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Published: April 23rd 2008
Lush sands on Chaweng Beach
Photo spoilt by that one rock!Friday 18th we didn't wake up until 1pm, oops! But we had been out playing pool and clubbing with Rung, our new Thai friend! We wanted to move to somewhere a bit more secure than our bungalow, we found an English run place called 'The Wave', it had a room availible so we lugged our bags there an checked in. The place is nice and the room has a far too tempting minibar with all sorts or snacks and drinks, not something you would expect in a budget hostel! We went to McDonalds for some food, and some aircon! They serve double Big Macs here! We then booked our boat to the Full Moon Party on Sunday, it was 500 baht and included pick up and return from our hostel, and we didn't have to commit to a return boat time. We then typed up 5 days worth of blog and slowly managed to get some photos online for you guys. We had some coconut chicken curry from the hotel which was really tasty and cost just over a pound. We had the afternoon with no plans so decided to see some of Ko Samui's sights. First we headed to Lamai
Just our luck...
Bad weather coming in over Chaweng Beach in Ko Samui beach to see the Grandfather and Grandmother rocks. These are 2 large rocks at the end of the beach that apparently have an uncanny resemblance to male and female genitailia, and it turns out they do. Seems they are quite an attraction for tourists and locals and lots of people were hanging out there taking photos. Adam surguested Nick pose hugging the grandfather rock, but Nick wasn't up for it. We got some photos and then headed off to Bo Phut beach to see the Big Budda there. We paid 100 baht for a taxi here but only had a 1000 note, the driver couldn't do change so we said he should wait for us and he could take us home after for another 100, he agreed. The Budda was at the top of lots of steps and was quite impressive, even if it was the same as almost all of them we have seen! We got the taxi back to McDonalds near our hostel and used it to change the note. the taxi driver then tried to charge us 300 instead of 200, Adam gave him 200 and got out of there! We paid Mcdonalds back the favour by
Lamai Beach
also in Ko Samui eating there then headed back to the hostel. Then we watched Fox News (our only english channel) before heading out to play some pool at Green Mango nightclub. This place was really busy the night before but it was quiet when we arrived at around 11pm, seems clubs don't really get going until about 1 or 2 am here. Adam won all 4 of the games of pool, which made a nice change! We picked up some Banana and Chocolate Pancakes on the way home. Checked our email at the hostel and found that the 5 English girls we met in Khao Yai national park were heading to Ko Samui in the next few days. Seems every traveller in Asia was heading here or to Ko Pha Ngan for the Full Moon Party. We got some sleep which will probably be needed over the next few days!
Next day we decided it was about time we dossed around relaxing on the beach, but the weather didn't look so good! We got to the beach about 11am and spent the next few hours laying on towels relaxing, it was mostly overcast, but you could still feel the sun through the
Nick playing some pool
In Green mango nightclub, Ko Samui clouds, although there was a few black looking ones up there. About 1pm it started to rain a bit, we didn't move until about 10 minutes later when the rain started to get heavy. We popped to Subway for some food (getting sick of noodles and rice it seems). We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the shops and planning how we would get to our next few destinations. It was Saturday so we got ready for a night of watching football and drinking, we got out a bit late and missed the Arsenal game, but found a bar just before 9pm (3pm england time). We had a look at the menu and the waitress smiled and said ' only soft drinks tonight - no beer', we both genuinly thought she was joking, and scanned around to look at everyones drinks, turns out she wasn't joking. We went to a few more bars, all the same. Turns out Thai elections are tomorrow and for some reason that means no alcohol from 6pm today until the elections are over tomorrow. We found a bar with cheap coke and lots of TVs, from our seats we could watch 3 different
Grandfather Rock
Yes... it looks like a willy. premiership games at once - a skill we are both working on still. In here we met Andy, he is the guy from Switzerland we spoke to in our hostel a few days ago, he sat with us for some cokes and we all sulked about the lack of beer and laughed at all the people coming in and trying to order it. After the main games finished we decided we would go check if anywhere was serving beer and showing the Man U game. No bars were serving alcohol except one which had locked everyone inside, which wasn't letting anyone in or out anymore. We went to the hostel who said we could drink from the mini bars, but only in our rooms - which had no sports channels. It seemed an impossible mission. We told Andy we had one last chance - the bar where our new thai friend Rung worked. We walked to it and it seemed to have a few people sitting in it. On arrival we were met by Rung, who gave us a big hug and told us we could sit in our own section round the back, here we had our own TV
Bo Phut Pier
We came here just before going to the Big Budda, and then left for the party from here also! with the Man Utd game on. She said we could have alcohol in glasses but we must pretend it was apple juice, so us 2 and Andy all ordered an 'apple juice'. Rung and the other staff member from Burma then brought us out complentary popcorn and pizza, which they refilled for us all night! We spent the next 4 hours drinking our 'apple juice', watching football, eating pizza and chatting to Andy, Rung and Burma man! Before arriving here we had no hopes of a drink, but here we were treated like kings! We even had a chat with the South African owner, who we think was paying off some of the thai police so we could drink! Turns out Andy is an investment banker and can fly a plane, we swapped travel stories and had some good laughs, he was heading home in 2 days. We stayed here until about 4am then headed home, Rung offered us a lift on her moped but we figured it wasn't made for 4 people and walked.
