Full Moon Madness

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Oh my god I'm so rubbish at this blog thing...... but this is costing me 2baht a minute (TWO POUNDS PER HOUR! That's like my food budget for the day!!) so I'm going to tell you briefly about Ko Pha Ngan.

When I left you last I was suffering from a Changover. This are like hangovers but a lot worse. Because they've been caused by Chang. This is a horrible beer, DO NOT DRINK IT!! The boat journey was mostly spent asleep, so I was quite surprised when we got to Thong Sala port on KPN and it was pouring down with rain.... We jumped on a Songathew (the back of a pick-up, basically) and paid 100baht each (that's a ripoff round these parts) to go to our random little bungalows which were right by a lovely quiet beach. We met some cool Germans (there are a LOT of them about around here!) and pretty much spent the next few days chilling out.... by the afternoon of the 2nd day I had a very real concern that my legs where actually going to dissociate from my body through sheer apathy. You think I'm kidding - I'm not!! We really did not do much, except one day we went for a walk into the middle of the island, through pouring tropical rains, to find a waterfall. Rob looked like the man from Del Monte, I looked like Lara Croft, and Len looked like......... well he was rocking his brand new shorts and he looked hot. Until he fell over scrambling up the waterfall, then he looked silly. Then Rob fell over and got a bit muddy, I retained my dignity until right at the end of the walk, coming down a "nature trail" which was actually just the bits of jungle where there wasn't a tree. I was trying to make my way down not holding on so I probably deserved it.

Despite being amazingly tired we made it out that night, followed by a local dog who got in fights with all the other local dogs we passed, to find the reggae bar. We found it but it appeared to be closed, but they said we could come in anyway - we were a little confused and said "no no we'll come back later when you're open" and went to another bar to play pool (where we lost the dog), before returning to the still-closed rasta-haven, it soon became apparent that they were closed because they were moving premises and had no alcohol..... so they went out and bought us some rum and coke and we sat down with them and their cats listening to Thai reggae.... Len made one of them promise to teach him how to cook the next day, but when it came round to going up there it was FAR TOO HOT to do anything so we sat on our veranda doing nothing.

A couple more days passed. We left for another beach, well out of the way up the other side of the island - we had to go by 4x4 because the main road was an immensely steep sand-track. This because was called Ao Thong Nai Pan and was the best beach I've ever been on.... 5 of the Germans we'd been hanging out with joined us, and we spent some more days there doing..... you guessed it, nothing. Well, actually on the 2nd day I got stung by a jelly fish. It was horrible! I just felt this thing scrape across my ankle and the next thing i knew i was in burning agony on my leg! I went shooting out of the water like a jump-jet yelling "VINEGAR!!! VINEGAR!!!" and the ppl at reception went rocketing off along the beach to get some random plant leaves that they boiled up (with vinegar) and strapped to my leg. By this point I was starting to get really weird pins&needles all over and a weird feeling of nausea - not fun. We went on a trek to look for a pharmacist but there was no such thing in the hamlet we were staying in - so I just had to have green curry and rice instead (worked a treat!!). I was a little bit out of it for the rest of the day but some time in the hammock and some more thai food had me up & running again by the evening :-)

On the 19th, we jumped in a taxi at 10am (early morning!!) to go down to the south of the island in preparation for the Full Moon Party, only to find ourselves staying on an incredibly disappointing beach. It took us a while to realise that in fact it was a perfectly nice beach, just not in comparison.... what did it matter anyway, we were soon on the vodka (after a big fuss about sorting out my credit card that had been put on stop, screw you Barclays!!), on the guitar and videoing our rendition of "whistle for the choir" by the Fratellis - Len on guitar, me on vocals, both of us in the sea. Let me tell you, it's hilarious. sadly it's also 300meg and thus too big to be uploaded!! You'll just have to wait, but it's worth it.
We quietened down so the French Canadians next door could sleep, during which time Len customised a t shirt for me to wear to the party, and then the Canadians joined us, we found 2 more guys from London, had dinner and WENT TO THE PARTY, where we met the germans agian, wooohoo! And drank a lot, and danced a lot, and bought paint and painted a lot. IT all got a little bit hectic, I fell off some random platform at least once, possibly twice, and then lost Len & Rob & the girls, realised I'd lost my phone and got a little worried, found a random girl i recognised from a restaurant, she took pity on me and gave be a neon orange headband. It's the little things that show people care. After a couple of attempts I managed to get back up onto a platform and scanned the crowd for a few minutes until I finally saw Len and went running over, only for him to get really upset at me, at which point I burst into hysterically, heaving, dignity-losing sobs, ruining the lovely patterns Len had painted all over my face and having to be taken home. I maintain it was not the vodka, it was the Red Bull they have out here, which I've been informed since has some traces of some manner of amphetamine in.... gotta love Thailand.

The ensuing journey to Bangkok which totaled about 20 hours I mostly spent in a vague haze because I was asleep for all of it apart from the parts where we had to move between forms of transport or eat. We arrived in Bangkok at 5am, and waited round for a minibus to take Len to the airport, sad times :-( and then at about 2 Rob and I jumped on a bus for Trat, from where we headed into Cambodia. I will endeavour to write that account soon. Maybe there will even be pictures!!

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[Your Wife Dave]

This is a Local Shop
I WANT MORE ENTRIES. that is all. hope you are well. :o)