This month has been a pretty calm affair actually. No full moon chaos, no abundance of flights, no triple figure travel distances covered!

Carrying on from last month when Katja flew over I spent the bulk of this lat month living it up in some 5* luxury, taking some time out from the backpacker bubble and basically having a holiday from my holiday!

It was good to relax and spend a few days achieving absolutely nothing! I bounced from Phi Phi to Koh Lanta for a few days in the nicest accommodation I’ve ever had the opportunity to experience and then back to Phi Phi for more island goodness.

After saying goodbye to the girl as she flew home to Switzerland I met up with a travel buddy of mine from my time in Chang Mai and Pai and on a rather large whim I decided to head to Phi Phi with her to start our Dive Masters courses with Barakuda Dive Centre.

The last few weeks have therefore been full of underwater fun, chilling with leopard sharks, turtles, octopus and heaps of nemo fish! With a large dose of getting to grips with working in a busy dive shop and completing my Rescue Diver course!

Stats;

Overland Distance; 184.55kms 

Flight Distance; n/a

Total Distance; 184.55kms (wow that’s heaps less than usual!)

Main Spots; Koh Lanta, Phuket and Phi Phi

Transport Taken; Mini buses, ferries, tuk tuks, dive boats, long tails

Flights – None this month!

A Fairly Minimal Month of Travel!

Money Breakdown

Thailand – £826 over 31 days  = £26.64 per day

+ dive course expenditure for my Rescue course and equipment, an additional £403

Total spent – £1129 = £36.40 per day

Well settling down on Phi Phi certainly reduced my monthly spend, it’s been easy to do here for 500baht per day plus accommodation. However the dive course stuff has been a big outlay, but I knew that was coming and had budgeted for it.

I did end up spending slightly more than usual at the beginning of the month though treating the girl to meals and paying for her accomdation – which I thought was fair enough given the fact she flew half way around the world to come see me!

Cheapest Place – taking out the fact I’ve had alot of free accommodation this month Phi Phi was the cheapest, especially once you’ve been here for a while. Local restaurants and bars give you heaps of discounts if you work here or keep coming back!

Most Expensive Place – Phuket is still the most expensive place, third month running!haha!

Biggest Splurge/Unforeseen Expense – my dive courses. They ain’t cheap. And combined with buying equipment too it’s been a big investment. And I did shell out about £80 for my bamboo tattoo!

Highlight – Without a doubt the highlight of the last month was staying in the Cha Da Beach Resort on Koh Lanta, it’s by far the most amazing place I’ve ever stayed!

Lowlight – apart from having to say goodbye to the girl for the 4th time this year probably the weather in the last few days on Phi Phi. Monsoon season is in full flow!

Top Shot

A Sleepy Leopard Shark

Once again I’ve been super slack on the photography front (seriously I really need to get my act together and make the most of these amazing places I’m visiting!) but I’ve really enjoyed using my GoPro dive housing to get some shots during my scuba courses. This sleepy leopard shark is my favourite though!

What’s Next?

Hmmmm….this is a pretty tough question!

If you read this site alot you’ll probably be thinking – hang on I thought you knew what your plans for the rest of 2012 were?! Well my world is a little more chaos than normal and I have a pretty big habit of being indecisive and chopping and changing things around!

There’s a post later this week that will explain everything – but I can assure you it’s going to result in heaps of awesome stories to tell!