Days 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114 and 115: The Birthday and Full Moon Party Edition

**** I still lack a camera, so all of these photos have been stolen from friends/internet****

Day 108:
I turned 23 on an overnight sleeper ferry crossing the Gulf of Thailand. Since the previous afternoon, a selection of ferries, minibuses and coaches had been whisking our ever-expanding group of friends from Koh Phi Phi across the Thai mainland towards Koh Tao (yet another Thai island) and the final leg involved what looked like a giant floating insane asylum. The deck of the ferry was carpeted with tiny mattresses laid side to side, forming a sort of yellow-brick-road leading not to Oz, but to an overflowing ship toilet. However, the gods of chance like birthdays and it turned out my randomly assigned mattress was in a separate cabin; a luxury which was much envied by the others on board. I was asleep before midnight. My first memory of my 23rd year? Being woken up by an elbow in the face from a sleeping Tracy (my friend in the next-door mattress).

 (my bed for the night)

At 6am we arrived and bleary-eyed stepped foot onto Koh Tao (which means the Turtle Island as it is shaped like a Turtle nose-diving into Koh Phangan below). I'd arranged to spend my time on Koh Tao scuba-diving (updating my beginner's Open Water qualification to an Advanced one) and was swiftly whisked off to the dive school.

As it was so early in the morning I wasn't able to check into my complimentary room at the dive school, so instead jumped straight into the swimming pool and completed my 'scuba review' with an instructor (a box-ticking exercise that shows I remember how to dive). I was told my course wouldn't begin until tomorrow. So it was now 9am and I wasn't due to meet my friends until 7pm. The problem: I had no means of contacting them beforehand!

So began one of the most depressing beginnings of a birthday I've ever had. I spent much of the day walking around the island hoping to bump into my friends without success. By late afternoon I was beginning to despair. I found an internet cafe and called various friends back in England to indulge in some self-pity.

Finally the allotted time arrived and I met up with everyone and immediately the day got a lot lot better. As I think I have already mentioned, large groups traveling have their own force of gravity and random people get sucked in as we pass. Consequently, as we walked to dinner our group grew and grew. Dominating the restaurant we enjoyed some quality Thai food, fruit shakes, cocktails and beers. When it came to pay I jokingly asked for a 'birthday discount' and to my surprise the owner agreed. Thus began the shameless exploitation of my birthday that would continue throughout the night.

We bar-hopped for a few hours and in each I claimed my free 'birthday drink' from the owners. Then, our inhibitions weakened by alcohol, we ended up at the Queen's Cabaret; Koh Tao's (nay, Thailand's) premier ladyboy drag show. Unlike the dirty ping-pong shows of Bangkok and Phuket, this cabaret was wholly tasteful and simply involved a group of improbably feminine looking ladyboys dressing up in a series of outrageous costumes and miming to Western music, all the while cycling their way through intensely well-choreographed dance-routines. We had the best seats in the house and when the show began the atmosphere was electric as everyone crazily sang along.

Then the host came on stage and announced that the show would end with the help of some volunteers from the audience. Twenty pairs of hands shoved me onto stage and before I knew what was happening the dancers had carried me back to the dressing-room. While I was taking in the light-bulb surrounded mirrors, the piles of make-up and strange costumes, the dancers stripped off my clothing (though I had enough sense to keep my boxers on!) and dressed me up in a bra and wig. Then I was thrust with the other volunteers from the audience back onto stage and was made to join in the final dance routine. I got into the spirit and, needless to say, was rather amazing! It turned out the host knew it was my birthday and so the show finished with me standing in the centre of the stage with a gang of drag queens serenading me with Happy Birthday. I really doubt I'll ever have so surreal a birthday experience ever again in my life!

The rest of the night was spent at the island's various beach clubs and I finally arrived back at the dive school in the very early hours (after having got mightily lost on the way home).

