Riiiiiiiight lazy so and so

Basically, I've been quite a lazy boy when it comes to updating this. This will not come as a suprise to family members. However, I have actually been quite busy and have been too concerned with enjoying myself to update this regularly. As a result I'm quite behind. I have a fair number of photos that I need to update the blog with as well, so I will get on the case soon!

Thailand DONE

Whilst sat here in a internet cafe in Melbourne surrounded by Koreans screeching at some ridiculously nerdy computer game, I thought I should really do a reflective little post on all things Thailand.

This was my first time to Asia and I can safely say that I will be returning at some point. Thailand was a HUGE amount of fun. The country is so diverse that one month wasn't near enough time and literally flew by. Bangkok will live long in the memory for its smells-good and bad, friendly people, cheap street food, massive shopping centres, culture, non-stop night life. Bangkok is a city that never sleeps and never ceases to amaze. One day I will return and give it the attention it deserves. (Hopefully not as a middle aged man having a mid life crisis and looking for a Thai bride)

The beaches and Islands were also ridiculously good. It's hard to do anything better than sitting on a white beach, eating an ice cream and looking at the stunning scenery. The islands also left us with so many stories to bring up later in life. Stories of near death experiences, full moon parties, monkeys, strange characters and much, much more. One day I will return to the Andaman coast and do the islands that I wasn't able to hit this time around.

Finally, in a real contrast to the other two areas of Thailand, we had the north. This was where we saw some of the more spectacular scenery and had the self proclaimed "Best Day Ever' in Pai on the mopeds. Elephants, cooking courses, chilling out with a few beers under a sky of lanterns floating off into the distance are things that I will always hold close. Soooo until we meet again Thailand, Asta La Vista.

Koh Phangan (Christmas)

Koh Phangan, Koh Phangan, Koh Phangan. After a 12 hour plus journey to get somewhere, you hope that it will live up to expectations. The 5 nights we had booked here definitely delivered. And some. I was really looking forward to this part of the trip as it's one of the top party destinations anywhere in the world. Also, we were going to be here over the Christmas period, a world away from the turkey, snow and crappy television of back home. (Although I must add I did miss family and friends) Awww that's enough of the soppy bollicks.

We stayed at Coral Bungalows, a place almost exclusively populated by British and Irish. This was good in a way as it meant that communicating was easy, but it would have been nice to have a bit more diversity. First night was a write off due to the late arrival time and us being knackered from the various boats, coaches and minibuses we used to get there. We basically just threw our stuff down, whacked on a Ricky Gervais podcast, did a bit of laughing and then slept. Our second day (23rd December) saw us do quite a bit of exploring of our surroundings, checked out the beach close to us and the beach where the full moon parties is held. We also stumbled across the biggest, most frightening ants I have ever seen. There was literally tens of thousands of them on the bannister across from our room. They didn't dare cross this imaginary border though and this meant that we spent a bit of time seeing whether ants like a variety of foodstuffs. They are not fans of mars bars which suprised us all. Anyway, back to the more interesting stuff.

That night saw us decide to head down to the pool party taking place in our hotel. We'd read a bit in Lonely Planet about them being well worth a look and my god it was. Tons of people were shipped in from surrounding hotels and the pool was packed full of people. After strolling down from our room and having a bucket to kick the night off, we quickly decided that we were all going in the pool. The alcohol obviously gave us a fair bit of misguided courage as we spent hours throwing ourselves into the pool. Dives, bellyflops, backflips. You name it, they were going down. At this point, I must say that looking back it is a miracle that us or someone else didn't kill someone. I escaped with just a rather large bump on my head after getting Tom and Rob to flip me in much too shallow water. Ouch. This I could live with, but what occurred next I could not. Just as I was planning on heading to the beach for a couple more, I got rugby tackled into the pool, along with my wallet and phone. This is a hilarious story for Rob as he continued walking and talking to what he thought was me, not realising that I was under water with my flipflop flying through the air. I was more worried about my flipflop than my phone to be fair, as during my trip to Thailand I had already kicked one over a wall by accident and then been forced to steal a girls pink one to get me back home, after losing another at a beach party. After this incident we wrapped up the night and I trudged off soaking wet. To this day, I do not know who rugby tackled me but they can rest assured that I will have my revenge. If you have seen the new Rambo, it will be something along those lines.