We woke up about 10 the next day and Nick was feeling seriously hungover! We checked out of the hostel at 11am and they
The Big Budda
at Bo Phut beach, Ko Samui agreed to look after our bags for 1 day if we donated to the dog rescue fund - so we did. We were heading to the Full Moon Party tonight, and didn't expect to get back until 7/8am the next day, so it seemed silly to have a room anywhere, we left everything except some money and passport copies at the hostel and planned to pick it all up the next morning. We had heard lots of stories of people being robbed at the party, or accomodation being broken into on the island, so our plan seemed like a good one. We got some food from the hostel restaurant then headed for a walk along the 6km beach. We hadn't gone more than 20 meters when some western looking girl was waving at us - it was the 5 English girls we had met a few weeks ago in Khao Yai! We had a quick chat with them, they were going by boat to the party too and were staying on this island for a few days. We then carried on our walk to other far end of the beach, turns out there wasn't much there except some rocks -
Bucket drinks shop
Full Moon Party, Ko Pha Ngan not sure what we expected to find! We walked back to the girls and said we'd see them tonight and they said we should come out the next night too as it was one of thier birthdays, we agreed and headed back to the hostel. We got picked up by a taxi at 6pm who would take us to the boat port, we shared the taxi with 2 girls from Taiwan, they looked like twins and were very excited about the party. They were constantly taking photos of each other, they must have taken about 20 photos just in the Taxi! We had a quick chat and they seemed really nice, and had great English. We then boarded the boat and it wasn't too full - something we were a bit cautious of. In 2005 a speed boat carrying back guests from the party back to our island was over filled, it sank and left 15 forigners dead. Our boat company seemed good and they gave us tags and expained how we find thier boat when we wanted to go back. The boat trip was about 20 minutes to Ko Pha Ngan island and after about a 5 minutes walk
More bucket shops...
Apologies for the inapropiate language! onto the island we got to the party. We had arrived quite early (about 8pm) but it was starting to get busy. People were starting to fill up the beach, there was fire dancers performing in front of the sea and every local person seemed to have set up a drinks stand. They all sell buckets here, for about 200 baht (£3), you get a sand bucket, a small bottle of vodka/sangsom and your choice of mixer, plus a few straws. Sangsom is a sweet rum, and the drink of choice for almost all thai locals - and there seemed to be a lot of locals at the party too. The party happens once per month (on full moon suprisingly!) and is on Hat Rin beach, upto 20,000 people, mostly travellers, all head here for a night of music, drink, dancing and fun all under the light of the moon. There was all sorts of music coming out of the beach bars and everyone was having a good time, besides a few people looking slightly too drunk laying around in the sand! Everyone was getting painted wth UV paint, this, plus all the fire dancers, and lit up bars made
for a really cool sight. We didn't manage to meet up with the English girls, but didn't expect to find them in 20,000 people, and of course no one wanted to take a phone with them for fear of losing it. Around 5am we decided to get the boat back and headed for the piers. Seems lots of people were heading home and it was easy to see how it could get out of hand getting on boats. We found the correct queue for our boat company and waited in it, the boat came every 40 minutes as it went back and forth all night. While waiting there was a fight at the front of the que, we don't know what started it, but probably people thinking others were pushing in front. Private boats were leaving all the time for 300 baht if you didn't want to que up, but it ment pushing past the people in line which caused problems. We met an English couple in line who knew of Milton Keynes and Bletchley which made us laugh. We got on the boat and it wasn't over filled at all. Most people including Adam fell asleep for the 20
minute journey back. At the other end we were put in a big taxi heading back to Chaweng where out hostel was. In the taxi we met some guys from Portsmouth and some Thai girls that had been to the party. It was 6am and we couldn't get to our bags for another 3.5 hours, so we decided to sleep on the beach. One of the girls said they were coming with us, she was a bit crazy and had lost her shoes at the party. Adam gave her a piggy back to Mcdonalds and we all had some much needed large sprites. After this we found a posh beach resort and decided thier sun loungers looked good for sleeping on. The sun was coming up and it looked really good on the clouds. We had a chat with Tick ,the thai girl, and then both fell asleep.
