We started our trip with a painful attempt to get some sleep at the airport in Bangkok while waiting for our flight down to Samui. I swear someone must have designed these benches to prevent people sleeping on them. It was not a pleasant experience. PK and I tossed and turned for a few hours before finally checking in and getting on our way down to the islands.
I had had my fill of Samui on previous trips but PK was keen to see what the seediness had to offer before we went to the real fun at Phangan. Monsoon rains and massive power outages did nothing to detract from the awesome night out we had. The three of us (we were hanging out with an English girl we flew down with) were sprinting from pool bar to bucket shop and back for more drinks at the beach and loved every minute of it. 4 or 5 hours later we dragged our groggy selves out of bed in time for the 12pm pickup to the ferry. I say 'we' but unfortunately Becky didn't make it; she had found someone the night before that kept her from enjoying the few hours of sleep that PK and I had the luxury of having.
Arriving at Phangan it was a bit of marching around in the ridiculous heat and humidity looking for somewhere to stay (shortly before Full Moon is not the best time to have not made a booking) and then straight down to the beach. That is one of the things I love most about Phangan; the beach is so social; you just sort of wade around chatting to people from all over the world. We got talking to a couple of guys from Denmark (Christ and Peter) and that set the tone for the rest of our trip. Night after night we hit the Same Same bar which is run by Danes and absolutely full of the crazy bastards. Loved it. Night after night was a new event.
Night one was the body painting competition. I went for the more low-key approach which didn't go down too well. My Swedish flag got a lot more negative attention than one might expect. Danish Peter however, in a moment of Sangsom-inspired genius, ran upstairs with a couple of jars of paint and returned with the prize winning design; "Why so serious?" This however, was only the beginning of our run of luck.
The next right was quiz night. The two Danes and two Aussies formed team Aussie Rules - named so after we explained our version of football to the boys. The questions were not easy ones to say the least. How many people can name the capitals of Slovakia and The Democratic Republic of Congo? What was the score in the 1936 world cup and who won? Who played Davey Jones in Pirates of the Carribean? Even though we left 5 of 20 questions blank and were pretty damn unsure about a few others but some miracle we actually won! In total shock we screamed in unison "AUSSIE RULES!" as we marched up to the stage to collect our prize; a massive DIY bucket kit. From there the party had moved upstairs but we were determined to stay put until our prize was consumed. I have to admit we recruited the help of some nearby Swedes out of pure necessity.
From there we moved up to the sky bar to join the others where a game of Tombola was going around. The game is pretty simple. First you decide who is playing and what you're going to drink. The guy who runs the game works at the bar and he plays too. There is a bucket full of little rolled up raffle tickets with the numbers 1-200 written on them of all different colours. The person who goes first picks the colour and everyone who follows picks the same colour. The person who pulls the highest number has to buy everyone in the round the drink previous decided upon except for 200- if that number is pulled then the bar buys everyone double drinks. Understandably this is pretty rare. We all pulled out numbers and I looked at mine with a quiet smile on my face. Christian pulled 179 or something and said "damn, now I have to buy everyone a bucket!" but as he stood up to head over to the bar I said "wait a minute buddy" and showed him mine- 200 "Ooooooohhhh!!!!!!!" Two buckets for everyone and the bar pays!
The night went on to jumping on the back of moving trucks, diving out of the way of oncoming motorcycles, being attacked by horny Russian girls, having double stacked wrestling matches in a giant pool party and eventually watching the sunrise as I escorted a very mushroom-induced paranoia-suffering Irishman home as he was scared of dogs and there are stray dogs EVERYWHERE on Phangan. He was having the worst nightmare of his life while I was crying with laughter - mostly because everything he said sounded like Jimeoin. When I finally got him back to his room I introduced myself to his roommate: "Nice to meet you Nick, I'm Jay. Allen has taken a whole bunch of mushrooms, he's scared the dogs are after him and probably won't sleep for another 8 hours or so, good luck to you both" And proceeded home to get my 2 hours sleep for the day.
All this happened the night before the Full Moon Party. Peter in all his wisdom and planning didn't have time to go to the party and make it to his flight so had to leave that day. So it was just me and the Danish boys ripping it up. Same Same had organised 'Asia's Biggest Rock Band' and man did they rock. A bunch of us were rocking the chorus as the singer held the microphone down in the middle of us. So awesome. So awesome in fact that I didn't even make it to the party at the beach! Same Same was just too awesome. Did I mention that it was awesome? No wonder they call it the place where it all begins and never ends.The following night was a quiet one; a couple of beers and watching the England-Japan game. That was my much needed rest before moving on to Phi Phi for another week of craziness. More to come on those shenanigans later.
In all of this the one casualty was my camera; a bit of sand in the lens and now it's dead. She had a good run;- the better part of three years and she's served me well but it's time to retire her. So after part one of my huge bender all I have to show for it are these lousy t-shirts. (To be fair they are pretty awesome but considering my line of work they are completely useless in any practical sense.)