Christmas Eve saw Rob and Aun reunited,(awwwww)as she was in Koh Phangan for the full moon as well. This was good as Aun has lots of local knowledge, and she showed us a cool place a bit further down the beach which was really chilled out, with cushions on the beach in front of a big fire where you could eat and drink. Whilst in there we also came across the man who started the full moon parties, basically very few people know who he is and there's loads of mystery about when and how they started so this was quite a spot.

The eve of Christmas Eve saw us go to a warm up party at the beach. However, this was not until after we had a few buckets at Coral amongst one of the strangest human beings I have ever come across. The first thing to say about this fella was that we couldn't put an age on him. The age group at Coral was I'd say 18-35, but he seemed older. If someone held a gun to my head I would maybe have a stab at him being 38. He obviously loved the gym. We never saw him in a tshirt the whole time we were there. And I was actually staggered to see him in a vest at one point. We also only heard him speak once. Instead, he used to sit at a table and text, what I can only assume were all the women he has met around the world. He was quite a catch, looking a bit like a muscly beavis or butthead, we only ever saw him drunk, staggering around with a santa hat on. I miss him a lot.

Anyway, back to Xmas Eve. It will remain an infamous night with the three of us because of the vast amounts of carnage that took place. We all went missing at some point, due to the massive amount of people on the beach and the inebriated state we were in. All kinds of stuff went down, I got propositioned by a ladyboy (after approximately 1.5 seconds of thought I politely declined), we got covered in foam, Tom got a tattoo. We went on a late night drunken trip to a tattoo parlour, I drew one of the best tattoo designs the world has ever seen, only stopping short of getting it as I didn't have the money. Tom however, did have the money on him so got what I can only describe as a slightly bizarre tattoo for a 23 year old man. Check out his facebook! After making it back to Coral (I think on the back of a motorbike?) , we took some pics of a bloke asleep on a bench outside his room even though the door was clearly wide open and then got some zzzzzzz's.

















Christmas Day. My first away from home and one that will forever stay in my mind! It's very hard to explain how weird it is waking up to 30 odd degree heat, throwing on some shorts and heading to the beach. We had booked ourselves in for a Christmas dinner the day before at a pub in the centre of KP. This proved to be a MASSIVE mistake. It was quite literally the most frightening meal I have ever eaten. I didn't get turkey like I ordered. Instead I got the skin of a duck, no meat whatsoever, a gravy with soy sauce in it, couple of potatoes, rock hard carrots and a yorkshire. I'd rather have had a curry in fairness. However, I'm quite glad we had this experience as it was hilarious at the time. After this debacle, we strolled to the beach and did some sunbathing. Whilst we were down there, we were greeted by a team of middle age men that take volleyball wayyyyy too seriously. This was quite funny to watch because volleyball is a girls sport/soft pornography for men, and these guys genuinely thought they were athletes. Also, at the beach we saw the coolest guy I've ever seen. He was literally the colour of varnished mahogany and was wearing some black speedos. I'd put his age at 40-50, nationality definitely Italian and name probably Fabricio. He was the sort of man that ALL middle aged women have a crush on and is basically what I aspire to be when I'm older. The way he posed on his sun lounger was quite something.