Day 109: 12
Anything before noon would have felt unbearably early, but my 8am wake-up was taking it too far. I was introduced to my fellow students on the Advanced scuba diving course (two guys from England and a couple from France, one of whom works for Linklaters!). It was a baking 38 degrees today and we were certainly in a rush to get into the water.



Day 110:
A 6am wake up and we begin our final two dives. The first was the Deep Dive where we plunged to 30 meters below sea level. This is so deep that the compressed air we breath in takes on narcotic qualities and many people become amusingly high. Alas I remained impervious. Our final dive was the Naturalist Dive and, armed with tables of the local fish, we swum through the coral and poked our heads under crevices trying to identify everyone we saw. Incredibly annoyingly a few of our group saw a shark, but I was too busy looking at Nemo to notice.

After finishing diving I went to pick up my clothes from a laundry I had used the previous day. Upon opening the bag however I saw that over half of my stuff was missing. I politely asked the lady to explain this. She just kept shouting 'you liar, you liar' at me and told me to get out her shop. I tried reason: "the receipt shows I gave you 3kg of clothes, but here you have given me only 1.5kg back". Her reply: "you liar, you liar". Then her husband arrived and got really aggressive and threatened to punch me unless I left the shop. I know I could have taken him in a fight (Thai people are not that large), but images of spending my night in a Thai jail and my training contract evaporating before my eyes led me to take the coward's option and leave cursing them under my breath. I know that they are only things, but when you travel alone and lack long-term human relationships, your things are all you have!

Thankfully my friends were there to cheer me up and we had an amusing night watching some trapeze artists practice (this English girl just decided that she would move to Thailand and create a trapeze school), had some dinner, played some drinking games and had a few rounds of pool.

Day 111:
A relatively short morning ferry and we had left Koh Tao for its neighbouring island of Koh Phangan; the host for the upcoming Full Moon Party. Our large group split across various hostels and bungalows as accommodation was somewhat scarce. Michel (a friend from Holland) and I spent the afternoon having a private Muay Thai boxing lesson in the island's famous Arena Gym. After two hours of constant sparring with my instructor I was sweating gallons, but felt completely and utterly alive. I may have left the rink covered in cuts and deep purple bruises and I may have been unable to walk normally for the next two days, but the combination of adrenaline and endorphins has convinced me I have to take this up when I get back home!

Michel is 27 and I'm now 23, but those 4 years make little difference. However, Michel and I were staying in a hostel where the average age was 19 and, even though separated also by a mere 4 years, I could not have felt more opposite in character from the hordes of burping, farting, cackling just-out-of-school British children that vomited their way through the corridors. We joined them for drinking games that night and were horrified at the ignorance. I'm not usually an intellectual snob (ok, I am), but I was a little taken aback when nobody in the circle of 20 could name a British Prime Minister outside of Blair, Thatcher and Cameron. You would think that a Churchill or even a Major might have made an appearance. The real shock though was when we played an alphabet based game and it turned out barely anyone there could recite it in full. "Um.. A, B, C, D, H?". What is wrong with the youth of Britain?!?!?

Thankfully Michel and I soon met up with the rest of our group and spent the evening at one of the warm up parties to the full moon on the beach.

Day 112
Becoming a little jaded with all the British gap yahs, we leaped at our friend Shan's suggestion of hiring a private taxi and exploring the island. Only minutes outside the Full Moon Party area we discovered pristine beaches, palm-tree jungle and an island population with more to occupy it than serving buckets of vodka to vomiting Westerners.

We began with snorkeling and sunbathing at a pristine beach. My afternoon nap under a palm tree listening to the waves lapping the shore is a memory I now store ready for those long nights in the office back in London!

Then we dangerously hopped on mopeds (three to a moped!!) and drove over the pot-holed, hilly roads to an animal sanctuary. There turned out to be little sacred though about the way they treated their animals though as the monkeys had their feet chained, the crocodiles were drugged to facilitate photo taking and the elephants looked very bored. Some of our group went elephant riding, but I decided to seek some shade instead. Alas the rather expensive surgical plaster on my heel (a scuba-diving injury) proved a great attraction to one of the monkeys which, before I knew it, had ripped it off (taking a square of my leg hair with it). I was too busy hopping with pain to notice just how disgusting it was when the monkey proceeded to eat my puss-covered bandage.   

