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helloooo to all of you back home (which basically means the halls and clearly buffers to add to the list of readers!) happy easter! hows it going at home??? sorry its been a few days since I've written on here - clearly koh phangan is just stupidly expensive (well in comparisson to everywhere else at least!) anyway... think last time I wrote it was the last night we had in ko samui - so plenty of beaching, mopeds so visiting various places around the coast, found a few secluded beaches, ate lots of yummy food (mum you would love the fruit here, and franch if I could I'd take you back a banana shake - they are yummy! have about 3 a day...!) since then we headed to koh phangan on tuesday - so basically got up, packed, bite to eat, off in a taxi to the pier there, and headed over to the other island which only took about an hour...
although because on friday (so basically yesterday!) it's full moon party which takes place every full moon in koh phangan - turns out it was a lot harder than we thought to find a place to stay! not only was full moon approaching when we got there but its easter too obviously - making it even harder to get a hostel... lucky we were there a few days ahead really! but we hopped into a taxi/truck thing with 6 other people, got dropped at a hostel on had rin beach (where the party takes place) and found a place to stay but it only had a room for 3 available for one night, so spent the rest of the afternoon looking along the beaches for a place to stay for the other 3 nights we were spending there that we could afford!
luckily jess and greg managed to reserve a bungalow on the hillside about 10 minutes from town, and about 5 from the place we were spending out first night - perfect! as it meant we could be sneaky and go back everyday to the beach and pool at the previous place! so we were fairly lazy first of all, chilled out in the sun, swam a little, got some food, had a look at town and took it easy - trouble was with the party that the whole islands transformed - just packed with people! each day more and more came in hope of finding somewhere nearby to stay so they didnt have to worry about the price of taxis etc to get to and from the main eating/drinking area - so we were actually really lucky to find a place like we did! spent the next 2 days doing much the same, went to a pool party the second night full of tossers and pissheads - good laugh all the same (involving plenty of people jumping in the pool throughout the night obviously!)
but after having spend 3 days there not doing much more than sleep, eat and lie in the sun, we went off on friday to the pier on had rin beach, and after coming across 6 people from chili (5 girls and a bloke) who had the same idea of travelling all round the island by boat and stopping off at some of the beaches that were more hidden, we got a guy with a long boat to take us on a trip! so headed off at about 11/12ish, stopped off on the way for half an hour here, an hour there - jess and greg did some snorkelling although didn't find much in the first place we stopped at, stopped off for drinks, was just great to be doing something different for the day! got back around 5 or 6ish all starving hungry by this point, so had a bite to eat before the night of drinking ahead of us, I gave matt a call, and we all headed back through town to our bungalow for showers and a LOT of neon paint! only cost a couple of quid for 6 pots of fluroescent paints - you'll have to see the photos to understand just how much of it we used... pretty much coverred our balcony with it all - leaving greg to scrub away on the floor before we went out in an attempt to clean it up!
literally 20,000 or more people were packed onto the beach, drinking from buckets (its the cheap way to drink when you're there - bottle of vodka/whisky/some other spirit along with a load of ice, some fruit juice or shark or whatever else takes your fancy - red bull is lethal here! supposedly girls are only allowed to have 2 a day they are that strong... dad probably knows a lot more than I do about why but anyway!
after a day of literally a couple of banana shakes and a meal at the end of it... half a bucket each and me and jess were definitely feeling the effects - cheapest night out ever! came across a load of the people we'd met on the taxi truck from the pier, some friends of theres etc, so just stayed with them drinking, checked out the rest of the beach just packed with people getting absolutely trolleyed! think it was about 3/4am when I headed back, spoke to matt briefly before making my way to the bungalow to satisfy my chocolate craving with the tiniest bar of cadburys you've ever seen! jess and greg stumbled in around 5ish for the interesting challenge of drunken showers to get the neon off our bodies... greg in particular since me and jess and pretty much attacked his whole body with the stuff!!!
got to say I'm still feeling pretty tired now, got up about 9.30ish yesterday, packed up the stuff I hadn't already packed before full moon, jess woke up too so we had a little chat, made sure I'd erased all the neon paint from my body before the days travel (trust me there was a fair bit of it around still!) and walked down the road to get some water and oreos for the trip and stop a taxi truck (which is basically just a car thingy with seats on the back...) so said bye to jess and greg who were going back to had rin beach to check out the wreck from the 20,000 on it the previous night...can't have been good! met a bloke on the truck who lives here most of the year doing thai boxing to make money - black eye on his face proved that! then waited at the pier for about an hour, met an australian who's doing a placement year in bangkok teaching, some californians who study here for a simester who were really lovely, hopped on the boat for a 3 hour trip (they played resident evil which with the loud sound effects made it mega hard to sleep! but got an hour or so of shut eye at least...!) then got to surat thani around 3ish, caught a bus to another pier point, waited there and got some munch before my 6'o'clock bus - met a girl who was off to cambodia, and a lady from australia who'd just spend 5 weeks travelling with her daughter who'd been away for 5 months or so... then at last the bus made it and some canadian bloke sat next to me who'd managed to have his passport, 20,000 baht (thats a LOT of money here!) and camera all stolen while drunk on one of the warm up parties on the beach a few nights back... not the best idea! did try sleeping but was hot then cold and uncomfortable and fidgetty - and just as I started to drift off by about 11.30pm they took a half hour stop! rubbish timing! but nevermind... so made it to bangkok this morning at about 4.30am, walked around dragging my bag behind me to ko san road, which was just dotted with prostitutes and 'ladyboys' around the street... lovely jubbly! even then people were still non stop pestering offering taxis! but kept pushing past and found another road not far from there with a hotel on it - all the hostels I checked out en route were either fully booked or had s***ty rooms with skanky shared bathrooms... and since I was there from 5am to 12 noon the next day I just wanted a nice bed and a shower so stuck with the hotel that actually had a room!!!
so it was only about 6am when I actually got to bed after sorting a room out an showering, then today went out for breaky, met a few other travellers from australia and germany, been for a swim on the rooftop pool (its pretty much the only place you can cram one in in bangkok!) and am here now rambling away as per!
but thought I might as well try and make up for my lack of emailing recently... sorry! hope that fills you all in on the last few days though - let me know how you all are and what you're up to, missing you all... but matts here in a day so uber excited about that! just taking it easy today, still really tired, but have done some laundry and kept busy - going to take a walk around in a bit me thinks!
happy easter again though! how was the trip to nigel and ali's? assuming that's where it was spent? ooh and hows the house looking too... bedroom going ok? carpets down? hope you're all great, lots and lots of love to you all
L O L & X's
xxx
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