Tuesday 4th November…

After landing in Thailand at Surat Thani airport we got approached by a very fast talking Thai lady called Dao who worked for a company called Phantip, basically a group of Thai people herding the cattle that are each months incoming Full Moon Party seekers. She sold us all inclusive tickets for a round trip from the airport to Don Sak pier where we would get a ferry to Koh Samui and then a transfer from the pier on the island to our digs for the next few days. On the bus Dao continued her excellent fast paced sales skills and entertainingly and very kindly sorted us out with a few trips while we were on the island and our return journey in a few days time. If nothing else she was funny enough to help the hour long bus journey not feel so long haha! After a 1 ½ hour ferry journey and taxi transfer we finally arrived at our destination early evening. We grabbed a quick shower then headed to the nearby town of Chaweng to sample the local cuisine. After a short taxi ride in a wannabe Fast & Furious styley mobile we ended up at a food court ran by locals. The food was amazeballs! Lou had a whole fish in a dried red curry and Sam had shrimp in red curry both with an alcoholic beverage for less than a tenner…BOOM! We then wandered up and down the street sellers stalls of the night market, there were dogs everywhere, they looked a bit better looked after than the stray cats in Malaysia though! We bought a cocktail from one of the street sellers, they were not shy on measures…ooeerr! A little bit tipsy we ended up being ushered into Chaweng Stadium by a self confessed crazy Thai nun attempting to sell us tickets to tomorrow nights 'fight that will exceed all expectation' (little did we know that we would be brainwashed by this and many other boxing phrases…all will become clear later on). In her quest to make money out of us she was very touchy feely of Lou whilst reiterating the fact that she was crazy. Eventually we managed to escape to not long after be ushered into a tailors…omg these people are unreal! Sam had a tailored 100% cashmere Armani suit priced up for him with a tailored shirt and free tie for the equivalent of 150GBP which is an absolute bargain…just a shame we have over two weeks left of our travels and no spare room in our bags…if we weren't travelling I'm sure he'd have got one. By this time the combination of the heat, dehydration and that crazy strong cocktail had obviously got to our heads as we ended up in the red light district…the only explanation of course! It was hilarious, Thai hookers everywhere…in bars…up back alleys…all coming onto old barrel shaped white men bleurgh! After that little experience we ended up in a bar called The Loft, mainly because we were both bosting for a wee but hey, as we were there it would have been rude not to sample their buy one get one free cocktail offer! Whilst enjoying the ambience of the bar the roads were being bombarded with promoter's cars every thirty seconds or so promoting the fight we'd been told about by the crazy nun…arrgghhh! I mean we were interested in going to see a bit of Muay Thai boxing while we were in Thailand but this was just insane, after about an hour of listening to 'tomorrow night is fight night' and 'come and see the fight to exceed all expectation' practically on loop we'd had enough and headed back for a bit of peace and quiet before bed…good night all!

Early doors on Wednesday 5th November we had a quick breakfast before we headed off for a day at the Ang Thong National Park. We left at around 7.15am and headed for the pier where we boarded our boat to the park. We got a free second breakfast on board…SWEET…marmalade sandwich and a banana…not everyone's cup of tea but you certainly can't complain for free and the rate at which we are burning calories since we've been here we've been happy to get our hands on as much food as possible! On board the boat with us were people from various walks of life, one that particularly caught our attention was the worlds skinniest Chinese guy wearing floral leggings and a fanny pack that said 'suck f*** test repeat' in Sam's words what a twatfish! On approach the park looked amazing, we sat on the top deck of the boat for the last bit of the journey soaking up the beautiful Thai sunshine. At our first stop a gondola took us from the main boat to a beautiful beach. From here we trekked up a crazy rocky steep muddy slippy path to 150m where you could view some of the other islands at the park…stunning! After slipping and sliding our way back down the rugged trek we stripped down to our swim wear and cooled off in the clear waters…the Chinese guy wore proper dad pants to swim in…O…M…G! Back on the boat we scoffed down a yummy Thai buffet lunch cooked for us by the boat crew and headed to our second stop. Here a gondola took us to a beach lined with kayaks. We climbed on and paddled around one of the larger islands, through some caves it was such a giggle! We then climbed a total of 223 steps to the infamous green lagoon…what a picture! After marvelling at its beauty for a while we took the 223 steps back to the beach, well that's our glutes workout done for the week haha! At the beach we did a bit more snorkelling and fish hunting before enjoying an icecream on the beach while we dried off. On re-joining the boat peeps were jumping off boat from either the second or third storey. Sam headed to the third storey (around 6-7 metres high) and did a crazy somersault that from here on in will be referred to as the hundred dollar front flip! As Lou filmed from the boat and Sam filmed with his GoPro in hand he launched himself into a somersault and a half and face planted the water…oweey! Disorientated Sam climbed back aboard the boat with a nosebleed, a bit of double vision and a headache…he was a hurty lil bean! Fast forward three hours later, Sam's face looked like a mild version of John Merrick…his eyes looked like he'd been in the ring with Mike Tyson after three hours of swelling and bruising had come out and an attempt of blowing his nose had made his lower eyelid appear to almost explode! So off to a Thai hospital we went! It was some scary s***…a lot quicker than A & E in the UK but a lot less private, people were being treated and operated on for all to see! We were advised that he'd torn something in his sinuses causing an air leak and that there was nothing we could do other than for him to take anti inflammatories, rest and that it would go down in time...and no alcohol…LOL! With the Full Moon Party only 24 hours away it was apparent that Sam literally would do anything to get out of a drinking sesh haha! About 100 bucks later (hence the name hundred dollar front flip) we were on our way back with a very sad Doyle with a very big painful eye. We attempted some dinner but Sam was in pain even chewing the poor lil bean! So back to the room for a big big early night to get the injured one rested!

