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Published: August 8th 2007
05/07/07
Late start today, late night drinking/dancing took care of the morning so we surfaced at 13:30 (would love to put am or pm but for some reason i cannot get my head round which one is which, someone please post on blog for my future reference). As usual, breakfast was quickly followed by the beach, where we broke in our new bat and ball (we are going up in the world, these puppies were plastic). Unfortunately dehydration and general hangover symptoms made this a fairly embarassing and short-lived episode. The day was quickly followed by night, and for dinner we went to an open-air food market, where food was ordered and then brought over to the chairs and tables running parallel to the market. This was great fun and had a real vibe about it. You could talk to other diners (we got chatting to some Germans who asked us if we had huge tattoos on our backs because we were English! I restrained from mentioning 2 world wars and 1 world cup). For dinner Barrie and i went for crab, shrimp and 'seafood' with rice. This was probably the most adventurous/horrifying meal i have consumed, as the crab and shrimp was identifiable, but we had 2 other 'creatures' in the mix, one of which resembled a mini squid, the other, something out of the film, Alien. I kid you not this 'thing' was horrific, i was ready to leave it but male pride (Barrie wolfed his down) forced me to accept the challenge. It tasted 'crunchy', and kinda fish-like, but looked pretty shocking. Barrie and i joked that it would burst out of chests in the middle of the night, although i think we both felt this may have been possible. We spent the rest of the evening having a few beers by the food market at the open-air lady bar market. We had the 2 Irish girls with us so any major hassle was avoided.
One last thing, which i forgot to mention yesterday. Barrie pulled a 16 year old English girl yesterday, the 4th. Now nothing serious/resulting in imprisonment happened, but still, thats just wrong. Amusingly she walked past and stopped for a chat with us today, with her dad! And yes, i can confirm that that was the most uncomfortable 5 minutes of my life, just think how poor Barrie felt (do the crime........).
06/07/07
Yesterday was an early night so we were up by 9 (i know, not that early), and we picked up the jeep we had booked yesterday. We were told it would not be brand new but still 'good', although being a rusting heap with the interior trim hanging off, no stereo and a bizarre grinding sound when in reverse, 'good' was stretching it. Still it went, for about 100 metres!!!!!! To our un-trained mechanic ears we figured it had run out of juice, but still, we were in the middle of the main road and stationary!! Luckily i spotted some burly fellas (Aussies), and asked for a push. We got the jeep to safety and bizarrely, neing 100 metres from the hire place, we started walking for petrol. 20 minutes later and petrol-less, we saw sense and headed for the hire shop. In fairness they were great, made a call, and told us someone would be there in 10 minutes to fill her up. Faith restored we headed back to the Jeep, through the shops until we heard a song. I kid you not we walked past a shop selling bootleg CDs which was playing Starship's, Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now!!!!! Barrie and i looked at each other disbelievingly and knowing the poetic magnitude of this, we actually stopped in the shop and got the artist name (Starship, what a crap name for a band).
Onwards we marched, chuckling, and made it back to the jeep in time to see it being filled up by a couple of guys on a moped (everyone here has a moped or a huge pick-up, and mopeds are always loaded with at least 2 people, max we've seen 3, no danger of obeying the highway code in Thailand). The jeep started ok and off we went for the Mummified Monk, Waterfalls and Big Buddha. The Mummified Monk was pretty freaky, it had been there for 30 years, still in pretty good nick and apparently no embalming (oh, and in true Thai style, they had slapped a pair of sunglasses on it!!). Barrie did get a bit freaked out because his camera broke whilst he was taking a couple of pics of it, lets hope he's not been jinxed. We did spend some time reading through some Buddhist teachings (v interesting and thought provoking), and also got blessed by a monk.
