Day 19 of the big adventure, according to Lauren. 
 

We awoke in our little bungalow to the cock-a-doodle-doo-ing of a couple of cockerels doing their morning rounds. The ants from the previous evening had infested our toothbrushes, so we wanted to go to a supermarket to buy some new ones asap. This was a 20 minute drive away in the main town so we thought we may as well make a day of it and head to the beach up that way too. Realising we’d need to book another night in the bungalow, we asked at reception but they were fully booked. Check out was 11 and it was now 10.30. Oops. So we hurried back to the room to pack up and book a room somewhere else for the night. Luckily we found a nice looking place just 10 minutes from our current bungalow and booked ourselves in for 2 nights. Phew! We left our bags at reception and got in a taxi to the town. After a bit of shopping for essentials we were both ready for some brunch. Sarah found a place that had good reviews on foursquare so we headed there and found that it was mostly just coffee and a tiny good menu of about 5 items, none of which really took our fancy. On to the next place. This one had more to offer, and with Craig David’s album playing out the speakers we couldn’t resist. Sarah ordered boiled eggs, standard, and I ordered a set breakfast with scrambled eggs, toast, some very suspicious sausages (tiny frankfurters), ham, bacon and of course the mandatory tea. Sarah’s eggs came out hard boiled much to her disappointment, but the toast was delicious so this redeemed it. Super yum all round.

We headed for the beach, stopping for a watermelon smoothie on the way, and stumbled upon a private resort with some free sun loungers so pitched ourselves there. The facilities were labelled ‘hotel guests only’ but we were feeling confident and went for the ‘act like you’re staying here and no one will question you’ approach. Worked like a charm. They had great toilets and a lovely cold waterfall shower to cool us when we got too hot. The beach was not the best we’ve been to but it was quiet and basically deserted which is always a big plus.

  

We sat in the sea to cool off but when a jellyfish rocked up, decided it was time to tan. A few hours and cold showers later we decided another dip in the sea was necessary and this time walked over to a little island of sand with water either side. It had teeny tiny (like 2mm) balls of sand all over it and when we laid down to tan we could see all the baby crabs rolling up new balls to protect each of their little homes in the sand.

It was home time so we gathered our things and headed back to the supermarket to refill our snack pack (bag of snacks we keep for when we get peckish or to have on long journeys – absolutely essential). We needed some way of getting back to our hotel and there was a bright pink tuk tuk waiting outside the supermarket so we thought why not? Seeing as we had yet to use one in Thailand and we weren’t really in any rush. We hopped in and held on for a very slow and bumpy ride. Still, it was good fun.

  

We collected our laundry and our bags from the hotel and then jumped in a taxi (a real car – couldn’t handle any more tuk tuk bouncing) to our next hostel, Peace Lanta Mansion. As we pulled up we were greeted by the super friendly hostel owner with a big smile on his face, looking very excited that we were coming to stay with him.

  

We gave him our details as he told us how great his wifi is and how most of his staff were English too. Fab. He showed us to our room which was perfect; clean, ensuite, air conditionined. Tick tick tick. We had a quick shower (clean water, yay!) and headed out to find some dinner. The hostel owner pointed us in the direction of his family’s restaurant just over the cattle field so we thought we’d give it a try. We sat down in our own little bamboo hut and ordered the chicken satay, vegetable Penang curry and rice, and tucked in. No way near as delicious as the amazing one in Phi Phi but still very yummy and super cheap. Just what we needed.

  

After dinner we went back to be greeted by two English backpackers who were doing a work-away at the hostel (they basically have to make friends with guests and give them advice etc in return for free accommodation). They were really friendly and invited us to play the hostel owner’s favourite game with them – DipBo. It was basically an uno like kids game but good to make some new friends and discuss each other’s travel plans. We had just about picked up the game and then had to excuse ourselves for a Skype date with Parker and Freya to discuss our plans with them when they came to meet us. It was so lovely to see some friendly faces and make exciting plans together. We realised that we had lots of our own planning to do but couldn’t face it in our sleepy state, so set the task for tomorrow and got our heads down.