 (The monkey eating my plaster)

 (the crocodiles were in love)

We then had cocktails at a restaurant on the top of one of the island's mountains which provided a perfect view of the perfect sunset.

The taxi took us to Shan's bungalow which sat on a beautiful beach about 10 minutes away from the Full Moon town. Shan is a bit of a social genius and over the course of the evening more and more of the friends he had made travelling joined us until there was barely room to move. I marvelled at how multinational we travellers are, with the room containing the usual European fare, Australians, Canadians, Israelis, Iranians and Peruvians. Reclining in hammocks with a seemingly endless supply of beers we chilled out while the barbecue burned and plate after plate of delicious food was brought out for our delight.

What next? Why, of course we headed back to the beach for the night-before-the-full-moon-party-party.

Day 113
Today was the Full Moon Party! For those who do not know, the Full Moon Party is an all-night party that takes place on 'Sunrise Beach' (Haad Rin). It has been running monthly since the 1980s and now attracts thousands of travelers. Every musical taste is catered for and the night passes in a blaze of neon body paint, buckets and fire. The anticipation and excitement on the day itself was palpable!

In preparation for the night I passed a very lazy day, mostly spent sleeping on a chilled out beach (not Haad Rin!) and shopping for neon/glowing items. A group of us then painted ourselves with glowing neon body paint and did some pre-drinking before heading to the beach around midnight. Over the next eight hours of partying we met nearly everyone we had bumped into over the last few weeks in Thailand, drank our body weight in buckets, danced without any care for what we looked like and generally had an amazing time.

Some general observations: (1) The usual social boundaries did not apply that night and everyone was everyone's friend. Complete strangers chatted, danced and shared each others drinks and no one was alone. (2) Drunk people do stupid things. All night long there were two Thai guys swinging a massive burning skipping rope. Lines of drunk Westerners took their chances and lines of drunk Westerners obviously ended up straight in casualty. My friend Tracy got second degree burns and burned an even bigger hole in her pocket with the medical bills. (3) As the sun rose at 6am the atmosphere changed and became surprisingly chilled out. Everyone made their way to the waterside and watched the sun climb over the horizon. It was a profoundly emotional moment and looking around I could see tears in people's eyes.

We stayed watching the sun's reflection in the water for about another hour before the rays got so hot that people started burning. Then I crawled home, showered off all the layers of body paint and went to sleep at 8am.


Day 114
Waking up mid-afternoon I wanted nothing more than a chilled out recovery day (one absolutely free from dancing and alcohol!). Most of the day was spent watching films in the hostel, including the Hangover II. That evening we headed back to the beach for one final look. It was weird to see the beach in its now clean and serene state. If this is not too disrespectful to say, it may be likened to the poppy fields of Flanders; one knows that great turmoil has passed there, but now all is peaceful. We had dinner on the beach, watched some fire shows and then made our goodbyes. Our merry band of friends that had been traveling together for two weeks was now no more.  

Day 115
The next morning I got a boat and then a bus to bring me into Bangkok for evening time. I met up with two of our group who had crazily left for Bangkok straight from the Full Moon Party (so a day before me) and we had a goodbye dinner. My time in Thailand was now at an end. The following day I would fly to Kathmandu in Nepal.  

NB Over this period I read Angela Carter's "Nights at the Circus" - one of the finest books ever written!

Days 103, 104, 105, 106 and 107: From the sublime to the ridiculously fun!

