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Ok, so this is long over due as I have been travelling for 3 weeks now and so far failed to write a blog of my shenanigans, so here it goes. Also if you are one of those anal grammer freaks, it is probably best you stop reading know, english has never been my forte.
It all started 3 weeks ago when I left home with only an air ticket to bangkok, no vaccinations, not a clue where I was going or what I was going to do and a very naive idea of what Thailand was like. I turned up at Newcastle airport with my big (actually gigantic) sports bag on wheels. I refused to have to carry the enormous amount of luggage I insisted on taking and figured pulling it around would be far easier, much to the amusement of many passers by, especially in conjunction with the bright pink nike back pack on my back, which I found at the bottom of my wardrobe and figured would save me having to buy one. Perfect. Anyways, I got to the airport all ready to go and fell at the first hurdle, only to be told by emirates that I needed a visa, and was unable to fly. After some confused looks and pretty migre attempts at convincing the check in lady I would be travelling in and out of Thailand therefore didn't need a visa, it worked and she gave me a fake return ticket imcase any thai officials stopped me, and off I went.
After a 26 hour journey, including a 9 hour stop over in Dubai airport where I met a rather annoying man who persisted in telling me all about his cousin who he voluntary married and his hamster Harry for the majority of the 9 hours, I finally arrived in Bangkok to meet a rather tanned Laura. (which brought on my next objective of becoming more tanned) We got a life threatening taxi ride to the city centre which consisted of a the taxi driver driver at 150km an hour, tailgating the car in front, no seatbelts, and reading papers/what ever he had around him to amuse himself for around 40minutes. This was a fairly acurate introduction to the safety of transport in Thailand, where they apparantly don't believe driver ability/speed/concentration etc has anything to do with crashing as it is purely down to fate and karma. Considering I am a pretty appauling passenger anyways, travelling has not been one of my favourite parts of the trip, and at times made me seriously consider why I chose a 'travelling' holiday.
Bangkok is a prety hectic place full of brightly coloured taxis (bright pink/yellow/green/blue) tuk tuks and ladyboys. We only stayed for a few days so I didn't see much of Bangkok as we planned on returning at the end of our trip to stock up on fake items, and tailored stuff etc, but we stayed on the khao san road, which seems to be the cetnre of tourist stuff and involved our first bar 'my bar' and first thai club 'the club' (suitably named) which had no thais what so ever and mainly australian boys.
We made our trip down to Ko tao, an island in southern thailand, which is good for doing PADI diving courses. Our trip combining of a potential gun hold up in Bangkok Train station where I lept to the floor quicker than linford christie on speed, an overnight sleeper train, an overnight stay in Chumphon due to thai transport's ability to be guarantee-ibly(?) late and finally a ferry to Koh Tao. We spent 5 days here while we did our diving course (with crystal and I def recommend them)and I realised my uncanny ability to float despite being weighed under with weights, and severe fear of any fish bigger than my finger. (Some of them bite, and it hurts) We rounded off koh tao with a trip to castle, an outdoor club located, in a castle, and some post night out swimming in the diving pool. Where we found an irish guy who managed to get all unflattering evidence on his underwater camera. (my mum is reading this so I am trying to keep this parent friendly)
Laura and I next travelled by boat across to koh phangan the home of the full moon party's which I once may have inadvertently suggested was based on the full moon nights at mission in Leeds. We met up with a guy we had met in bangkok and shared a delightful bright pink room on the Hat Rin Sunrise side of the island, right by the full moon party beach. I couldn't wait. We decided to do a tour of the EXTREMLY hilly island and hired motorcycles. Big mistake. Along with my general fear of travelling, massive cliffs and hills in combination with knock-off motorcycle breaks, this appears to be another, Laura even more so. After nominating myself to take the lead and decide on our route, I turned around after going down a rather frightfull road to see I was alone and the others had stopped at the top of the hill as Laura had looked down and been to scared to descend. I retreated from tackling the rest of the hill and went back up to meet her, and we decided we weren't cut out for all this malarky and to go back to the beach instead. However once we turned around the hill we were at the top of also had a jaw dropping decline on the other side and Laura decided she was unable to drive back and declared herself stuck on this remote hill. After calling the hire company and getting them to pick the bike up, and me driving back, we went back to our favourite past time of sleeping on the beach.
We went out to the full moon pre party that night where we were to disover true buckets. (not mission style) there are stalls everywhere you look selling a 200ml bottle of spirits with a perfect amount of mixer, in my opinion, to dilute it with amounting to a can of coke. After bartering some guy named 'charlie' down to 150 baht (about 3 pound) it seemed like a good deal.I went with smirnoff and Laura, Bacardi. Our drinks tasted exactly the same, and neither of bacardi or vodka, and only after realising that there was a thai man at the back of the stall filling each of the empty bottles up with sum unknown liquid. Whatever it was it gets you drunk and 2 buckets, very drunk. As well everyone stumbling around drinking the same drink, with music to suit every taste along the beach, especially my sophisticated preference of top 40, there are unbelievable fire dancers. Boys and slightly older boys dancing with fire, big skpping ropes on fire for people to jump in, limbo sticks on fire, slides with hoops at the end on fire, you get the ida. Its pretty surreal and I was completly mesmorised by it all. Apparantly though I found out its a scam where the fire people get paid by local doctors and clinics to do them as it sends an influx of burnt tourists to them. Netherless, I still couldn't stop watching all the people (mainly guys trying to out do each other) getting cremated.
The actual full moon party I don't really remember, apart from I made it to sunrise and left at 06.30.
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