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We had an amazingly chilled out afternoon kayaking to see the corner (Matt was very excited about the corner) with Lindsay (what a team! HA!), sunbathing on the deck and messing about on a big log, all attempting to stand up/ jump off at the same time and generally massively failing but having a proper giggle in the meantime. Apparently the showers weren't really anything to rave about so we did what any sensible, self respecting human beings would do and soaped up by the side of the river, jumping back in the (slightly green and dirty) water to wash ourselves 'clean' J. We spent our bungalow evening playing some slightly strange version of family fortunes that Alan had made up (massive flop- surely the whole point of FFs is that the top answers are obvious and the bottom ones are from the one mental person who was asked? Not all random weird ideas plucked from Alan's head?) and a much more successful few games of Flip Cup and articulate as well as listening to some mental Thai people doing karaoke!
The Thai people seemed to develop a bit of a dislike of Lindsay (maybe not dislike actually, but they found her hilarious and weren't shy to show it!) and followed her to the loo, watching as the decked path gave way below her and dropped her into the river and then absolutely peeing themselves laughing. She later caught a few others following her, just to see what funny thing she'd do next!
Next stop was Koh Phangang, via a very easy going ferry- we got stuck into the full moon spirit of the island with a bit of face painting at Same Same bar and headed off to the beach to boogie it up on tables with a bucket or two. On the whole, it was a very fun and pretty tame evening with only a few minor sillynesses, like being a worm on the beach and getting a very sandy face (that one was for you, team Quizzical!). At one point we lost Kate and despite spending a long time hunting, were not able to find her until much much later. I went home on a motor bike taxi with Ann repeating all the way 'I wouldn't be doing this sober'. Standard!
In the morning, after a whole 2 hours sleep and with a few members of the group (*cough cough Ann and Jade*) feeling a little under the weather, we set out on a snorkeling boat trip to a beach somewhere and on to a nice little waterfall for a much needed dip with our local guide who claimed to be called Peter Pan... At one point, during a snorkeling stop, Dave was attempting to get someone to take a picture of him snorkeling and I decided his picture would be a little lacking in obvious marine life. I did the only thing I could have done to help, and swam up behind him like a shark, slicing my foot open on some coral… that's probably karma I guess!
Our last day officially on Thaintro consisted of a little trip to an elephant trekking place, where we met some of the cutest and happiest baby monkeys who climbed on us like we were trees and were clearly just loving all the attention. One of the monkeys was (according to the guy who worked there) a lesbian monkey, as it was scared of men and would go nuts when they came close, sitting calmly on the lap of any women who came near (we were all slightly concerned it wouldn't know what we were and we'd be the first girl it thought was a boy!). Later on we all went back to town for a Thai massage- some people appeared to get lucky and be massaged by people who actually wanted to do their job well, but my lady was… let's say a little unenthusiastic- she spent the first 20 minutes just laid across my back…Ah well, it was free so surely it didn't matter that I was more stressed afterwards than before? We did a bit of full moon shopping and tarted ourselves up, 80s aerobics instructor style for a nice farewell meal in a respectable restaurant, complete with good luck lanterns to let off over the sea. When we'd finished the sensible part of the evening, we headed back to Same Same bar where I ended up painting almost everyone's faces (including one random stranger… as you do) and got another game of flip cup on the go. The actual full moon party was a giggle, as it was really busy and Dave had his break-dancing moves out in full force, though I guess it's fair to say they buckets may have got the better of me- on the way home, I remembered that eating would be a good idea, demanded someone help me buy a burger, then promptly changed my mind and gave it away to Kate before finally getting very confused and asked everyone where my burger had gone… messy! The planned pool day the following day was (for me at least) predictably a write-off as I spent the day feeling sorry for myself in my sweltering room (the boys had stolen our air conditioning remote- when I went in to see them, they said they hadn't seen it and then looked very sheepish and a bit confused when I moved the duvet to sit down, only to find 2 air conditioning remotes- theirs and mine!
We all decided that on the whole, we had a pretty good bunch and may aswell stick together, so on we went, following Alan's advide, to Koh Tao, minus a reservation for somewhere to stay… now in hindsight, this maybe was not the smartest move with 14 of us all in need of super cheap rooms… On the ferry, we got chatting to a guy who assured us that his amazing new hotel would be perfect and he proceeded to take us there in taxi trucks. If you've seen the Inbetweeners movie, you may be able to conjure up a fairly accurate image of what our 'brand new hotel' looked like (think the boys' accommodation)- it was really far from everything and when the man said 'new' what he really meant was 'half built'- Jade, Lindsay and I had a nice look around, exploring the half put together bathrooms and the bedrooms without beds, covering our mouths to avoid getting lung cancer from the fumes of all the debris and whatever being burnt outside. By the time we left, even the guy who worked there thought the whole situation was pretty funny and wanted to be in some of the pictures we took as a joke! What followed was one of my many accidental treks, this time with full luggage on back, plodding along down the beach, hunting for the cheap places to stay, HUNGRY! Bad times! We eventually found somewhere that boasted 'warm showers' and 'air' which by then seemed like a pretty good option! The next few days were spent chilling out on the beach and at lotus bar, failing to cope with the antics of the Koh Tao bar crawl and drinking pina coladas with Ann and Lindsay on the much more beautiful Nangyuan Island, where we all had various scabs ripped from our feet by piranha style scab eating fish! We headed back here for more foot mauling later with the whole gang and again had an accidental mini trek to the look-out point.
