As suspected, Lipe was rather gorgeous. Really small, no roads but
best of all were the beaches. The picture is of our nearest, Sunlight
Beach which was beautiful in the afternoon, just like a postcard.

However we spent yesterday on the best beach in the world, Sunset
Beach. It was tucked into a cove with a gorgeous stretch of sand & the
clearest sea we’ve ever seen. Hence we got down there at around 10am
and snorkeled for an hour and saw an amazing range of tropical fish
straight off the beach. Including a very cute family of Clown fish
(Nemo fish) hiding in some coral.

We then had breakfast in a bakery in a shady grove and headed back for
more snorkeling in the afternoon. We can’t figure out why there were
no more than 10 other people on the beach!!

We’re now on Langkawi in Malaysia. Just checked into Zackry’s
Guesthouse which seems to be the friendliest place in the world &
planning our next move.

After our speedboat and ferry trip from Koh Lanta yesterday using
TigerLine ferries we made it onto Koh Lipe. Lipe is so small (just 1km
across) that to get from the ferry we had to jump into a longtail boat
to then wade from that onto the beach.

We then took a short stroll to our final Thailand resting place at
Pooh’s which amazingly has wifi! Not bad for an island which gets
it’s power from solar panels and generators.

This morning we took a morning dip in the sea to have a quick
snorkel. The water is just like in the postcards as I’m sure you’ll
see from the next few days’ pictures. We will try to put us in more
photos but you may not be able to tell it’s us as it’s so bright here
the camera just makes us a silhouette.

I’m afraid this wasn’t specially commissioned for you but bizzarely
ideally located outside Mooks, our favourite bar.

Hope you have a lovely day in London with Da(vi)d, Megan, Tim and the
bump!

David will be pleased to hear we checked out the Premiership table in
Thai today. Was quite funny to be discussing Hull City with a Thai bar
man, though predictably he was much keener to discuss Man U’s
progress…snore!

Off to our next island, Koh Lipe, tomorrow. After a 5 hour speedboat
and ferry journey that is. It’s supposed to be paradise as we’ve seen
from the prices so we’re only staying a couple of days before Malaysia.

After a lovely sunny day on the beach yesterday, at about 3.30 the
heavens opened & we were treated to about 3 hours worth of serious
storm. One fork of lightning touched down on the beach, about 50 feet
from us in our bungalow, followed by the loudest clap of thunder we
have ever heard! The rain, as you can see from the photo, flooded most
of the ground around the bungalows to a couple of inches. It was
marvellous but luckily dried up for long enough for us to eat tea.

Today has been nice again, allowing us to walk the length of the beach
& have a bit of a frolick in the sea. Fingers crossed for another
storm tonight!