When kayaking through the mangroves in Koh Lanta we met two irish girls who made us question whether we were 'backpackers' at all....read on

The two girls, both nurses from Dublin, were moaning because they were spending 300 baht each per night on their accomodation and in other islands they had paid 200 baht each. I was slightly embarrased to tell them that we were paying 1100 baht each per night to stay in a luxury lodge with SKY TV, a mini bar and air con. Our resort had a pool overlooking the beach and was more like a holiday resort than a backpacker pad. These two girls were living in huts with no air con, no hot water and woke in the night to things biting them! This was also the roughest resort we had stayed in so far and we still have 5 star resorts in Kuala Lumpur to come...I certainly couldn't tell them that!