After this we headed off for the Waterfalls at Na Muang, Barrie still muttering 'i can't believe it broke when i was taking pictures of the monk.....' We decided to give the elephant ride upto the falls a miss (budget rearing its ugly head again), and instead trekked about 25 minutes up the mountain through think undergrowth. Luckily we acquired a guide halfway up who gave us a hand, so whilst hard work, it was pretty fun. The falls themself were amazing, not huge, but big enough for us to swim/drag yourself via rope under and feel the force of the water. We also dived into the falls for a while (oh, and our hilarious guide who is obviously unaware of the fact that i do have a phobia of sharks and crocs etc, decided to swim under water and start grabbing at my legs, pr%$k. This was probably my favourite part of the trip so far as the falls and scenery/setting were breathtaking. The trip down was a little easier (especially as we were soaking wet and therefore cool), and we got back to the jeep in good shape and headed for the Big Buddha in Bo Phut. The Big Buddha was also pretty spectacular (especially as he had only 1 nipple), as was lunch overlooking Ko Pha Ngan, our next destination.
We headed back in good spirits and got ready for the impending Foam Party in Lamai. Stupidly we skipped dinner and instead got cracking on the Chang (6.4%) and cards, pre-foam party. We headed for the party at midnight (everything gets gong late), and had a pretty awesome time. Only downsides were me losing my flip flops and ending up covered in cuts and grazes (i had to head back for plasters and some running repairs before heading back out to Fusion to dance the night away), and a couple of very suspect and painful toes (still hurt today on the 9th). We got home at..................?
07/07/07
Waking up at 13:00 was hard work today, the mother of all hangovers (haven't really drunk since) was draining my life source. Surprise, surprise, we beached it for the afternoon. We sat and had lunch on the beach with some locals who taught us some more Thai, and gave us dried squid (they told us afterwards). Pretty tasty though. Feeling rough we headed back about 6 and popped out for dinner at the food market where we had Pad Thai Chicken and Fruit Smoothies to detox!! We decided that a few hours in what looked like a pool hall should follow and headed there, not wanting to drink. We had a coke and red bull, and were starting to feel better. I was kicking ass at pool (couple of flukes helped), and Barrie commented on how we had stumbled into such a relaxed bar, fool. Couple of warning signs were evident, number 1, our pineapple and ornage juice ended up as Vodka and Orange and Vodka and Red Bull, secondly there were quite a few girls setting up the balls on the table (we just thought good service). Within an instant the atmosphere changed and the usual assault of flirting etc started. Luckily, we've wised up, and when they asked if they could play us, Barrie said we were having a competition. They got the message, we finished up our game, and left.....safe and sound. We stopped for chicken and spring rolls and headed to the Thai Kick Boxing ring in the town square to watch the saturday night entertainment. There were about 8 Kick Boxing matches, with school age kids (male and female) to grown men and women brutally fighting for 3 rounds. The spectacle was amazing, and whilst the quality varied, the sight of blood was pretty cool. The final fight was clearly between two awesome fighters and resulted in a KO. Tired we headed for bed and an early start as we were heading for Ko Pha Ngan.
08/07/07
Sleep was difficult last night, my toes were killing, but a couple of ibruprofen did the trick (we have also made some use out of our OTT medical kits which is a bit of a result). We said our goodbyes to Claire and Sarah (the 2 Irish girls), and jumped on the bus for the Big Buddha Pier and the Ko Pha Ngan ferry. Luckily we managed to seat ourselves next to a big group of gay boys at the terminal (who luckily, seemed to have eyes for Barrie), but despite some smiling, laughing and them talking in Thai about us (we are getting used to this), we escaped un-touched. The ferry ride was short but sweet, and we arrived at Hat Rin beach on Ko Pha Ngan. Now Ko Pha Ngan is not very Thai. I can understand why people love it, it is clearly geared up for partying, has some spectacular scenery around the main beach (white sugar-like sand, palm trees, mountains framing the beach) but for me, the sense of Thailand has been tattooed, happy hour'd and internet cafe'd out of it. I'm sure we'll have a good time here (all the restaurants play modern films and Friends all night) but we're a bit 'man-down' at the mo, on account of my toes, so we'll see. Still the weather was good today and we had a decent meal whilst watching '300' followed by a Chang and some Friends before an early night. The night life is clearly banging so watch this space.
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dad
non-member comment
AM or PM, the question
Hi Matt With the 24 hour clock AM and PM are not necessary. So there you are Bye dad x