within our budget and we weren’t doing very well due to the cost of everything. It seemed a lot more expensive than India and yet everyone we’d spoken to about Thailand raved about how cheap it was - something wasn’t quite right!

We got to the pier and set sail around 12.30. We arrived at Koh Yao Noi an hour later after a very pleasant boat ride, if a little choppy in places - ah the joys of monsoon! Noah had advised us to head for Sabai Corner, a guest house run by an Italian lady. Wow what a place! Due to our continued overspend we had to take the cheaper bungalow much to Rob’s annoyance! The best bungalow was right next to the sea in a secluded little corner with an amazing view but it was looking like there was no chance of a decent sunset so we both decided to go for the one further up the hill at 400 instead of 600 baht! We went down to get a drink and met the resident ‘sort it

out man’ Colin, an ex-Northern Souler from Bury. What a top guy, he was really sound and even better he’d just made a load of cheese and veg pies and veg chilli - and in his words ‘just like Mum used to make‘!!! It rained for the rest of the afternoon and later on we sampled Colin’s culinary delights. Wow how nice was it have cheese ‘n’ veg pie with onion gravy and chips and another plate of veg chilli whilst sat there listening to the pouring rain and a distant Northern voice - we knew we were gonna like this place!!!

We had decided to hire a sea kayak and take to the waters if the weather improved and sure enough the next day was bright enough. We hired one from just around the corner and I was assured by Rob that he wouldn’t try anything silly and try and tip me in the water!!! We did have life-jackets and it was a strange sort of kayak, you didn’t really sit in it more on