I'm actually a little sad to recall this section of the trip....'Twas full of merry making and sun baking. Same old, same old then!
First stop was Bangkok. It was good to be back on Rambutree and The Kaosan Road...it felt familiar and comfortable the second time around. I had two nights here before heading down to Kho Pa Ngang and the lure of the Full Moon Party.
Arriving in Bangkok airport was a little worrying; I had no Thai Baht, had lost my wallet in Vietnam (!) and it was about two in the morning. Luckily for me, I sparked up conversation with a little French-Canadian hotty at the airport, and she offered to share a cab and lend me 1000 baht (£20)! Problem solved. We ended up sharing a room together that night too (not like that), which is one of the things I love most about travelling; find me a girl in London that would be willing to share a hotel room with a complete stranger after half an hour of meeting him. No, seriously...get me her number.
So, a day lounging around by the hotel pool, a day getting my teeth done at the dentist, and it was off to the Islands with Thomas Allard (he flew into Bangkok the day after me). There is an archipelago off the East coast in the gulf of Thailand comprising Koh Samui, Koh Pa Ngang, and Koh Tao. We headed there.
Koh Pa Ngang:
Full Moon night.
The first Island we visited was Koh Pa Ngang ("Koh" means "Island"). The beach where we stayed was very, very beautiful, and to reach the Full Moon Beach (Hadrin) was a 45 minute boat ride down the coast. I checked it out a couple of days before the party, and I'm very glad we didn't stay there; it smelt of stale beer and sick and looked like Benidorm (again, awesomely beautiful beach, though).
Our beach. "Something Thong" or other?
Hadrin, location of the notorious party.
So, after a few days lounging around on our beach, Tom and I headed over to the Full Moon Party. The moon was, well, full; rising out of the sea - fat and red. The party was, well, most definitely a party!: The lasers beaming around the sky from Hadrin were visible from miles away. We arrived at the party by boat at midnight, and as we zoomed round the headland into the bay we were slammed by thumping bass waves from the beach. As we got closer we could see a teeming mass of bodies filling the entire length and depth of the beach. FUN TIMES!!!...
We jumped off the boat, bought some glowy sticks and straw fedoras, then partied hard til 1400 the next day. Oh yes, randomly bumped into Holly and Lizzie (both looking distractingly gorgeous, despite the fact they're chalet was burgled three nights before and everything stolen), as well as another couple of girls I met on the boat party in Nah Trang, Vietnam. I also met Graham Gold, who is a proper nice geezer, and had some mushroom shakes (proper NOT nice).
Koh Tao:
So, after recovering for a couple of days (Tom had left to go back to Bangkok) I journeyed on my lonesome over to Koh Tao; about a two-hour hydrofoil ride through VERY rough sea. Tao is regarded as one of the cheapest and best scuba-diving locations in the world. It's a very small Island (a couple of K across and about 6 down). The weather was CRAP for my entire stay (check pics), but when you're under the sea it doesn't matter. I stayed here for a week and got my PADI Open Water certificate, so I can dive on my own now (I think). Scuba diving is absolutely fascinating; it's like being in another world and I thoroughly recommend it to everyone.
Koh Phi Phi:
After doing a few more dives off Tao, I took a hellish and woefully disorganised journey back to mainland Thailand, and over to the West Coast. Here I caught the ferry from Krabi over to Koh Phi Phi; one of the places most badly hit by the 2004 Tsunami.
There are two Islands: Phi Phi Don (the main one), and the much smaller Phi Phi Lei (where The Beach was partly filmed). Phi Phi Don is where the town is built. The town nestles on a large sand bar stretching between two towering limestone hills - both shores of the sand-bar are concave and forming two opposing bays. This is where the majority of the population live, and was completely wiped out in the Tsunami. The wave got funnelled into the westerly bay, thundered over the sand-bar and out of the easterly bay. It's since been rebuilt with much more solid structures; a shame in many ways as it spoils the natural beauty.
Both bays and the sand-bar/town. The wave came in from the West (on the right)
If I was looking this way in 2004 I'd be shitting myself.
So, here I was - munching my breakfast and coffee - when who should walk past me but Holly and Lizzie! Cue several days of fun, fishing, partying and fire-jumping. I've never fished before, but we caught some very reasonable fish! We took them to a restaurant and I offered the chef four fish if he gutted and barbecued the others for me and my mates. "It was the best fish supper they ever tasted...it was delicious!" (F.Y.I. Tenuous reference to Thomas the Tank Engine there, as well as a Mr. Scruff tune).
Really?...
Yes....
Phuket:
After Phi Phi I took the short ferry journey over to Phuket to catch my flight down to Singapore. Nothing of real interest here (unless you're a sex tourist), although I took an hour journey to the airport on the back of a motorbike with all my kit! Sketchy.
Bye bye Thailand; I'll definitely see you again. I love you to bits, although the North was my preferred region of your geography. Your inhabitants of the South treat me like a number to be shipped about in appalling conditions. Sort it out.
Hello Singapore.....
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