Needless to say, not for the Chinese "waving a palm frond about and a chorus or two of little donkey " Oh no, we have the full on, spikes through the face and 18 hours of the loudest firecrackers I've ever heard.

If we wait 4 days in Trang it seems the prices in the islands drop 25% on May 1st. It also gives us time to stock up on vital supplies such as gin and Jack Daniels for Kim and a bible for me.

Unbeknownst to us it also allows time for us to have to take a long tail boat ride into the teeth of the same f*cking cyclone that has torn the roof off of the resort we wanted to revisit.

There's one other passenger on our "sturdy vessel" As we heave through the waves, our steersman is alternately chain smoking over the engine, drinking Singha beers and eating monkey nuts as we roar along.

The passenger says;

"They're gipsy folk"

This is meant as encouraging words little knowing that for Brits it conjures up visions of being robbed at knifepoint while their kids sh*t on your lawn.

Actually it means here that they are the dogs pods at boatcraft and we need have no fear.

Sure enough, while gargling beer, smoking and eating nuts he steers the boat with his feet and we are deposited over the side, into the knee deep surf of Koh Ngai.

Six days and counting since we last wore shoes. It's the end of the season such as it is on Koh Ngai and everyone has left this resort except us. Pretty much every other resort is also shutting up shop. we have a couple of dream days when we're the only guests here. Any staff that are left become torpid in the heat, seeking shelter from the sun. Kim and I frolic about in the coral like a couple of kids.

So food options have shut up fast. a 20 minute walk along the beach gets us to a sea gypsy run establishment where they barbeque the days catch on the beach. Huge prawns can be had for next to nothing along with ice cold Singha beers. We plonk ourselves just above the surf line and watch these folk run nets along the beach for a haul of "long nose fish" I doubt that's what they were called on the blue planet but you're not paying Attenborough prices....right?

The coral is home to a bewildering variety of fish and sea life pretty much all of which are staples of the local diet. At night the locals scour the nooks and crannies of the reef above the tide line and catch buckets of sea cucumber. About the closest thing to a giant slug you can imagine.

Hanging above these curtains of muliti coloured creaturesis just such an amazing experience, were it not for the fact that the sun had burnt all the skin of our backs we'd never have come back in.

When Kim and I first tried kayaking in Vietnam we crashed it in 3 minutes flat...... managing to get stuck between the hull of a vietnamese junk and its anchor chain. By virtue of the fact that there is absolutely no bugger here let alone any boats we take a kayak out a patrol the beautiful reef. Sorry, but we didn't turn it over, sink it or otherwise prang the craft.....Lovely!

The staff are lovely and given were the only customers we do not want for attention.

Our favourites are Nut, approximately 3'6" tall. She would "Wuv come ingwaand". Pour me another Pernod like that and I may be able to arrange it.

Fang is of a similar height but round as abutter ball turkey, her onlky english words in which she is confident are Chit-en....and Beet. (Chicken or Beef) Any other attempt at engaging Fang in conversation result in helpless embarrased laughter and a speedy retreat to the kitchen.

Finaly there's the delightful Kitty. Doubtless you picture a Thai temptress dressed in a pink catsuit me La you wong taam" etc etc Kitty is about fifteen, I'd guess she's close to six foot with a build similar to a weetabix. In the pounishing heat of the Andaman night she wears a pullover she has a name tag on it with her name, and "Trainee" written in biro. She brings the bill and watches like a hawk counting under her breath as we we snap out the 20 baht notes.....Kop Cun Kaaaaaa Kitty!

And here we are 10 years later and 10 days without shoes. We feel as if we've now "done " Koh Ngai, got it out of our system. The view from our beach hut here has been our screen saver at home and work for a decade.

10 days of seclusion has felt "enough" .......again I can't believe I'm saying it and maybe you can"t? but try it.... We're waiting on the sand for the longtail to arrive and still a bit of me is asking are you crazy? as it bends into view along the beach. Our ruck sacks are passed onto the boat and we hug Alice who has been looking after us and wade through the surf to the ladder of the boat.

