from laos to thailand - photos at last!

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o lordy - its been such a long time since i blogged that i am gonna try and do it in a short way. hmmm. this really is skipping through and picking out the main bits!!!

so i got to bangkok, but a day later than i wanted to as the train was fully booked, so i missed meeting with my brother. i waited for 3 days in bangkok for heath, jamie and his swedish girlfriend, and kate to arrive to meet me there. i managed to sneak my way into D&D hotel swimming pool for one whole day and sunbathed, read and used their pool, then the next day tried again and they chucked me out for not being a customer of the hotel. i slinked off and sneaked onto their rooftop sundeck instead and sunbathed there all day - very hot with no pool! but i got some sort of self satisfaction for still using their facilities!

met a couple of weird people, nothing really worth mentioning, then heath was the first to turn up and we spent an evening with some people we met at the place we stayed at. james from oxford, and his friend and an american lady Ruby, and we met lots of other people too.

anyway, then jamie and his g/f arrived and we had a couple of good days and nights generally playing about in bangkok with them and other people we met, also john from don det in laos and various others. we went danced in a night club one night til 2am, we all then went back to our guesthouse and everyone conked out - except i decided i was going out again as hadnt finished partying! i had already fell over and scraped my knees by this point! i went off out again and found a bar open on koh san road, played pool with some people, drank some sang som and had breakfast in burger king with some randoms at 6.30am! got back around 7am - everyone else still asleep! tee hee.

then kate joined us, i waited an extra day as she had been to cambodia with neil, while they were there they travelled a bit with matthew and stefan - a couple of mates they had made, but stefan had taken some drugs in phnom penh (in cambodia) and had died from them!! extreme hey!!! so kate was a bit traumatised and we stayed to see that she was ok. that day, christel also turned up in bankok as she was doing a visa run! so it was great to see her too! me kate and christel went to the hairdressers and had all our hair done! we had a good day, and kate was ok.

so then the next day me and heath set off for koh phangan. jamie is going to india for 6 months so it was a bugger to leave him, as i love him to bits and will really miss him. he is our best mate!!!! will see him again for sure!! long may the jamma rule in india!

7th April
heath and i got 6pm bus to phangan, and stayed a couple of nights at the house. we rented bikes and i was taking him to haad khom to do the bottle beach trek, however, the rollercoaster of death got the better of me and i came off my bike. me and christel had done it before but this time i came off and bloodied up my arm, hand and knees, and back of my shoulder and scratched up the bike. we drove home to clean me up and i decided we would still trek, but do koh ra (highest point on island 627 metres) so we went and did that! we actually got up there in one hour! it takes around 2 hours normally!!! i wasnt feeling the pain yet, i think it must have been the adrenalin or something as the next day my arm swelled up, and knee and it all really started to hurt!

so then heath moved on to baan thai and i got a taxi up and stayed in haad rin for a night as i didnt fancy staying in the house on my own in lots of pain! my plan was simple but effective - i managed on tramadol (strong painkillers from the vets!), some valium (purchased at any pharmacy here!) and lots of sang som! this got me through the pain and i danced on the beach at haad rin and bunked down with some people i met there, til the girls all came back the next day!! then it was - christel, kate, me, shay, emma and siobhan (emmas mate) in the house for a few days! then neil joined us too on 19th and it was a very busy house!!! we had a full moon party, and a few people from laos came for that too who we managed to catch up with.

i had felt really down after the accident and stuff so i was really glad to have my friends back with me and we made plans for the full moon party.

Forgot to mention Half moon party and Songkran - oops! adding this bit in!

