I am the whitest person on this island

Today is both mine and Ian's last day in Ko Samui: I'm getting the ferry to Ko Tao tomorrow to take a PADI diving course, and Ian is flying back to Delhi. I won't be able to hide from the reality of what I'm doing without the company of someone I've known forever and the shelter of a 5 star resort hotel, but in lots of ways I'm really excited about going it alone. After Ko Tao I might go to the beaches on the Andaman side, or I might make my way up to Bangkok if I'm all beached out, which to be honest is quite likely.

Ko Samui is really really quiet - everyone is saying how unusually empty all the resorts are and we feel like we're the only people in our resort. I didn't think what happened at Bangkok airport last year would have had an effect on people's holiday choices, but coupled with le famous credit crunch, it obviously has. I don't know whether backpacker type places will be similarly empty...

In the five days we've been here, we've done a lot of messing about in the pool and general loafing, with the exception of Thursday, when we hired a motorbike for the day and went all round the island. We had initially planned to hire a bike each, but I tried riding one round the car park and completely freaked out after 30 seconds, so I rode on the back of Ian's for the day. We ended up going right to the top of one of the mountains inland as there was a zipline thing through the trees. Unfortunately for the stupid unresearched tourists that we are, we took the dirt road route up instead of the nice, safe concrete one. Whole sections of the 'road' were potholes, and our little bike couldn't make it up the steep hills with both of us on so I kept having to get off and walk. At one point we lost control of the bike and it went careering across the road, thankfully without us on it. Two German blokes with proper bikes that had helmets and everything were coming the other way, and gave us a strict German style lecture about the importance of wearing helmets and not driving fast, then said that the road got lots worse and we'd never make it to the top. We kept going anyway, as we were more scared of going back down than carrying on, and did eventually make it to the zipline place. There were 10 ziplines in the trees that we were taken through by a lovely Thai lass, and it was actually worth risking death for: the views were amazing, and I really loved being so high up in the trees. We made it back down on the normal road, then went on a tour of the whole island on the road that rings around it, taking in lots of stunning views out to sea and the Big Buddha statue on the north side. We each had rather smug 'we are still alive, we rock' style massages when we got back to tourist central in Chaweng, and I made a mental note never to go up a mountain on a motorbike ever again.

Ian and I have both taken hundreds of photos of all of the above, and mine will be duly Facebooked and/or Flickred once I get round to it. I'm a little reluctant to upload lots of them, though, as the one thing that stands out in the photos is how incredibly white I am compared to absolutely everyone else here. I've met ginger haired Irish people here that are more tanned than me, and I haven't changed colour at all since arriving despite a fair bit of sunbathing. Curse that Scottish and Irish heritage.

Andrea, I pure loved your comment. I think we drove through where you lived, but I hadn't seen your comment so I didn't spot your school or above noodle shop house. Ko Samui is so incredibly beautiful once you get even the tiniest bit away from the built up bits; I can understand why you liked living here. That restaurant sounds amazing - we are debating hiring another bike and going there tonight but the tropical rain that is currently falling may limit how far we can go...

Thailand - land of opulent resort hotels

Hi. This is to be the first of probably millions of blog posts while I'm on my travels, but as I don't really feel like I'm actually travelling yet, it seems a little strange to be writing, but hey, I'll give it a go. I should do some sort of travel blog beginning: 1 girl, 1 backpack, 10 months, too many countries and a hundred flights etc etc, but it all feels wrong when I'm staying somewhere this flash.

I'm in Ko Samui with Ian, staying in a quite frankly stupidly expensive and opulent resort. Ian gets it free with all those air miles, and it is beautiful: we have a private villa with our own pool, the resort has a private beach, the pool gives onto to the beach, the staff are far too subservient and all you can hear is crickets (and easy listening versions of Leona Lewis songs from the pool bar). To be perfectly honest, I'm having an amazing time! But I am trying to remember that I probably won't be able to stay anywhere like this ever again in my life, especially not in the next 10 months.

So far I really love Thailand: it's so easy to move around, nothing is a problem, the people are all smiley and the food is ace. The only thing that jars slightly is the amount of sex tourism that we've seen in Ko Samui - it's all old fat European men with beautiful young Thai girls, and it feels bit wrong. I'd been told that it would be like this, though, and I probably won't be in big resorts like this from now on, so it's ok to see it in a voyeuristic sort of way.

It's quite late now and we just got back from a night out in Chaweng, which is the biggest and most touristy beach resort. We've had a really cool night out sat at a bar on the beach drinking cocktails and watching people set Thai lanterns alight, surrounded by obligatory old white man/young thai girl couples. It was all a bit like the bit in 'The Beach' where they have to go to the big resort to get food.

I should probably write about how great my flight was (watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona on the plane), how much I loved Bangkok airport and lots of other stuff, but it's late, and I feel like I need to get back into the habit of writing this thing before I start to write long rambling posts...