It's 10am and searingly hot as we crouch under the scant canopy of the boat, a couple of jabs of the engine in reverse then the boat swings round and, I think, for the very last time, Kim and I leave this beautiful place, Koh Ngai. It shrinks into the distance behind us vanishing like a dream....

Back at the jetty the longtail ties up third deep from the pier which means walking across the bow planking and jumping from one boat to the other....Scary enough. Add the fact that the planking in the midday sun is hot enough to remove skin and it's not the most pleasant experience. Walking on hot coal springs to mind, we have never walked so quick in our lives.

We're picked up by minivan to take us back to trang, a journey of an hour or so. The driver packs us, half a dozen others and all our baggage into the van, wanders up the road sits down and has a chat with a couple of people, after 10 minutes he jumps into the van. We drive 5 minutes, he stops the van, gets out, walks back to a noodle stall orders something then sits down while they cook it. He comes back to the van, puts his noodle takeaway on the drivers seat, leaving the door open, he walks across the road pops out his todger and takes a piss into some undergrowth......If the noodles give him the shits, I wouldn't like to be his next customers.

Back in Trang we need more vital supplies, my bible is worn out from use and Kim has drunk all her Gin and Jack Daniels.

It's a pretty significant schlep to "The Big C" shopping Mall particularely in 35 degree heat. We share a technique with long distance runners who, I understand, time their breathing with their steps. We need to time our breathing such that you do not breath in, particularley through the nose, when standing over one of the frequent drainage covers.. One good sniff of one of those bad boys and you're tasting it for a week.

In addition to the alcohol and salvation items we have one other "must Buy"...Mosquito after bite. After an hours search yesterday evening we managed to track down a repellant with 95% DEET.  All of the pharmacies in town are chinese who seem to believe in all kinds of weird and wonderful concoctions for everything...

To keep mosquitos away we apparently need to boil some fruit bat knob cheese for 3 weeks and spread it all over... I exaggerate to make a point but honestly we were offered a cream to repel mosquitos and snails!! I mean how do the buggers creep up on you.

The Big C is a large shopping mall based around a Watsons (Thai for Asda) It's a pretty large supermarket. As usual the pharmacy section is huge but I have never seen so much crap in my life. Thais appear fixated with being white. Products to make them appear european are everywhere, skin whiteners, hair thinners, eye straighteners, nipple levelers....Extraordinary products of a personal nature...Tubs of Muffsotite, barrels of fanny slackener, shitsosoft, turd hardener you bloody name it.....

(It has been noted by some lady readers that there is a gender bias on a number of products mentioned and i am asked whether male products of a similar nature were present. I did in fact browse nobsostraight and bundles of dick splints along with cannisters of scrotum whitener complete with handy reusable applicator mitt.

In reply to a note from a Ms S. Simpson, I did not notice if they sold a darkener, I can say that the whitener was for scrotum areas only and not for other male intimate areas particularly those you so graphically descibe. You go on to ask

"will it come off on my teeth?  nudge nudge, know what I mean"  and if "repeated coats of the product will result in a fine ebony colour".

The whitening product is water proof but i obviously can't speak for any darkening product, neither can I comment on the effect of repeated coats. I'd also point out the product comes in 15 gram canisters so "banging 10 gallons in the post" is likely to be problematic.

However, in a country where you cannot go outside without being coated in a 2 inch layer of mosquitos, each trying to probe whatever region of your body is not covered in armour, can you buy afterbite? No you bloody well cannot, we show them the bite marks and they return a stare of complete non comprehension......eventually we seem to make some one understand, she leads us to the product she recommends,................ fly paper!!

Pak Bara is the departure point for boats to Koh Lipe. A 2 hour drive through what is largely rural Thailand. Truly beautiful forest land encroaches on the road at places, small villages huddle to the road and Market stalls line it for miles. Some small operations selling barbecued corn, or chicken then about a mile of pineapple stalls, heaped with produce, next a mile of coconuts, then mangoes, then brooms! then repeat.