So Half moon party wa 11th April (or very close to), again, i had to dose myself up in order to dance and play without my sore bits hampering my disco moves. Met a lovely guy, Jay - and we danced and then were very bad cus we drove our bikes back to Seaflower resort in Seethanu. Maybe a half hour or so, really great resort and far posher than we can afford to stay in ha ha!

so Songran is the next bit i forgot to mention in my hasty blog - its the thai new year and is totally bonkers. everyone basically chucks water at everyone else in the streets, and covers you in flour and sometimes red paint. this must have been 13th, jay and i drove our bikes from seethanu to our house at thong sala and got annihilated by the thais. it was really really funny. they seemed to get me in particular, probably cus i was screaming like a banshee and having loads of fun with it, i got covered and flour and red stuff slapped in all my road rash - i cant believe i havent gone septic. my amazing powers of recovery have been tested to the max. the girls were all tooled up with big semi automatic water-shotguns! they were creating havoc in thong sala and joining in with the thais, there was a great atmosphere and i recommend everyone to be in thailand during songkran, its hilarious and you cannot fail to enjoy it.

so then on 14th, i worked at PAC again, to cover for Lisa (current vet nurse) being off, and had a great time being back at PAC. i did some more days there too and loved being back. they are moving premises soon so theres a lot of stuff to be packed up now and moved. sheena is working hard and doing really well by the look of it, she will be a great manager for PAC. i was very disappointed that Tiny had been put to sleep and shed a few tears over her. i will say no more on this subject. Jay popped in to see the clinic too which was nice.

Neil arrived on the first ferry on 19th, so after a crazy night in Haad Rin on 18th, i was very impressed with myself for managing to get up after hardly any sleep and being at the ferry pier to pick him up on my bike! i actually was an hour early at 7.30am which was really annoying. anyway, just in time to join us for full moon party on 20th!

we dressed up again - this time devils and angels! there were 3 devils (me, shay, kate) and satan (neil) and 3 angels, (emma christel and siobhan). we bought more material and made our own costumes again. just check out the pics! we had a great full moon party, sheena and carly came too which was great.

we went to midnight cafe, where we had been frequenting lately - newly opened by a great young english lad, joe, we handed out some fliers for him and danced in the street - dragging people into the bar! it was soooooooooo much fun, we danced for hours and loads of people took our pictures. the costumes went down very well!

after a couple of hours, me christel and shay went to sheesha bar and got a sheesha bong, but on the way we lost the others! so we partied on the beach and sometime during the early hours i found myself at reggae bar dancing with a bunch of thai rastas! we eventually all became seperated! after sun up, i was looking at the dawn and eating a corn on the cob just at the edge of the sea, then saw micheil - dutch guy from bowling in vang vieng! he thought he was in there, so i made a beeline for Lar's bungalow on the beach - Lar is Shay's mate from canada and he was staying right on the beach, he was on his balcony so i sat with him around 6am for an hour and managed to ditch the dutch guy! then i wandered off and bumped into (welsh) laura (from laos) and her boyfriend - was brilliant as i really liked these two, so we had a chat for a while, and then i bumped into heath, then eventually went home. i had 2 hours kip before shay got home at 11am, then we all sort of got up again and we were all hanging so we decided we were going to chill out all day at jumunjy bar and watch movies in their air con cinema! kate, neil, shay, me, christel, emma and siobhan all went and watched 2 films and the full moon dvd! i remember we watched return of the jedi and then Death at a funeral! we were there all day, and after - we went back to the house, and neil, kate, shay and i decided we were going back to haad rin to party! we ended up back at drop in bar on the beach and had buckets! we danced til around 4am and had a great night. met more people from laos, and irish guy from bangkok that me and heath had met!!! shay had had no sleep at all - legend, and i had had 2 hours!!! not sure how we did it but it was great. we stumbled back to kate and neils bungalow they had rented in haad rin and we all bunked down in there. me and shay kipped in together but were so tired we just slept in a coma!!! was brilliant!

(full moon party was 20th april)

so on 24th april, me and emma, siobhan and shay went to koh samui to go to the immigration office for a visa extension for shay and to shop for the day. emma and siobhan were staying over but me and shay were going to get the 5pm ferry back home. however, we had a minging day - it rained really badly, torrential - we had a spate of bad weather, was like rainy season again! the taxis were really expensive so me and shay hired a motorbike which was a bad idea cus then it really started to pour!!!

shay and i went the long way round the main road going all round the island, and were only wearing little summer clothes. i drove to shays amazement as she couldnt even see with the rain going in her eyes. she asked how i could it, i said "im english!" - hey - rain and england - what more can i say.