Day 102
I had originally planned to name this post "from the sublime to the disgusting" and my first hour in Thailand certainly backed this up. I flew into Phuket airport (Phuket is an island to the West of the Thai mainland) and grabbed a taxi which charged me about 3 times the normal price. That in itself is not a problem as it always takes a day or two to get used to a country's prices. The problem though was the driver. Half way through the trip he tried to double the price saying that I have "big money". I politely said no. He then got aggressive. I tried to calm him down. He got more aggressive. He then screeched on the brakes and chucked me out of the taxi on the middle of the motorway. Well, let's just say the red mist descended at this point. You don't mess with a Dobias already in a mood after having said goodbye to his family. I started to scream at him, then promised him I was going straight to the police. He started laughing, but soon stopped when it became clear I had memorised all his personal details written on the dashboard inside the car. His face turning white he puts my bag back in his car and drives me to Patong. In a little victory for the git though he takes me to entirely the wrong end of Patong, resulting in a good 2 kilometer walk with all my bags in the baking heat.

I arrive at the hostel absolutely soaking and in a terrible mood. The hostel owners though were absolutely lovely and before I knew it they had sat me down, taken off my T-shirt and were rubbing me with cold towels to cool me down. They then show me to my dorm which I found to my disappointment was empty. Here I was in a new country with no chance of meeting anybody, having just left the twin paradises of family and five star accommodation. Not happy!

Little did I know though how great that day would actually turn out to be. Within the hour, loads of people checked into the hostel/returned from days out, all of whom were really talkative and friendly. We all went out to dinner together (I had a Massaman Curry) and then checked out Patong's nightlife.

Now it just so happens that Patong is one of the seediest places in Thailand, itself one of the world's seediest countries and the Bangla Road (Patong's main clubbing/drinking street) is the altar to this town's temple of filth. Naturally we had to have a look. The street was stuffed with prostitutes, cross-dressers and, most distressingly, a very old man wearing a large pair of comedy breasts fingering his nipples. My overwhelming feeling at this point was one of great sadness, both for all the poor people who I presume have been sucked into this trade through desperation and also for a paradise country like Thailand that has now become the plaything of lascivious elderly Western men.

 

We began with a few drinks in a live music venue. The American band was really good, but I had to question whether the owners really needed to intersperse pole-dancers between the tables. The dancers to my left and right were so utterly bored with their jobs that they looked like dancing robots, all movement and no expression; probably daydreaming of a better life. All around there were dirty old men (and, perhaps worse, dirty young men) grabbing these girls and negotiating prices.

Needless to say we didn't stay too long. We bar hopped for a while and then a few of our group suggested checking out a place they had been the night before. We entered this large warehouse full of hundreds of tiny open-air little bars arranged on a grid pattern (like a mini-metropolis of sin). Deep within we found a tiny bar they had already visited which was staffed by three Thai women. This was one of the few bars without pole dancers and I couldn't help but feel these women were somewhat more respectable than the others. The three of them acted like the life and soul of the party, plying us with drinks, dancing continuously and challenging us to all manner of bar games (I discovered that the drunker I get, the more proficient I am at Connect-4!). Even though we were having an amazing time, I was constantly reminded that this was all an act for our hosts - e.g. when I asked what their names were, they said it was none of my business.

 (The women at each bar were very aggressive)

 (Our bar)

Day 103
An upsettingly early wake-up and all of us from the night before left on an island-hopping excursion around the Phang Nga Bay called the "James Bond Tour"; so named because it culminated in a visit to Khow-Ping-Kan, the island where they filmed part of The Man With the Golden Gun. Not having known in advance we were doing this I had stupidly put all my acceptable swimming shorts in the wash the night before. All that was left alas were my skimpy ultra-revealing boxer-trunks that I bought in a fit of madness shortly before leaving England and have been too embarrassed to wear since. Rather fittingly though they were the ones worn by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, so there is a James Bond link. The day was spent canoeing and swimming between the various impossibly-vertical islands/meeting lots of interesting people in the process.

 (me chillin' in the mangrove forest)

 (our on-board buffet)

 (Daniel Craig?)

 (our merry band)

Another guy from the hostel and I had a Thai massage afterwards. Our masseuses were utterly hilarious and while all the laughter somewhat undermined the calming purpose of the massage, we were all the more happy for it.