With this abundance and over supply it's easy to see how these communities have fallen prey to the real bully boys on the block. Micheline are here and BP and the Chinese, huge estates of Palm oil where villages used to thrive.

There's a poster here demonstrating the effect of the palm oil industry on rural communities. Try as I might I can't find a version to upload.

It takes the form of a cartoon. In the first frame a farmer works his coconut plantation. His family use the fruit for food, fuel, they weave the fibre for clothes, thread and rope, the wood and leaves for building, the shell for tools, implements and carved art.

Then he takes the surplus to market and exchanges it for fish, meat and money to educate his children, the village has a new school.

In the next frame a white guy holds out a bag with a $ sign on it and points to the plantation, our farmer scratches his head.....

The farmer works a huge oil palm plantation, he wheels palm fruit into a factory door. Out of the back door a line of white men wheelbarrow bags of money into a waiting plane.

On the way they pass through the ruins of a village, the market deserted, the school closed. A plane with white men waving out of the windows flies over a landscape consisting solely of oil palm. In the centre, a ruined farmers hut.

His family starving and in rags, the farmer looks at a handful of dollar bills and scratches his head.

In the centre, a ruined farmers hut. His family starving and in rags, the farmer looks at a handful of dollar bills and scratches his head.

Capitalism, Good for those at the top!

Koh Lipe is, or was a perfect jewel of an island. to get to it we now face the obligatory long tail transfer from the dock followed by a leap onto a speed boat then a leap, onto a floating dock followed by a leap onto a longtail (after paying 100 baht, then) then a jump into knee deep surf and finally the back of a small truck for our transfer to our accommodation. Needless to say question number 1 is where's the bar?

When last we were here there were two beaches and a single sand track between them bisected the island. Lipe has become popular, which is really understandable it is staggeringly beautiful.

Now it is crisscrossed with paths and tracks, where there were maybe a dozen resorts now there appear to be hundreds, some of them really quite big, they have ATMs, a 7-11, a paved "walking street". At first we're dismayed at the change, but after a nights rest and a good look around you can see that all that was wonderful about the place is still here if you look for it.

Our hotel proves to be a corker, lovely room with a huge balcony and stunning view across the pool and tropical garden to the sea and the limestone karsts beyond. The pool's huge, very warm and open 24-7 only rule "don't annoy anyone".

We have just 4 days here and set out to explore and remind ourselves of the place. We have but a single chore. From here we will travel to Langkawi in Malaysia by boat. This means going through Immigration and one of the hotels we've used over the last couple of months has kept Kim's departure card, without which, we (or Kim!) cannot leave the kingdom of Thailand.

"what will they do? make me stay here?"

We need to go to immigration and the local police station in order to sort this out. Doubtless you picture an officious office were professional officers of the law and government of Thailand carry out there offices.....officially etc.

Actually it's two huts on the beach, we need to go to the police station, 4 officers are eating rice at a picnic table outside and 1 sleeps soundly in a hammock strung between two palm trees. We climb the wooden steps to the police hut, inside is a desk with a copier on it and another with 4 chairs around it arranges so that two people can be subjected to good cop bad cop, the temperature gauge on the wall tells us it's 40 degrees, sweat is oozing from every ore, there is nobody here.

We ask officer dozy in his hammock who we need to see.

"Round back" he says.

Round back 4 more officers are eating rice at a picnic table.....15 minutes later we leave with the required new entry papers 100 baht poorer, wondering why an island two miles across needs so many police, and, if it does, why are they all eating rice and sleeping in hammocks.

We actually find the resort we stayed in last time, back then it was a hut camp, now it has a pool. One thing hasn't changed, it is still staffed almost entirely by gender re-assigned Thais. Most of them look like Arthur Mullard in false tits and lipstick, to a person they are truly wonderful and we enjoy a couple of beers and a disgusting meal here.

The local life savers are constantly going through their routines here being filmed from all angles. They pull "bodies" (chuckling colleagues) from the ocean using surf boards, mouth to giggling mouth is performed along with chest thumping and finally cardio shocks are administered. They go through this for 3 days, not good days to be drowning elsewhere on the island.