Koh Samui

Its been some time since my last blog... I really must make notes as I've forgotten so much of what happened betwixt Bangkok and here.

A 15 hour bus journey brought me here, it was supposed to be 12 but then the bus drivers take you to their cousin's cafe for an hour. We watched Iron Man and The Happening before everyone else on the bus went to sleep. Iron Man is better than I remembered, but they did switch off the DVD as the credits rolled so everyone missed the end of the film, if you haven't seen it (in much the same way as Stark turns up in The Incredible Hulk) Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D appears to Iron Man. As an almost indie production, Marvel Studios really have come up trumps, finally creating the Marvel Universe or diegesis we've wanted to see since we were ten.
The Happening is truly a shite film, what's gone wrong with your brain M. Night Shyalaman?
You used to be my friend but now you offend me, what did I do to you to deserve this?

My first day on Koh Samui involved a long bus ride whereupon I met Dave, a nice Irish guy who's best friend is Steven Ireland, the Man City player who always gets into scrapes. After grabbing some shut -eye, I applied aloe vera to my sunburnt arms from the boat-ride and then more sunbathing on the beach.


By night, restaurants set chairs, tables, candles and fairy lights in the trees. It truly is heaven. And then there's the seafood. You rock up to a restaurant and choose what you want from a small boat filled with ice; lobster, blue crab, jumbo prawns almost as long as your forearm, you name it they've got it. The only thing that breaks the hypnotic sounds of the sea gently lapping the shore is the arthritic crack of my lobster claws.

I've been swimming further and braving the midday sun a little more each day.
Massages are a requisite of this country at between GBP3-4 for an hour.

On my second night I met a bunch of really nice Irish kids, about 8 girls and 2 boys, boy they can drink, I'm getting to old for this and had to leave them to it. The next night I hung out with and went to a party with two American law students. Much quieter and thats mainly what I've been up to: Withnailian/Bachannailian excess replaced with a few chilled beers of an evening.

One night, you forget the names of days here, I met up with Yana, a girl from travbuddy who was from Coolangatta. She was cool and we went for seafood on the beach. She's a hair and make-up artist and recently worked with Michelle Monaghan on Eagle Eye. She's gonna try and get me Michelle's number! We ate, chatted, had three drinks and then arrived at a club. I don't get why people want to go to clubs or loud bars until you wanna start dancing. You can't hear a word so end up not speaking, which I can only do for about ten minutes before I get bored. Nine minutes thirty seven seconds later I made my excuses and walked her some of the way home...

When I arrived last Tuesday, near my guest house lay an empty shell of a building. Without concrete mixers or scaffolding by Saturday this empty shell was a fully functioning McDonalds which pumps out Gorillaz and S Club 7 in the afternoons. Which got me thinking - if it takes some Thai guys five days to build and decorate a McDonalds, why did it take seven months to renovate my house after the flood?

Speaking of which, I've just had an e-mail from my ex-girlfriend saying she feels as though I have "really left her in the shit with this house" Perhaps she should have thought of that before she walked out on me. I found it hurtful, tactless and incredibly ironic in equal measure.

What would Buddha make of McDonalds or for that matter Coca Cola? Well I know for a fact he doesn't approve of the latter because he drinks strawberry Fanta. Or at least the locals think so as every small statue temple is littered with offerings of the sickly stuff.


Saturday evening brought about the Full Moon party, which I went to with two gals from London. They had been travelling together for ages and welcomed someone new to talk to. I was in two minds as whether to go, I hate techno music and it all seemed a bit of a palava... We sat at the bar watching hundreds of bucketed-up Australians get on boats and disappear into the darkness like cheese-lovers watching the deli-counter number slowly approach our numbers... Two hours twenty minutes and three Tiger beers after our boat was meant to depart, we got on our boat. My number was 613. Great! Number 13. Why am I, the non-swimmer always the only one without a life jacket?

A walk through the grotty town in which every household had become a bucket-selling stall led us to the beach. It was like V Festival on a beach, hundreds of day-glow tattooed idiots listening to music I don't much care for. I found a balcony bar which gave panoramic views of the throng which was playing Michael Jackson; I liked it, Liz liked it but Jen wanted to explore...

After being bitten on the arm by an English girl as I walked past her (its okay the girls said rabies does not travel through T-shirts and they are teachers) we found some places to dance where we weren't elbowed by every Tom, Dick and Minty. Then I saw Tara and Louise, The Girl That Nearly Ruined My Holiday by spilling those drinks over my phone. I lost the teachers and we moved from sound system to sound system, bar to bar until 5 a.m. Tara and I even finding some Motown. This wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. I had only heard the song that goes "Engine, Engine Number 9... If I fall down off the track, pack it up, pack it up, pack it up" and the ghastly remix of Jump Around fifteen times that night.

Some Hooray Henry came and asked what on earth I was doing there as I was "at least thirty-five" and as if by magic, his lame R' n B' was replaced by the very next song. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" I don't need to explain the rest, but its amazing what a shot of Grunge-fuelled adrenaline and a sup from Louise's red bull and vodka bucket can do... who was the old man now, eh?

So like I said, it was 5 a.m. My boat was due to leave at 2.00 and realising this, my homing beacon kicked in. The queue for the boat was six thick and eighty long. Well, at least three hundred people, this would take about 12 boats and I'd still be there at midday with a hangover.
Becoming my Grandfather, the Sergeant Major I began rallying troops to hire a taxi-boat back to Koh Samui. After lots of haggling, which they would not budge from myself, some English guys, a melancholic Irish girl, some yanks and a beautiful Israeli girl set off. The taxi boat was a long wooden boat with an outboard motor and seemingly the branch of a tree as a rudder.

Forty five freezing, soaked minutes later, and I mean soaked; from head to toe - thank God I didn't take my iPhone! We arrived on the shore of our island, and as everyone climbed off the ladder I jumped, my last cigarette in its box in my hands, to the sound of "careful its deeper than it looks" I landed with aplomb and the grace of a vaulter. Then my flip flops slipped and I fell backwards, throwing my cigarettes onto the beach in the process.

I was even wetter than before, at least the sea was warmer but Jesus Jones, where were we?
We specified Koh Samui but not where, a bit like saying "London please" to a black cab driver.
The only option was a cab to Chaweng. 400 sopping wet baht - six quid. Not bad I suppose seeing as that wouldn't get you from Chiswick to Shepherd's Bush. All I wanted was a cigarette and my bed.

Earlier that night before the party I somehow recognised a guy from the year above me at The Blue School. We arranged to meet the next night to watch the footy and did. The Viking Bar is the cheapest place they know, GBP1.50 for three Chang beers, which is even more badly brewed than Fiji Bitter in so much as you don't know if you'll get a 2% bottle or a 7% bottle, its a lucky dip. Gareth and his mate Kev, who is 46 and I watched the Chelsea and Man Utd games, laughing about people we went to school with and lamenting the news of those that had died.

Gareth wasn't very well, so went home early so Kev and I had a few more beers.
Chang unfortunately, but it was really nice to not have to talk about the same things to new people every night; what you do for a living, what brought you here, same jokes, where you're headed etc.

Speaking of which, I'm going to try to head to Anak Krakatau as on the 26/27th August it will be 125 years to the day since Krakatoa blew its top with the force of 13,000 Hiroshimas. I think that would be a good day to climb it, even though the USGS advise not travelling within 3km of the island...

Wish me luck, and don't tell my mum!