We woke up on the sun loungers about 20 minutes later. Tick was gone, and Adam woke up just in time to see her walking off down the beach, she waved goodbye and did the universal sign language for 'i'm going home to sleep'. We did a quick pocket check and
Bars at the party
all on the beach front still had everything - seems we are always thinking like that, but its seems the Thai people here are just up for hanging out and having fun, not stealing your wallet! It was too hot and uncomfortable for sleeping on the beach so we started to get up, the resort workers were around now but they didn't seem bothered we had used the sun loungers, we got up and exchanged a thumbs up with the sun lounger man before leaving. We went to McDonalds and used the nice aircon lobby to wait around, feeling sorry for ourselves with our hangovers. At 9am we booked our boat for the next day, we are heading to Ko Tao for our diving course. At 930 the hostel opened and we got our bags backs, but they had no rooms availbile so we went out to find somewhere. We found Green Leaf hotel for 800 baht a night and took a room there. The walk with all our bags to here was horrid, it was seriously hot and with no sleep and hangovers the bags were heavy. Adam's bags total over 30kgs at the moment! The hotel was seriously nice and we couldn't believe
the price. The room is really big with a balcony and the best shower of the trip so far. We had much needed showers and then fell asleep around 11am with an alarm set for 3pm - we didn't wake until 6pm. Adam felt fully recovered but Nick was in a bad way, he was sick and felt really bad. We headed out for some food and got back on the noodles and rice today. We were ment to be meeting the english girls at 10pm so we headed back to the room for an hour. Nick fell back asleep and we decided it was best he stayed in and tried to recover, otherwise it may cause problems with the diving course. Adam popped out to tell the girls this so they weren't waiting all night for us, but he couldn't find them out. On the way back Adam stopped at the Rugby Bar to speak to Rung and Burma man for a bit, then headed back to the hostel to write up some blog. About midnight Rung text saying she had finished work, so Adam went and played some pool for a few hours, and lost 5 games to
Too many buckets?!?!
Some people crashed out on the beach! 4. Rung seems to be a really nice person and gets in rounds of drinks refusing to have hers paid for - if any bosses back home want a staff member she is availible for the price of a flight! Went to bed about 2am, it was the 3rd late night in a row and a much needed sleep - especally for Nick who stayed in and is still sick with some sort of fever we think!
We woke up at 9am the next day and checked out of our 3rd hostel/hotel in almost as many days. We saw Rung and said our goodbyes to her, still no sign of the English girls though. We headed back to The Wave hostel where our pick up was from. We met a guy called Gary here from Scotland, he seemed like a good chap and was having a beer waiting for the same pick up, we had a chat and he had only been travelling 10 days. The minibus picked us up and we drove to the pier, where we checked in and got given a sticker to wear indicating where we should get off. We brought some rolls here for
Waiting for the boat
People queing up to get off the party island! lunch and some water, Nick is still not well, hopefully it'll clear up over the next few days. We met some cool 'dudes' from Australia at the pier who had just been to all the same places we had travelled but in the other direction, they are heading off to England soon to travel Europe and work, almost the same trip as us but working in each others countries!. The boat trip took a few hours, they showed a film, and we stopped at Ko Pha Ngan to drop off and pick up people. Seems everyone was leaving Pha Ngan after the party and heading to other islands. We arrived at Ko Tao island at 3pm and were met by a representative from Ban's diving who we had booked our course with. Ban's is the biggest and most popular diving resort here, and Ko Tao is the cheapest place on earth to take your PADI Open Water course. We got a free taxi to the resort and checked in, we got a non aircon room with a balcony for free included in the course. If we want to up grade to aircon we can pay extra - but we'll sweat
Chaweng beach
This is the view while we slept on Chaweng beach after the Full moon party! it out for now. We got some food and then our course was due to start at 4pm. They spilt everyone into English speaking and Swedish speaking classes, so many Swedish here on all the islands, not really sure why. Our english class has about 16 people in it and we have 2 instructors, we'll be split into smaller groups tomorrow of 7 or 8. We got in the classroom and had to read lots of health disclaimers and sign some forms first of all. Then we watched a 2 hour video and had to answer questions on paper as we went along. It covered all the equipment and safety of diving, plus explained about 'neutral buoyancy', 'equalization' and 'the buddy system'. It was just like been at school again, and we even got some home work to fill out before tomorrow! After the lesson we chilled out on our balcony drinking water and doing our homework with some music on. We also popped to the pharmacy and picked up some imodium and other drugs to make Nick better - he is feeling better today and seems to on the mend! We flicked through our PADI books reading odd bits then checked our plans for the next 2 weeks and where we were stopping - seems we are running a tight schedule. We have a flight from Singapore in 2 weeks, and during this time have 4 days diving course, plus we want to visit Ko Phi Phi, Penang, Kuala Lumpa and arrive in Singapore with some time to see it. With our homework done we got some sleep under the blow of our fan in the room.
Our next four days are gonig to be spent in Ko Tao on our course, we have to meet at the poolside tomorrow at 8am for some practice in the pool all morning, then back in the classroom in the afternoon, by day 3 we'll be in the pool again then out into the ocean. Day 4 we have more classroom and more ocean dives, plus our final exam. All to be reported on the next blog!
We are still having a blast and are very aware we are having the best days of our lives right now - despite Nick's illness! Hope you are all enjoying things back home as much! Keep the comments coming and keep in touch!
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Adam Gibson and Nick Burke
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Golden Oldies
non-member comment
One can only take so much
Hope your feeling better nick. Should have stuck with the "apple juice". Enjoy your diving course. And thanks for another good entry.