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Published: December 29th 2006
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happy christmas and a smashing new year!
hannah and i have just unwillingly reaquainted ourselves with bangkok after a few weeks on the beautiful island of koh lanta...
we had intended to be sensible and head to ko chang for our well - deserved holiday....what? travelling is hard work. not as hard as say, actual work mind....no, who am i trying to kid? we wanted to get a tan in time for australia. superficial are we? you're damn right we are! koh chang is only five hours travelling from bangkok, where we need to be to get our flight next thursday. so it would make more sense to do that than to travel a whole extra day out of our way, right? trust The Cockneys to go and fling a spanner in the works! we'd never even heard of koh lanta until they started hasseling us to go, giving us all that london patter. which we're both suckers for, which is why we found ourselves on a really skanky overnight bus, heading down to the coast to meet them.......
14 hours later we landed at the resort we'd booked, ' new coconut '. basic huts, greatest bar ever.
imagine a bar, selling you alcohol for cheap cheap. then imagine it's on a beach, by a tropical ocean, and there are hammocks. you've just imagined sam and hannah heaven, so now imagine how we felt when we found it! the first day we were there i lay in a hammock and read for nine hours! hannah fell off her seat! unfortunatley the beach huts were not quite what we're used to (as in, we're not used to cockroaches) so a couple of days after we arrived we moved down the beach to the resort The Cockneys stayed at last time they were there. it had a pool. not that we would judge the quality and value of a resort soley based on the fact it had a big puddle in its back garden but....no, wait. no, we would do that. the bar at the lanta pavillion was run by a really lovely couple but good lord! they had the worst taste in music. the greatest hits of ' seal ', anyone? no.
so we'd go back to the coconut to swing in hammocks and chat to our new scottish friends, googs and stu (hello googs and stu!)
one day, we dragged ourselves away from the tiny bit of beach we'd become so attached to and hired a long tail boat to go snorkelling, it was amazing - like being in a nature documentary. i couldn't help describing things to myself in a david attenborough style and making myself laugh. then i kicked some coral, which made me stop. ouch! it's the worst thing that's happened to me since we returned to thailand though so i'm not complaining. it's really hard to describe how serene and lovely it is with your head under the water. much easier to tell you how annoying it is when four other boats turn up and the water is suddenly filled with the thrashing of thirty other tourists. all of whom seem determined to kick you in the face. with flippers...
after googs and stu left, my sister turned up, halfway through her month - long trip island hopping round thailand. (hello mel!) and then kim, cat and linda turned up (hello team cat!). we met kim on the mini-bus from chiang mai to loas and talked at her until she would be our friend (after ignoring her for five hours. we
The likely lads
From the left Pun, Googs & Stu were really tired and i needed the toilet!) she was meeting cat and linda in loas and it's been a magical love thing ever since. we would bump into them in quite random places, for example the last bar on the river in vang vieng, or outside an internet cafe in cambodia. but we'd arranged to meet on koh lanta and we knew it would be the last time we would meet as they were all going home... so to celebrate our last precious moments together we decided to go and check out the rock band down the beach at the chocolate bar (where you could get an ovaltine or coffe mate cocktail, or a tomato soup bloody mary. i don't know why you would, but you could) and the band were frickin' awesome! they played requests! cat wouldn't stop screaming! everyone danced badly. i mean offensively badly.
there was some skinny dipping which i witnessed but didn't participate in. actually i had to take photgraphs. i do feel slightly violated saying that. hmmmm. no it was hilarious, shouting ' go on then girls, show me your arses!' and ' cat, you're going out of shot!' i would like
Ko Lanta
The view from the bar to add that i didn't volunteer to do it. and that we miss kim cat and linda and hope they are enjoying being home again. seriously! we're not laughing...
the next day The Cockneys turned up (hello bertie and dan!) i was so thrilled to see them it totally ruined my massage, all relaxation evaporation in a frenzy of hugging and sqeaked 'ooh, hellos' !
the next few days were a happy blur of sunbathing, swimming and going to beach parties. check out the videos of fire. see how pretty? we know those guys! that makes us cool by association. we were also treated to some thai boxing and sword fighting. it was at about two in the morning at a reggae club so i was surprised by it (i was stood right next to the sword fighters.)
christmas eve came around and so we went to the coconut to drink copius amounts of 'buckets'. let me explain the 'bucket'. basically, you get a small bucket and you chuck in a quarter of a bottle of a thai spirit called 'sang som'. sang som is made from sugar cane. so that's some alcoholic sugar. then you add
Ko Lanta
The view from the bar at night - we did not ever leave the hammocks m-150, which is thai red bull but approximatley one hundred times stronger. (that's a possible exaggeration) so that's more....sugar. then a bottle of coke goes in. that's sugar too. finally, ice and lime gives you a delicious bucket of alcohol, sugar, sugar, sugar and caffeine. with straws. actually you could put this in a recipe book and call it ' The Worst Hangover Ever'. but who cares about that when you are talking so enthusiastically and quickly that no-one really understands what you're saying? we had a really funny night and though it wasn't in the least bit christmassy, it rocked hard and funnily enough, we all managed to stay awake until 6am. and i could have sworn i heard some jingle bells....or was it the melting ice from a neglected bucket..?
christmas morning rolled around very quickly and we all got up early, ate some breakfast (some hilarious breakfast in fact, but you had to be there) then dragged ourselves off for a foot massage. thai massage is not relaxing (until after it finishes) there's a lot of squishing and jabbing and hitting. in fact i can't help but wonder now if the feeling of relaxation comes from
the adrenaline of the beating and the relief that it's stopped. it's brilliant for a hangover so feeling much better we went for our christmas lunch. pizza.
we had a brilliant, chilled out, decidedly decandent alcohol fuelled time, the day of our departure came around too quickly and all of a sudden we were back in bangkok, at the end of our three months in south - east asia. we've seen some incredible sights and met some really lushious peachy people. this is our last asia blog so we hope you have enjoyed hearing about us, the goths on holiday and will keep reading to find out what we get up to in australia. is anyone going to vomit near hannah? will i be killed in some kangaroo related accident? (probably) will we actually become gainfully employed or are we already researching the australian welfare system? (no!) and so on.
so, in conclusion, as that god amongst men Gordon Ramsey might say....
'South East Asia - Done '.
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Elizabeth
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Happy New Year
Happy new year to you , girls, hope 2007 will be loads of fun!