The morning brought with it a little enforced shoe shopping as my flip flips were snatched from outside the café where I sat, obliviously munching my way through probably way too much breakfast! We continued with a bit of Aladin trouser shopping and a quick dip in the sea (with a very grown up game of poo ball with Lindsay and a random local girl) followed by a way-too-public-and-totally-unnecessary shower outside the toilet block- before discovering the indoor shower(!) and on to Lotus Bar to exchange Secret Valentine presents. We said goodbye to the boys and got on our taxi to the ferry port to catch our overnight ferry to Surat Thani in order to get to Phi Phi. We happily waved goodbye to the kind old man who sold us our ferry tickets and ensured we had beds and air con, before reaching the boat to find that we did not in fact have beds, but were only allowed to sleep on a nice hard metal outside deck on magic carpets (flat roll out mats, very fitting with our new Aladin trousers!). I saw the funny side, while some others didn't, but didn't exactly manage to sleep so much, having accidentally chosen the place where the air conditioning unit was blowing the hot our out of the bed room, straight into my face. At one point, I managed a whole 20 minute sleep, waking up to find my head in a puddle (?!) and decided that doing a bit of night time boogying with my ipod was maybe a better idea. Getting off the boat, totally sleep deprived, we were greeted by a toothless, scary looking man who told me I was 'booteefoo' and turned out to be our taxi driver. He drove us (way way too many of us to fit in one tiny songtheaw thing) to another waiting station (to wait for the actual bus) after nearly nutting poor Ann with someone's bag as he shoved it into her face once the roof rack became full. We napped on the floor of the bus station before being picked up about 2 hours late by a minivan which was, again, way too small for all of us and our bags- a problem that they solved by piling the bags into every spare inch of space between the seats. The French lady I was sat next to (on the other side of the bus isle) obviously decided she didn't like this set up and every time I fell asleep, she'd push the pile of bags away from her, crushing my face between the window and the bag pile. Still, this was easier to sleep in than the ferry!
After arriving at Phi Phi harbor, again, without having booked accommodation, we were told that there were only a few rooms left on the island so we didn't really have much of a choice about where we stayed, we were conned into paying for 5 whole nights in an absolute dive! Ann and I hit the jackpot, with the smallest, smelliest room far from everyone else, down a dodgy little alleyway, with a shower that pumped out cold, yellow, rotten egg smelling water. Nice.
On our first full day in Phi Phi, Lindsay, Jade, Vicky and I rented kayaks (feeling all athletic and in need of a bit of actual activity) and kayaked pretty badly round the corner to Monkey Beach, which was a totally amazing move as Phi Phi's main beach is pretty grotty- they pump sewage into the sea, the beach is filthy etc. Not exactly paradise. Monkey Beach, on the other hand, is totally stunning- really deserted, with white sand and a whole heap of monkeys! We went over to have a look at the monkeys and watch silly tourists pose looking really scred and trying to act cool, next to them (haha!) and giggled at a girl who had her suncream stolen by one monkey, only for him to open it and squeeze it out from high up in a tree (I'm fairly sure he actually aimed it at her!). At one point, everyone got quite close and one mental older monkey (let's call him the monkey king) got a bit cross and started baring his teeth, hissing and then charging towards us- Lindsay shouted 'run' and ran towards the sea, in the hope that monkeys (esp king monkey) are scared of water?! This seemed to unsettle every single person on the whole beach, who swiftly turned and ran- Jade ran off fast down the beach, laughing a lot, Vicky homehow lost her bikini top and ran off with her boobs out, and I had a minor push fight with a random man as we both attempted to run towards the same spot. When everyone realised that the monkey king hadn't even actually chased us more than about a meter, we all felt a bit silly but it was very entertaining :)
By the time we'd kayaked back (which took a reeeeeeeeeeeeeally long time as we'd lost the use of our arms about halfway back by attempting to paddle against the tide) Vicky had a body full of 3rd degree sunburn and I had a nicely developing case of sunstroke- all good news when it means you can justify an aloe vera massage! Woo! It was actually amazing and restored my faith in massage people a little :) She didnt even get offended when I asked her not to pull and try to click my broken toe- result! The evening continued with a fire show and some drinks on the beach, which wierdly became thai rapping and the bar staff doing strange monkey like dancing on the stage (maybe to entice us up to join them? It didnt work, we were happy watching and laughing at them!)
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