anyhoo - by the time we got to the immigration office we ran out of time to take the bike back to the other side of the island and get back in time for the ferry home. we were so cold and wet it was ridiculous, we bought plastic macs for 20 baats, which are like wearing a thin plastic bag! we found a bungalow and i had a hot shower to warm up but couldnt bear to put my cold wet dress on again, so i went out in the towel and the johnny mac! we went and bought fishermans pants and vest tops and ate some dinner! this was around 6pm but where we were there was nothing to do, so we decided to ditch the bungalow and drive up to mae nam pier, where there was more going on. we took the towel back and left the key on the porch and drove off again. we found the place and then found a nice english man in the 7/11 who told us of a cheap place to stay by the pier! it was only 300 baat a night and we had a big bed and our own bathroom - bargain! we checked in and went to look for the party! we found a girly bar, and had the most fun night with the bar girls - we played pool with them and danced, and one of the lady boys too, we had so much fun, we bought 2 of the girls sang som with our own, and we ended up rather drunk - and dragged in some poor lad from bristol who was on his way home! we had a pretty late night, and i even managed to drive us back up the dirt track to our place on the bike! shay told me i was ok to drive ha ha! she's as nuts as me. it was only up a dirt track and a little hill, i managed it but dont know how!

i also forgot to mention that one of the bar girls was eating a bag of snacky stuff, i asked her what it was and it turned out to be a bag of red ants!!! she offered them to me - and i thought it was about time i tried them as i usually get totally grossed out. after a few sang soms it seemed it would be rude not to. i had a big pinch of em and chowed down. then i had another 2 big pinches and ate those as well! im so gross. then i spent an hour picking ant legs out of my teeth!! eeeeuuuuww.

next day we ferried back to phangan, it was still pouring with rain, and a lad came over to me and said - remember me from don det (laos!) - so once again we bumped into someone else we met from laos. very funny.

anyway, we got back to phangan, and then kate and neil left for koh tao to do a dive couse, and emma and siobhan went too, so me and shay decided to go too! i caught the ferry over with james who we met in bangkok as he happened to be going too. james and i went straight to the irish bar and had some cider! shay and lar were there to meet me off the ferry but i didnt realise, so she called and then they joined us in the pub for a quick drink and we had guinness and ale pies and mashed potatoes dinners! then i checked into a bungalow and we went out for lar's last night before going back to canada. it was a good night out and a very late one! shay came and moved in with me the next night and we spent a few days on koh tao, we met up with emma, siobhan, kate and neil in the bars, but after a couple of days got a bit bored and returned to phangan. im going to overstay my visa for 3 days or so, as there is a party on at jumunjy here, which shay and i want to go to, as we LOVE jumunjy and T and the rest of them there, T wants us to dress up so we may get devilish again!

the ferry back to phangan was a tad stressful, first of all shay got ripped off big time by the bike rental place, they accused her of damaging the wheel rim, which was bullshit (a not uncommon occurrence here) and charged her nearly 5,000 baat for repairs. we had 10 mins to get the ferry and we didnt have the tickets yet either so didnt have much choice and she had to pay. then we ran to the wrong pier, and were told to go to the far pier, we had to jump over a stream with a big blue pipe running through it across it, which we had trouble getting over. i managed to fall in the stream and couldnt get up due to my big heavy backpack - my knees wouldnt work for some reason! shay had to drag me up, we were knackered and just managed to get on the ferry, i was wet and covered in sand and we were hungry and shaky! wot a pair of spazzes.

then shay leaves for canada and i will go on to malaysia. well, thats the plan for now. i will add pics later as i am having probs with my memory card and will get some from shay!!!!

1st May
oops, another bit to add - me and shay went to haad rin last night, went to Moonlight Cafe to see Joe, danced on beach and drank buckets - lost Shay, she got home 9am this morning and i got home 1.30 pm to find she had been robbed. Money and bank cards. wot a bugger. nightmare. she is ok tho, rocking on for tonights party at Jumungy.

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Photos

soaked on bike in samui
me and shay, cold and wet from mad rain

towel and johnny mac
was soooo cold and wet, had hot shower and had to go out like this to buy new clothes! samui

our night out in girly bar on samui
me and shay with the bar girls!