That evening, we took a stroll down to the sunset bar I have mentioned previously and sat on the beach with our dinner. Big fire, sunset, some little nutcase Thai kids shooting fireworks and the lads, what more could you ask for? After a couple of Singha shaped liveners, we headed back to Coral to UV paint ourselves up and do some more drinking. With the ipod whacked on to get the party vibe going, we actually spent a long time sorting ourselves out for the evening. Aun, it turns out is a bit of a wizard with a paint brush so we generally just let her decorate our torso's. Making our way to the beach, we were pretty excited about what could possibly occur in the next few hours. After some initial panic, when we passed about 200 people, none of which were wearing uv paint and all who had clothes on, we soon blended into the scenery and got to work on some buckets. The night was another one filled with absolute mayhem. I fell off a chair twice, we fell out with a pro Canadian snowboarder dickhead, did lots of dancing, Rob went missing for quite a long time, leading Aun to believe that he was actually dead. It was heartbreaking/amusing to hear her calls of "Robby, Robby come back". I am unsure what time the others went home but I returned the next morning at midday. The reasons for which will forever be a mystery :)

















Our time in Koh Phangan was a massive highlight for me. We had a lot of fun messing about, enjoying the sun, ate some good food, drunk and enjoyed some of the best nightlife in the world, and had one of the more different christmas day's it is possible to have. I was quite sad to be leaving Koh Phangan as there was many sides of the island we didn't get to see in the short time we were there. On the other hand, I am glad I got to experience the fire, buckets, beach party, people walking around in bandages because they had fallen off motorbikes, chilled out sunset bar, crap christmas dinner, pool party and the rest. One day I reckon I'll be back.

Koh Lanta

Using the one sensible bone we have between the three of us, we decided to have a chilled out few days in between the 2 party stops in Phi Phi and Koh Phangan. I'm going to change the usual structure of my blog by starting with the best bit about Koh Lanta. THAI LEWIS. This fella was an absolute riot. We met him halfway through a horrible 3 hour boat journey without air conditioning, nursing horrible hangovers and feeling like death. Out of the darkness emerged the white loafer, oversized sunglasses clad god of a man. After spending a while doing the usual trying to get us into his accommodation, he got onto his favourite subject.. football.

Now you would expect that a man from a country with a very poor international team, not a single well known player, miles from any decent side in the world, wouldn't have much knowledge of the beautiful game. You would be VERY wrong. Lewis loves football more than Kerry Katona loves Iceland party food and clinging onto any semblance of fame. He spent a good 10 minutes running through all the teams in his head, this included such powerhouses as Forest Green Rovers, Altrincham and Dagenham and Redbridge. We were also blessed with a lecture on his favourite players, why he supports Man Utd and what position he plays for Koh Lanta Beach Resort (a very big team he assured us).

Lewis was definitely a brilliant hangover cure and bless him didn't speak brilliant English but was trying to learn it from his friend. We were in awe of this superb human being and so decided to stay at "his" resort. Interestingly, Lewis also referred to having a bar, football team and restaurant. Consider him the Thai Richard Branson.

The little resort we stayed at was pretty nice, made up of lots of little bungalows and only 50 m from the beach. The overall vibe of Koh Lanta was definitely laid back. The style of seating they go for here is basically cushions inside a raised wooden hut. This meant that the majority of our time was spent horizontal sipping lemon juices (remember this is our detox period!). As ever with Thailand the sea was well nice and warm and we often spent long periods playing a game Rob invented which involved laying dead still like a bit of driftwood and letting the sea keep washing you up onto the sand. The only minor drawback of the sea here, like the other places we had visited so far, was that you are constantly being stung by little bits of dead jellyfish. It doesn't hurt at all but it's a constant itch that you have to get used to.



Many of you (I'm still not sure if I'm writing this to many people outside of my immediate family!) will have noticed that me and food get on very well. I eat a lot, talk about it a lot and often plan my meals WAY in advance. Well, the food in Thailand is very, very good. However, on one occasion in Koh Lanta we were well and truly let down. Firstly, we broke one of our rules by going in the first restaurant we came across. Secondly, the food took absolutely ages to come, with the waiter disappearing for a while to talk to his mate on a motorbike. When it did come it was absolutely awful! A starter of mixed vegetable tempura was absolutely mental. The chef/couple of kids employed had managed to deepfry bits of onion, mushrooms, green beans pretty poorly and make them taste not very nice but he/they had also deepfried tomatoes. This absolutely blew my mind as I thought that surely a tomato would explode when dropped in hot oil. Needless to say it tasted like battery acid. The curries we requested also turned out to be soups, and literally when poured onto a plate, flooded the whole thing. Luckily, Lanta is pretty cheap and we weren't left too out of pocket by the worst food ever.