Thursday 6th November; from today Sam was rarely seen without sunglasses to cover his blowfish eye...he shall now be known as the real Sam Shady haha! Well today's plans had changed slightly after the previous day's occurrences. We were going to go diving at Koh Tao but based on Sam's additional facial airspace problem we figured it wasn't a very good idea. So instead after breakfast we headed to Chaweng centre again, this time to check out the beach rather than the local biatches. On the way Lou stopped at a Thai beauty parlour to get her nails re-done after her pre-travelling Shellac had been lost to the sea! A full manicure and Shellac colour for the equivalent of 8GBP bargain! While he was waiting Sam found a review for a restaurant called Dr Frogs which was a 5 minute walk from our hotel so we said we'd go there later that evening for a bit of grub as it sounded a welcome change from the converted garage local food which had become our recent regular delicacy. Afterwards we headed to the beach…wow…yet more beautiful white sands and warm, calm clear seas where we spent the next few hours chilling, sunbathing, swimming and being pestered to death by local Thai's trying to sell cheap goods. Lou caved and bought some bangles and some elepant shorts…she's a sucker for these hippie-esk backpacker styley gypsy/elepants! Just as we were lying there all chilled out came the sound of music from somewhere followed by the words 'tonight is fight night' OMG no! Not here too?! Yep they were advertising the boxing by speedboat too...arrgghhh! Late afternoon we headed back for showers and to get ourselves glammed up for the Full Moon Party…yes we did still go, the earlier remark about Sam getting out of a drinking sesh was obvs a joke! After a delicious meal at Dr Frogs (roasted duck creamy truffle sauce pasta for Sam and a rustic Italian pizza for Lou both accompanied by an alcoholic beverage to get us in the party spirit we were picked up by one of Dao's many trusty cattle herders and taken to the pier where we decorated each other in UV paint while we waited. We saw an Indian couple that were on our bus to Koh Samui and met a group of Aussies (who had a girl with them who also had a black eye) with a Californian tag along. We then boarded a speed boat to Koh Phangan, the streets were full of people ready to party, street stalls selling all things neon, food, beers, buckets of cocktails…it was mental! On Haad Rin beach there were different DJ's every couple of hundred metres, stages for dancing on, fairy lights, people selling Chinese lanterns, drinks and food all up and down the beach. Fire dancers and people skipping over a flaming ropes provided extra entertainment, it was like the craziest but friendliest international party ever! It was still super warm on the beach even though we were wearing beach wear and the busier it got it felt just as hot as being in a nightclub it was mad! We had such an amazing time, dancing the night away to a mix of dance, r 'n' b and pop, they even played a remix of cotton eyed joe and Sam and Lou got peeps doing the dance where you link onto someone and skip around in a circle. Two Thai girls loved it I don't think they'd ever seen it before haha! The normal bars along the beach were generally closed off but were charging you to use the toilets so as you can imagine people were just resorting to using the sea as a toilet niiiice! Many beers and cocktails and lots of dancing later we were done! So we started wandering back to the speed boat…en route we saw a French couple talking to the Californian dude who was sat on the floor, he was over the moon to see us, he'd spent his whole night since getting off the boat across asleep in the streets before even getting to the beach and hadn't seen his friends since before the boat ride across...and he'd lost his shoe...the French couple woke him up as they were concerned about him LOL so he tagged along with us for the journey back. The queues for the boat back were massive and it was only 1.50am, just imagine what they would have been like later! In the queue we were pestered into buying a really unappetising chicken burger. After what seemed like the longest speedboat and taxi journey EVER (even with a few cheeky snoozes thrown in there) we got back to the hotel around 3.30am and headed straight for bed!

Beep beep beep! OMG is it really 10am on Friday 7th November already?!?! We both woke up very hungover and had, to both of our disappointments, missed breakfast! Not what you need on a hangover! After the slowest packing up mission ever we started the epic journey back to Surat Thani airport…7 hours later we were on our flight to Bangkok…not the way you wanna spend a whole day hungover but hey ho…needs must! See you in Bangkok peeps!