the way and then Charlie's friend Simon at the bar! After a drink with Simon, we headed back to Nong for one of their scrummy pizzas for dinner.

For our final day Will, one of the owners of Roctopus had organised a special trip with a second boat taking eight of us to Laem Tien, a dive site on the other side of the island, in the afternoon for two dives and another delicious Mint Kitchen curry for lunch. Our first dive was off the beach of a previously deserted resort, an unofficial dive site, where four of us went off spotting a couple of harlequin sweetlips, several aggressive titan triggerfish, lined butterflyfish, orange-spined unicorn fish and copper band butterflyfish to name a few. Having spotted several new species of fish, our second dive was more of an obstacle course with less fish than the previous. We spotted our favourite nudibranch Jorunna funebris as well as both blue-ringed and six-banded angelfish and had great fun finding and navigating through three tricky swimthroughs. Sad to have finished diving on Koh Tao (for now) we arrived back on the island after a lovely, glowing sunset cruise. That evening we had farewell drinks with Will and Shep at Banyan before our final dinner at our favourite restaurant.

The final morning was spent packing our stuff before heading to the Mint Kitchen for our last pad thai in Thailand and to say a final thank you and goodbye to Roctopus. After bumping into one of the DMTs, we were told that the night boat south that we were supposed to be getting had been cancelled. We headed straight to the tourist shop where we got our ticket to ask how we could make it to Langkawi for the following day if the night boat was cancelled. We were told there was no way, and that our only solution was to get the night boat back to Chumpon, and then a bus down to Satun where we were to get the ferry to Langkawi. However, we would arrive an hour after the last ferry had left for Langkawi and would have to spend the night in Satun (not the most desirable place). This also put a spanner in the works as we had arranged with Robert (Laura's Dad) that we were going to surprise Kate (Laura's Mum) by showing up at the hotel 24 hours before she expected, and he had also arranged transport from the ferry and booked a hotel room! So, annoyed we had to spend a night in the dreary Satun and desperate to get to Langkawi, we informed Robert who luckily managed to cancel the room. Later that evening we headed down to the harbour and had a good few hours sleep on the surprisingly comfortable bunk beds on the air-conditioned night ferry. 

On arriving at Chumpon, we were excited to find that the bus to Satun left three hours before planned, raising our hopes that we might in fact be able to make the ferry to Langkawi. For a second time in 24 hours we told Robert that there was a chance we may actually make it to the hotel that evening but we wouldn't know for sure until we made it all the way to Satun and managed to buy ferry tickets. Our bus went via Krabi where we dropped passengers off at various locations before we were dumped at a random tourist shop. By this time it was 11.30am and we were informed that they forgot to book us a place on the bus to Satun that was now full and that we would have to stay there overnight. After a long conversation and several phone calls later, the couple at the tourist shop arranged to borrow their friends car and drive us all the way south to Satun themselves (for more money but well worth it). We made the ferry with half an hour to spare, went through border control on Langkawi (Malaysia) and after a 45 minute drive to the hotel we pulled up with butterflies of excitement in our stomachs to the Datai, Langkawi.