Koh Samui & Ko Phangan

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The last few days have been quite interesting since we arrived into Koh Samui. We should have sent one of those floaty boats into the sea back in Phuket to send our bad luck away because the island along with 2 closer islands have had no electricity for the past 3 nights. Supposedly there was a major short circuit with the power line that connects mainland Thailand to the islands and this is not an easy fix because the main line is under water, deep in the sea bed. To make matters worse this is the part of our trip where we decided to stay in a hut like room that has its bathroom outside with nature staring on intensively. Shower is also out in the open so cleaning yourself at night in the dark is quite a task. But we can put up with not having light, the worst part of this blackout is not having air con at night. The fat guy in a sweet shop syndrome is back again and of course the more you sweat the more you get bitten by those pesky mosquitos. My legs at the moment look like a mouldy dalmation. Jane is freaked out by the creepy crawlies that wander round the hut at night. We've already managed to find a dinky car size beetle in her cig box and a man size cockroach taking a somersault into our bin (Good prep for Oz me thinks!).
Electricity aside, Koh Samui is a peaceful enough island. Many beaches and temples to see and thank god not a shopping mall in sight (I've seen enough of those). As we are staying about 8km from the main area we decided to rent a moped for a few days (Jane has already christened her Nollaig). At this point you need to bare in mind that I have never driven a moped / bike before but thought to myself it couldn't be that hard as its just accelerate and brake. I wasn't 1 min on the bike and I ended up crashing into a line of other bikes outside the hotel. Thank god the hotel owner is a nice guy and didn't think anything of it and gave me a quick overview in how to drive a moped. You can imagine Jane was a bit reluctant to get on the back after seeing me trash the place but after a few quick laps I had the hang of it. So we took Nollaig off to Chaweng beach which is the main tourist beach of the island. Also went up to Ma-Nem beach which has some temples around by the pier.
Thankfully the electricity came back on the final day before we left for Ko Phangan.
After a quick 45 min boat trip we arrived in Ko Phangan for 5 nights. This is the island famous for its full moon parties, half moon parties, quarter moon parties and black moon parties. Basically just parties on the beach every week. It's also famous for its buckets of booze. You can have vodka, whiskey or whatever floats your boat thrown in with whatever mixture tickles your fancy. We booked in a hotel about 15min walk from all the madness so we could get some sleep at night but still be within walking distance. It turns out that its mainly the full moon party that attracts the biggest crowd so it has been generally quiet for our stay. We don't mind this because these parties attract a messy young crowd who think they can drink these buckets like its milk but in fact end up passing out after one or two. There is a lot of stray dogs wandering about but most seem pretty docile which surprised us as we passed a dog one day down by the beach who pretty much had his balls hanging out and I mean out of his skin. Don't think I would be chilling out in the sun if someone had mutilated my balls.
Overall it's been a relaxing stopover on the south eastern islands of Thailand and we now head back to Singapore for 2 nights before jetting off to Oz. Malaysia and Thailand are fabulous countries to visit and I would recommend a trip if anyone is travelling this side of the world.

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