That evening we all went out again, but this time in celebration of the birthday of a Thai friend called Pang some of them had made in Krabi. She took us to her favourite restaurant in Patong (it was very good) then we did some bar hopping and clubbing before ending up in a very authentic Thai kareoke bar in the very early hours of the morning. Some of the girls were singing Robbie Williams and Madonna, but in my drunken state I was convinced it would be a good idea to attempt to sing a Thai song even though I couldn't read the lyrics and didn't know a note. In the circumstances I thought I did rather well.

Day 104
Having forged a strong friendship a bunch of us decided to travel on to Koh Phi Phi Don Island (also known as just plain Phi Phi) together and boarded the morning ferry. We arrived to the picture perfect image of an island paradise. The sea was fluorescent turquoise (this is not a turn of phrase - it was actually nuclear green in tint), the sand was golden and the scenery was all palm-trees-draped-over-near-vertical-cliff-faces. Waiting for us at the ferry exit were the friends of one of our group, increasing our size yet further. It seemed crazy that only two days ago I feared I would spend my time in Thailand utterly alone.

That evening our ever-growing crowd sampled the island's nightlife (Phi Phi is known as The Party Island, which is quite an accolade in a land of party islands such as Thailand). For those who haven't yet visited Thailand, drinks here are sold by the bucket (and cute little multicoloured buckets they are too). Many such buckets were consumed that night. We ended up at a beach club called 'Slinky's' and had an absolutely amazing and crazy night of hedonistic abandonment. There was topless table dancing, drunk attempts at fire spinning (I did rather well), limbo contests, crowd-surfing - the full works. In one particularly fine moment I decided it would be fun to swing from one of the overhead lights. Alas health and safety isn't what it should be here and on putting my hand out I got rather electrocuted and was thrown convulsing to the floor. We were all too busy laughing though for me to consider the pain.

Now it still pains me to say this, but the photo above is the last one that will ever be taken from my camera. You can actually see the eyes of the camera close as it breathed its last electronic breath.  I am waiting until I get to Nepal to have it serviced, so for the next two weeks I am relying on photos taken by others for the blog.

Day 105:
For what may be the first time in my trip, I spent a whole day doing nothing. Specifically, I spent an entire day sunbathing on the beach and swimming in the perfect waters of Phi Phi. What I love about Thailand is how free and easy it is to strike up conversation. I got chatting to people swimming in the sea, paddling in the surf, lying on the beach and eating in the cafes. Nearly everyone is English and I can't help but note how differently we all act back home. Here if a stranger strikes up conversation, you happily join in and end up spending weeks traveling together. Back home if a stranger taps me on the shoulder I will run a mile and probably shower a few times.

In the evening we went to a boxing match where drunk Westerners without any training whatsoever beat the crap out of each other. There was lots of blood and sweat. The highlight though was a little 5 year old Thai girl thrashing an older muscled boxer (obviously he was letting her win, but it was quite convincing).

Afterwards, where else but a return to Slinky!

Day 106:
Everywhere in Thailand has "The Excursion" - i.e. the local touristy day trip that everyone has to do at some point. Today's excursion was a good 8 hours of island-hopping, snorkeling and swimming. The weather began unbearably hot, but as the day progressed the storm clouds rolled in and we found ourselves wetter out of the water than within. The afternoon culminated with a trip to the tiny island hosting Maya Beach, famous as the scene of the beach from the film "The Beach" (this sentence has a few too many beaches in it). You can imagine why the film producers chose this place to reconstruct paradise.

 (The beach from The Beach!)

 (Eugh - we all began to feel seasick as the weather turned)

Afterwards we played some drinking games and ended up, where else, but Slinky's for the third night in a row!

Day 107:
Our last morning in Phi Phi was spent book-shopping and having one last walk around the island. It had been incredibly fun, but I don't know whether I would have had the strength to stay there any longer - you can have too much of a good thing. We grabbed an afternoon ferry and began the long journey from one side of Thailand to the other so as to arrive the following morning in Koh Tao.