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Published: February 23rd 2012
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Looking at the map of Koh Phangan was quite daunting. So many places to stay and so many beaches to choose from. As Mel and I discussed over breakie I realised this was the great thing not only about Mel but travelling with Mel. The two of us didn´t care, as long as there was beach and cold drinks near by. So looking at this map I closed my eyes, spun my finger and slammed it onto the map, this would be where we ended up and the winner was Mac´s Bay Resort. As we pulled up to Mac´s Bay we were a little worried about our choice. We had been dropped off in what felt like the middle of nowhere to a building site, a few old hanging chairs and no beach in sight. We took deeps breaths looked at eachother, laughed and walked towards what we were hoping was a nice reception of a nice hotel.
What we found hidden around the corner could only be described as perfectly us. Bungalows on the beach, tables and chairs over looking the water, a swimming pool, a fridge full of beer, a big list of tropical cocktails on the wall,
the smell of amazing food cooking and friendly Thai faces smiling at us. We managed to book the last bungalow available for only $10 a night each with views of the beach right from our beds. We were in heaven. Thank-you fate gods our plan had worked out.
The next few days it rained, rained and rained some more so we had plenty of time to eat, drink and sleep and then repeat! The food at Mac´s Bay was truly amazing and the mama´s cooking it were always happy to have a chat. We were the only Aussie´s in the whole resort and apart from 3 London boys who were there for 3 days we were practically the only ones from an English speaking country, which we loved. The only downfall to this was trying to explain some of the difficulties of the English language, like there, their, and they´re and some words we used we were asked to explain and we struggled like persay.
The times that Mel and I did venture out of Mac´s Bay the owner Chowadee who was getting to know us pretty well would stamp us quite a number of times on our
arms so we knew the address to get back. The first night we ventured out we ended up at what could only be described as an American fair. Fiary floss, popcorn, bright neon lights and lots of impossible games to play to try and win stuffed toys. We were definitely the only foreigners there and after blowing a fair amount of money on the darts game we decided it was time to have some ´adult´fun and find a bar. Enter pool sharks Mel and Zoshy. We played pool against a few unsuspecting opponents and then Helmut the biggest German in the world thought he could beat us and failed, the look on his face when we won was truly priceless.
If there is one thing in Thailand that is a certainty it´s that there is a 7/11 close by, it will be open and you can pretty much buy anything you want from there, which seems to be a great idea at 3am when you find yourself eating a hot dog. Everything else is as they say same, same but different. Like when you´re waiting for your taxi to pick you up at 6.30am and they arrive at 6.55am
or when they say one moment, you may as well take a seat because you will be waiting a while.
There were 3 days that stood out from the rest in Koh Phangan, the first was Half Moon Party Day! We were hanging out with 3 absolute champions from London, Dennis, Gori and Ramish who had Mel and I in stitches with their stories of Mushroom Mountain the night before. Our laughs turned into beers and buckets and Dennis found a soccer ball under our hut so naturally a game of beach football began. It started off with just 4 of us playing and out of nowhere we had six Argentinian boys walk towards us from one side of the beach and two South Africans from the other. Football really is the international sport and brings everyone together. After a while we all started to work up quite a sweat so we retreated to the water with beers.
As the afternoon rolled on we all started to talk about the half moon party and what a great crew we had for it, oh yeah it was going to be a good one. Arriving at in the middle of
the jungle to the half moon was like stepping into a fluro paint shop that had exploded. There were 100´s of people covered head to toe in fluro clothes and fluro paint. The setup was unbelieveable, a massive wooden setup with different levels, loads of podiums and special effects everywhere. We had an absolute blast drinking buckets, dancing our butts off and trying in many different ways to get home. I am pretty sure our crew of 10 all ended up getting home seperately and all with a different hilarious stories of how. Taxi with 15 others, motoribike with 3 others, walking through the jungle and some didn´t make it home until the next night with no recollection of what happened! Family, this was not me so don´t be alarmed.
I am pretty sure the only time I moved the next day was to throw myself into the ocean and order my stock standard chicken fried rice, if I had stayed at Mac´s Bay any longer I was sure I was going to turn into chicken fried rice! Finally a day later when Mel and I were able to move again we went exploring. We walked for hours and
what felt like over 10 km´s and came to a stop at Munchie´s which is a pretty cool very laid back reggae bar on the beach. We had found our spot for the rest of the afternoon and night. We had a brilliant time here drinking cocktail and after cocktail and learning the life story of the owner Nom who was an absolute gem. His life story of no education so therefor no work and having to make a life for himself, his Mum and 4 younger brothers was a real eye opener and really put things into perspective and made our ´problems´seem trivial. Even something like the fact that he saved for over a year so he could buy an iphone when everyday back home people are buying them, breaking them and getting a new one.
Chowadee the owner of Mac´s Bay decided it was time that Mel and I did something other than eat and drink so he booked a tour of the island by boat. Of course this just so happened to be after the night before at Munchie´s. Struggle town again we picked ourselves up and got to the pier where we thought we might
actually die in the heat. Turns out the sea breeze and the amazing things we saw that day cured our hangover and so did the little surprise that was waiting for us on the boat. That´s a story for another time. We saw waterfalls, some beautiful beaches and were pretty happy we had made it through the day. Koh Phangan really is paradise.
With all of the relaxing, cockatils, amazing food, sleeping, meeting great people, half moon party, exploring, boat rides and some great quality time together it was time for Mel and I to part and go our seperate ways. What an absolute pleasure it was travelling with Mel, two indians definitely make a right!
Things lost or stolen to date:
*Perfume - stolen
*Jewellery - stolen
*Ghetto blaster - stolen
*Travel towels - stolen
*Head torch - stolen
*Havianas black pair - lost
*Havianas orange pair - lost
*Favourite hat - lost (note to self - dont stick your head out of a moving taxi)
Thailand Facts - well according to me 😉
*Everyone in Thailand smokes
*Everyone in Thailand has tattoos
Koh Phangan
rocked!
Lots of Zoshy love to you xxx
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