THE LONELINESS OF A SCOUSER LAME TRAVELLER

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The streets are full of German geeks,
I haven't seen my mum for weeks,
But writing home I feel like I,
Consign those feelings to the sky

Before catching my flight out of Gatwick I had a all nighter night out in some London nightclub i couldn't begin to tell you where it was, but i stumbled into it. I found myself somewhere in LonDon at 6 am not knowing how to get to my hostel. I got a couple of wrong busses, then plunged for a taxi. I swooped for my bags, then headed straight off with no sleep. Well i caught my flight eventually though I was nearly thrown off the express Gatwick train for refusing to pay the excess charge whilst in self righteous slightly drunk mode. I slept for most of the flights, interupted by a piss up with 2 Brits in Muscat, (ones who have Thai wives and live in Phuket or Pattaya..and say 'all English women do is fackin moan, now, Thai women know aow to beyave etc ....) and got to Bangkok where i slept for about 24 hours.
In Bangkok i ventured out and saw a poster for DJ Shadow for that very night. I scrawled down the address and got a taxi who said , yerrrs, of course, he knew where it was. But we all know Bangkok taxi drivers don't we. He eventually pulled up outside some horrendous lookin place called 'The Pub' (inspired name) with all the usual glorified prostitution inside (but not very glorious), where he tried to get commision. I refused to get out, still self rightious as ever and pointed at the address. He said 'yeeerrrs' and smiled alot and pointed at the cheesefest disco and i said 'noooohhh' and smiled through gritted teeth and pointed at the place i actually requested to go to and he looked embarassed as porters opened my door and tried to get me inside and practicly ordered drinks for me until he eventually concurred that actually, DJ Shadow was probably not what i could hear, which was a Thai group singing 'Dancing Queen', badly, and pretended it was a hilarious mistake. I got to the right venue but only saw the last half hour of the great man himself although he did anounce Obama had won the election was was quite uplifting for everyone. Those who hadn't slept for the previous 2 days were probably already aware of this little secret fact.
I met a few people over the next few days in Kho san road, most of whom tried to sell me a suit, but some of which were also travellers.
I finally left Bangkok on 12th of November. Having spent far too much time and money here I decided to book a train to Surrathani as i thought I could head to a beach once i got there. I got drunk with a 70 year old German fella and a 60 year old 'Belgian Geordie' women on the train, who where extremely sound and very funny. They informed my it was pissing down in Ko Phangan and i should head to the west coast.
My sleeping pattern was so messed up hemisphere wise, I was awake the entire overnight journey. I arrived at 9 am, shattered and booked into the cheapest hotel, meaning I awoke at 8pm. I found the food night market and bought some oysters in egg that were very nice and some chicken that was,... hmmm. It existed.
There were no other foreigners around and it felt like i was back in remote China or the Phillipines, people looked suprised to see me, which i enjoyed. Farang tend to stay in Surrathani for a few hours at most, though i really can't blame them.
I decided to go to Similian islands off the west coast of Thailand. They sounded like a paradise with very little development and perfect diving and snorkelling spots. Thinking i could arrive at the port and buy a ticket for the boat, i was met with widespread confusion from the travel agents, who ran around the shop from one phone call and customer to the next throwing me occasional snippets of information in cryptic English. It turned out you could only get there if you book a 1,2 or 3 day tour all included, which sounded horrendous, having my whole itinery planned out, like when we eat and piss and buy souveneirs,like an island shaped ashtray , but I organised that i wll get off at 'island number 4 ' and book a tent for a few nights then meet the same tour a few days later to get back. So i had to book on a one day snorkelling tour and i also booked a discover diving course which further complicated it, so i spent a total of 7 hours in this shop, in and out over the course of the day. To be fair the people that worked there were really helpful in hindsight, and worked really hard, like 18 hours a day, but their style just means everythng takes forever. But was it worth it? Yes it was.
As the guide book says, high prices have kept the Similian islands beautiful as the scum can't afford to go there, or something along those lines. It was indeed expensive but as there was only one restaurant, ok prices, on the one island you can stay overnight on which is called Ko Miang and refered to slightly unromantically as island number 4 by everyone, there was little chance for me to spend money once i was there.
The negative thing was that 99 percent of people on the island were boring couples, which usually means they often look miserable and the women won't let the man drink like he wants to. Also practicly all were German, which isn't in itself bad, but means they spoke German to each other which would freeze me out. Makes you wonder who won the war doesn't it.
I was friends though with a young German couple from Cologne and a Belgian couple from Belgium. The dialect of choice was English but as they were in a very romantic, stunning place I thought i'd leave them alone most of the time so they could be all coupley and that. It was like the most beautiful beach i've probably ever seen, certainly this week. someone switch that fan on, phew. Hot today isn't it.
I spent most of the evenings there pretty bored as it got dark at 7pm and there was nowt to do although the couples seemed to somehow amuse themselves, the filthy tykes.
I noticed there was a telly in the corner of the restaurant and thought i'd ask about Liverpools game with Bolton and the man said 'yeeers Liverpool' with out really looking like he knew what the hell i was talking about. The next day i found out the whole match was shown live in the restaurant, with me in my tent reading a book by torch light. How cool would that have been? watching Liverpool whilst on a remote desert island. Rats. My dissapointment was tempered by news of the result being a positive one.
There was loads of wild life, huge crabs everywhere and massive bats making an unholy sound in unison at the dawn of the gloaming like the world was on it's last legs. It's really warm there at night and no one can really sleep properly, as it rains loudly sometimes too. The day is far too hot to sleep, so everyone just goes around in a sort of daize...every....thing.......ver..y slo...wly.
But there is nothing happening anywhere, so everyone just kinda sits. It was wonderful for a while.
I spent most of the last evening there playing cards with people, the 2 germans, 2 belgians, 2 swiss came and joined us and then 2 israelies, all couples of course. We were talking about cockroaches over beers and i thought i'd enlighten them with my factoid of the day, that cockroaches are the only creture that would survive on earth in the event of a nuclear, er..um...whats the word......everyone looking at me....er....thats it.....HOLOCAUST! hmmm, everyone shuffles abit and avoids eye contact whilst trying to look neutral, which the swiss managed fine. pachang! The German girl proceeded to quickly start rambling on about something to fill the silence.
I think i'll take my diplomatic skills to Ko phangan next where i hope it doesn't rain constantly.
Also i did a deep sea dive in Similian islands at a spot called East of Eden, regarded as one of the best worldwide don'tya know. loved it want to do it more. You can't really describe what it's like down there which is probably why no one ever tries to much. Superlative.
On the way back, on the boat, we saw a whale. The boat stopped and everyone looked out for it to surface again. It was this gorgeous creature, just looked incredible. I have a bit of a phobia of whales but it looked so cute it wasn't scary, just really gentle. As you normal people know.
I think there was more than one as it surfaced all over the place. The guide said we were really lucky to see it as they are more rare now than a few years ago, he thinks due to global warming but admits he's not sure. He said ' now we can go in snorkelling with the whale, cue scared German faces everywhere. By the time he started laughing and said it was a joke I was in a life boat trying to start the engine. That is all for now though you probably stopped reading at the war joke,

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Photos

Similian Islands.
Well. You would look smug too.