Unlike a lot of the other areas of Thailand, Lanta is not particularly commercial, or a 'party' island if you like. We found that this meant that there was a number of family resorts nearby and the general age of people in the area was older. This wasn't a problem during these 3 days as like I said we were basically recharging our batteries before the intensity of full moon and Koh Phangan. For me, recharging my batteries involved me getting properly addicted to Solitaire on my ipod and playing it for hours on the beach with some dubstep on. Not a bad life aye?

Phi Phi

The first thing I'm going to say about Phi Phi is that I was a retard and took no pictures. This was mainly due to the fact that we spent most of the day on the beach and then the nighttime drinking and watching people get KO'd at the Thai boxing.

However, being the William Wordsworth that I am, I will set the scene for y'all. Phi Phi was one of the worst hit places by the Tsunami and so it's still getting back on track in some respects. It basically consists of loads of narrow little hut lined streets and then bigger hostel/restaurant buildings as you get closer to the centre. The beaches were pretty nice, with a bevvy of Scandinavian women being a particular plus point. Those of you familiar with The Beach would have recognised some of the areas around Phi Phi. For those of you who aren't think white sand, blue sea and big cliffs.





So like I said, during the day it was relax on the beach, listen to an American cage fighter talk about what 'Entrance music' he wanted and do a bit of beach footy. Looking back, we all feel a bit stupid not taking any pictures but they would have been pretty plain anyway. For our first night we all decided that we would get busy with some buckets and make a proper night of it. First off we went to Tiger Bar which was alright as we got a free drink when we went in there and it has a loose Norwich connection through the owner being related to Phil Brown of clothing shop fame. We shared a few buckets in Tiger, and I maintain the portions were not equal because I was feeling a bit lightheaded at this point, definitely not the hardened drinker you all know and love! We strolled about a bit and got in another bar, watched some UFC and drunk some more. Then things started to go downhill for me. After befriending a young Swedish lady and being convinced to buy another bucket I was all over the place. Apparently, we wandered down to the beach to watch the fire jumping/absolute madness taking place. One minute I was with my mates, the next minute I was sat in the middle of a crowd on a deckchair with my head in my hands. They came over, asked if I was alright, got a groan from me, I was told to stay put and they would come back for me.

I'm not one for listening to instructions so I took it upon myself to go for a wander, when I somehow managed to bump into them again, I'm told I had a face full of sand and well let's say that my reputation for having a strong stomach is absolutely shattered! The boys say they were a bit worried about me disappearing, but I just tell them that if you have the speed of Usain Bolt, the agility of Colin Jackson and the strength of Sly Stallone, you wont go far wrong in this world. Night 1 COMPLETE.

The rest of our stay in Phi Phi followed a similar line, with the exception of the being embarrasingly drunk part. One of the highlights for me was going to a place called Reggae Bar each of the three evenings we were there and watching two mates, boys or girls get in the ring with protective gear on and try and Thai box each other out. Sometimes the results were absolutely hilarious, with one bout being a particular highlight. In one corner was this very cocky looking meathead listening to headphones, shadow boxing and trying to psyche himself up. In the other corner was a pretty normal looking Swede. In his corner was a boy Rob described as having "the face of computer programmer on the body of a weightlifter." The bout was a whitewash with Swedish Sam's flying kicks absolutely useless against a flurry of solid punches. It was a shame because the meathead looked like a right idiot and I wanted him to lose. The funny thing was that when we saw Swedish Sam later in the night it looked like he was getting dumped by his girlfriend. That night literally must have been the worse of his life!

