The land of smiles

I was going to head straight back to UK after Nam, primarily to get my van ready to tour Europe, and see friends and family after being away for seven months.
However, the flight costs were shocking, I guess because the after Christmas travellers were still moving about.  Hmm where to go?  Checking online I saw super cheap flights to Thailand, great memories there, good temps and cheap ish and after the solitude of Lam Dong I was hungry for human interaction and it didn't need to be meaningful!.  Onward travel to UK was good value too.
Feeling a little rebellious I went against all the guidebook advice and headed straight into Patong, party capital - you only live once!
I stayed in a hostel just out of the way of the centre but walkable, on the fifth floor in a shared dorm for a kingly sum of £6 a night.
Heading out down the Main Street was an assault of sounds smells and colours, wow!  I drank in the craziness and headed for the beach, head full of great memories of the last time I was in Thailand back in 2017 with my best friend Kim.
I was advised by another friend Caroline (who lives in the area) to head north up the beach to get away from the tourists a bit, I duly complied and was rewarded with a nice little cove to sit and read and swim.  A couple of hours later id managed to find and arrange a meet-up with another solo lady traveller who was based in Krabi.  Ok mission on, Krabi was a bus ride away and somewhere id never been so why not! Accepting a challenge is always fun. The next day I found myself on the old blue bus heading out of town up a huge hill, my legs stuck to the bench seat in the sticky hot weather and I was glad of my sarong to sit on. I love open bus journeys, you see so much and often strike up random conversations with other travellers and locals.
Arriving in Krabi I met up with Cass, she's half Singaporean and half Aussie - a beautiful confident lady with a fabulous personality, we hit it off straight away (plus her hostel had a swimming pool!) and ended up travelling together for the next ten days and we had a ball, we travelled to Kao Sok and stayed in the floating bungalows, went caving and saw spiders, bats, frogs and catfish, not to mention the beautiful rock formations, deep water and darkness that was all a part of it. We smoked weed and watched the sun go down on beautiful beaches, at amazing food and walked miles.  We swam in lakes, went on boats and bartered, bantered and generally spent every day winging it!
I even changed my flight so I could stay another week in Thailand. I was sad to see Cass go but I think well stay in touch.
Next stop UK brrrrr