Ko Phan Gan @ Tuesday

Since we arrived on Ko Phangan until yesterday the weather has been a bit stormy. Today's the first day without rain.
The island is much more basic than Ko Samui which is well developed and pricy. This island is a collection of small resorts and two towns. Some of the resorts are backpacker level, others like Haad Salad where we stay contain more 'family hotels'. We've only briefly been to the two main towns so far - Haad Rin when we arrived and last night in Thong Sala when we had to bring Fiona to a doctor, but more about that later!

It's a really relaxing laid back place, and not expensive like Samui. Nice atmosphere in bars and restaurants in the evening, even if it's not been too busy there are people there to talk to. The "full moon party" is on Friday so now we start to see more people arrive for that as it's a big event, all-night party in Haad Rin on the opposite end of the island but accomodation fills up everywhere.

Briana loves the pool here because it has a water slide and she can also jump in from high up, so we have lots of fun there. The sea is alright but not perfect for kids because there is a lot of shells small rocks and broken coral in it to hurt the toes. We were at the next beach Mae Haad on Sunday and it seemed a bit better for swimming.

We met a nice couple Markus and Kristina from Munich who have a 4 year old daughter Anna. Fiona liked to play with her so we often ate with them. Kristina's father is Hungarian and she speaks the language, although she was born in Germany. They went off to another island today, but we expect to keep in touch as they will visit Budapest this summer.

I mentioned that we had to bring Fiona to a doctor last night. She had been coughing for a couple of days and yesterday her temperature reached 39.2 at one point in the early evening. Gyorgyi got talking to a Thai man living in Europe who said we should be careful of Dengue Fever (which rightly or wrongly he called Donkey Fever!), so we headed off the the nearest clinic at Thong Sala, a 20 minute taxi ride. They didn't gave us any major reason to be concerned, prescribing some anti-fever medicine and antibiotics for the cough (probably unnecessary), and said to bring her back today if fever persisted. She was much better this morning luckily. Now I will get to see if the medical insurance pays out! Not too expensive though.

Yesterday I finally managed to get out Scuba Diving, at a site called Sail Rock. Because of the poor weather there hadn't been too many dives operating, and the visibility wasn't great but the dive site was very good with lots of fish, some colourful and a few biggish (butterfly fish, angel fish, barracuda, a grouper maybe 80-90cm long, lots of coral).
A german guy and I shared one divemaster and we had one 55 minute dive and one 47 min dive so got decent value out of the day. Not sure I will do another dive here because it's not too cheap and visibility poor so I can wait for Bali.

Gyorgyi has been getting some training in Thai Massage from one of the operators on the beach. She even got to help them work on a real live paying customer today! Gy and I have also had a few massages there and at the same place the girls got their hair braided, nails painted, etc. Although the weather has been good even if a bit stormy, the good thing about this place is that there is a lot to do. Gy and I also went to a pilates class together on Sunday and the girls played with the 8-year old son of the teacher (who sleeps in a tree house connected with the main house by a rope bridge - talk about ever boy's dream!)

Our flight to Phuket is on Sunday and we will probably stay here until then, as there is a boat which if it goes on time will get us to the airport in Samui for the flight.

I've given up trying to run here, as the island roads are up and down like a rollercoaster and I also had my heels nipped by a couple of dogs the other day. One got his teeth onto my calf and hand but luckily it was not serious about biting me - playful, but a bit too on the aggressive side for comfort. So the fitness level is gone to hell.

Probably we planned to stay here in this location too long, although it is very nice. Getting taxis around is quite pricy compared with the north of Thailand so it would have been better to have planned to stay 2 or 3 places in the same time rather than base ourselves in one location. Live and learn. We will look at our Bali schedule and if it's worth planning it any differently based on experiences here.