Another notable mention has to go to a meal we had in a place called The Hungry Buffalo. Me, Tom and Rob opted for pretty sizeable BBQ burgers with fries, onion rings and salad. Just to give us abreak from the curries, noodles and rice. However, some madheads actually opt to go for this instead.....



Basically if you eat it within half hour then you don't have to pay. There's photos of those that have managed to complete it but trust me most have failed miserably. Including some absolute wideboy we nicknamed Burger Stan who we enjoyed seeing getting pummelled at Thai boxing the next evening.

All in all, Phi Phi was a pretty heavy 3 nights. A warm up if you like for what would happen to us in Koh Phangan over the Christmas period.

Railay

Whilst in Ao Nang we had done a quick journey to Railay on a longtail boat to see what it was like. I'd read a bit about it in Lonely Planet and it looked the perfect place for a trio of geeeeezers.

Railay had a nice chilled out vibe, with three main beach areas and huge cliffs surrounding it. I'd done some reading about the number of climbers that head here because the climbs are said to be amongst the very best in the world.

After having a nose through Lonely Planet we found the cheapest accommodation in Railay and decided to set up base here for three days. Whilst we are never paying massive amounts to stay in places, this was the first time we had gone for the cheapest option available. The hut/bungalows we stayed in were very basic and we got bitten by mosquitos but the location within a massive valley was pretty special.







After literally hurling our bags inside the hut and having our valuables put in a carrier bag, wrapped in masking tape and then thrown in a padlocked room, we headed off to get our beach on. On the way we bumped into this absolute nutcases. Some of you may know that I consider myself the natural successor to David Attenborough so I got busy...















I also saw a snake on our first day as we walked through a bit of wasteground, it was green and not massive but I'm glad it got out of the way before I had to. The beaches at Railay were all pretty nice, the one that we landed on was quite commercial though so we decided on hitting the other one.



The most amusing thing about this beach was that contained within a cave was a shrine to some Indian sea princess who allegedly was in the area hundreds of years ago. The shrine was the idea of fisherman hoping for this princess to grant them more fish. The way they went about trying to get this to happen was by making lots, and I mean hundreds of penises out of wood, painting them all sorts of colours and popping them in there with some pictures of nobs. Bizarre.

Our couple of evenings in Railay were spent chilling out and just having a couple of beers round the fire and such like. One of the weird things about Thailand is the number of Thai blokes here that love reggae, with a hell of a lot of them rocking dreads and just generally trying to look like they are from the Caribbean. This meant that there's a lot of reggae on the stereos, particularly in Railay. This was alright as it added to the relaxed nature of the place. A favourite bar of mine had to be "Skunk" with its entire playlist dedicated to songs about marijuana.

















My highlight of our trip to Railay was definitely the snorkelling trip we took from 2-8 on the second day. The plan was to hit 7 islands with something unique happening at each one. This was slightly messed up when the 2 Swedish girls realised 20 minutes into the trip that they had forgotten the snorkels. The longtail was sent back and the whole thing postponed slightly. Me, Rob and Tom were the only English onboard the boat of 15 and so we did the naughty schoolboy thing of laughing at some of the German people onboard. Before you have a go at our immaturity, a couple were very funny looking and rude to the Swedish girls also so we were justified.

We had 2 snorkel stops to kick off and these were wicked apart from everyone cutting a part of their body on some rocks. Saw LOADS of fish, some of which looked friendlier than others and I didn't drown. At one of the stops we were all handed bananas and told to take them into the water. Within seconds we were absolutely surrounded by thousands of these little fish that love bananas. They proper tickled as they tried to eat the bananas from your fingers and this was not something I've experienced or will experience every day!

Also included in the trip was dinner on the beach, with a sunset and a couple of beers (this was mainly for the couples and left us three feeling a little bit out of place), swimming under a cave and a very weird final stop where we jumped into the water in the pitch black only to see loads of light energy coming out of our hands/legs etc. Apparently this was caused by phosphorous. It was weird all the same.
This day/evening was another that will last long into the memory. Next stop Phi Phi.