We were dropped off at our hostel in Chaweng, Ko Samui by the taxi driver at about 6ish. It was a nice place right on the beach front, a beautiful beach may I add, rooms were decent, a good size and all for a cheap price. Villa were playing West Brom in about half an hour so everyone rushed around checking in and getting ready to go out. We went down to the main road looking for somewhere to watch the match, the first place we found was showing the West Ham game, we asked them to turn over but the West Ham fans were having none of it and we continued our search. As we carried on down the road it started to chuck it down so we ran into the first place we saw with a screen! It was in fact a fancy/expensive restaurant; however they obliged and put the Villa game on for us, just in time for kick-off, perfect. The beer there was ridiculously expensive, so after our first round we took it in turns to run over the shop and sneak some beers back in, the beers at the shop were about a quarter of the price! Also, we ate there so I don't think they were too fussed as we were not the most subtle with bringing the beers back in, it's hard when you have a bag of 8! Villa won 2-1, so everyone was happy - bar Chops, with his arrival we now had seven Villa fans and one Blues fan! James, Marc and Chops wanted to go out following the football, the rest of us decided to grab a few beers and go back to the hotel for a game of poker, which ended up going on till 4 in the morning with still no winner!

The next day Me, Sar, Jan, Dan and Stu chilled out on the beach and went for an explore, we initially intended to swim across to what seemed a close island that we could see. It wasn't, so we just had a long walk instead. We met an Ice cream seller on the beach whose selling technique was the funniest dance and singing I've ever seen, literally had us all rolling on the floor in laughter! J. That evening it was Birmingham City's turn to play so we agreed to go and watch the game with Chopsy. Before we left for the evening Sarah Skyped Anna and all of us Skyped Shaun which was nice, especially for me as I hadn't seen him for the best part of five months. We went to a nice bar to watch the Blues game and had cocktail after cocktail after cocktail! As they were on happy hour and were a bargain! After the game the boys all moved onto another bar but me and Sar decided to stay in as it was the Half Moon Party the next day and we knew it was going to be a long day on the sips!

Koh Phangan - The Half Moon Party/Janek's Birthday

The half moon party was being held the day before Janek's birthday so was a perfect way to celebrate. The half moon party (held in the jungle) was an alternative to the well known Full moon parties (which were held on the beach). The party was on an island called Koh Phangan, just north of where we were staying, most people travelled by boat over to Koh Phangan before the party, partied all night and then came back over to Koh Samui in the morning, as accommodation in Koh Phangan was very expensive! We were currently staying in the central area of Koh Samui and had to find somewhere to stay on the north of the island where the ferry left for Koh Phangan, Check out was at eleven and the boys were nowhere to be seen! They all managed to check out, even if they were all an hour late! Before we left the hotel, the lady on reception was saying that Dan still had one night's payment outstanding. Dan was absolutely adamant that he had settled his bill on the night we arrived, so they had a long drawn out dispute. Was very funny as an onlooker as Dan was still a bit drunk from the night before and was throwing his toys out the pram! Eventually the bill was settled, we had learnt on numerous occasions now that Thai people never back down from an argument, whether they were right or wrong!

We travelled over by ferry boat and arrived on the island at about 5pm. We went to a really chilled out cool bar for a bit of grub and a few pre party drinks. We started getting in to the swing of things when we had a round of 'strawpedos'! Everyone orders a Bacardi Breezer, you put a straw in the top and bend it down which enables you to down the whole bottle in a couple of seconds. Great fun and gets you hammered! We then went down to the beach for a few after pre drinks drinks! There was loads and loads of stalls selling buckets for next to nothing. Buckets were very popular in Thailand, you buy a little bucket, which contains a quarter bottle of spirit (usually Sangsom) a mixer and a can of red bull. They are a good laugh but again they get you pretty wasted! The guys from the stalls all try to entice you to buy from them with various bits and bobs (free shots, cheaper buckets, funny hats and stuff!) The stall that I bought my bucket from even poured tequila straight into my mouth from the bottle! Mullered!

We then moved on and got a taxi in to the jungle to the half moon party. The party was amazing, danced all night long. The group got split up but it was ok because there was so many of us it was fine and it was good because it got split down the middle in to a pair of fours. Me, Sarah, Stuart and Dan were still dancing when the sun came up with hundreds of other people in the jungle, very surreal but very very cool! :) We headed off at about 8:30am!!! but we couldn't find anywhere to get the boat, eventually we arranged a price with a local fisherman to catch a ride on his boat, very expensive but we didn't really have an alternative. While we were waiting for him to leave, Sarah and Dan went to the shop and whilst they were walking back to the boat, Dan received quite a bad dog bite to his leg. Apparently is was horrible because they didn't even hear the dog coming he just casually walked up behind Dan, no growl or anything and sank his teeth into his calf! Now this was very serious as majority of the dogs in Thailand were wild and probably carried the Rabies virus, but still carrying our drunk and tired heads we were yet to realise the severity of the situation. The boat was a fun journey back as it was just us on the boat. I fell asleep before we arrived at Ko Samui and apparently was a nightmare to wake up, they shouted me, threw water in my face all to no avail! So with Sarahs blessing Stu and Dan threw me in the Sea, I instantly woke up and was dancing around in the sea! :) We got back to the place we were staying and chilled out by the beach enjoying the lovely weather and Janeks Birthday. Finnaly after a sleep and going to get something to eat, through sober eyes we realised that Dan had to go and get the dog bite checked out at Hospital. Me and Sarah went with and asked the taxi driver to take us to the nearest hospital, we arrived after about half an hour. Walking in to the hospital I can honestly say it was the nicest building I have walked into! I made a comment I thought I had walked in to heaven! :) If anyone watched 'Lost' it was just like the hospital in that! Whilst speaking to the doctor we realised the full severity of the situation. He informed us that the mortality rate for untreated rabies attacks was 100% and the if he didn't get the jab within twenty four hours there would have been nothing they could do. Also, when I asked the doctor if many dogs on Ko Samui had rabies? He said almost all feral dogs had it, the dog that bit Dan was a stray! We were now very relieved that we made Dan come to the hospital! It had been about 12 hours since the dog bite so he would be fine. We then hit our next obstacle! The nurse came and informed us that the medication and treatment cost would be 58,000 baht, totalling just over £1200! Even being cover by insurance Dan was a bit wary to pay this much. It was then that the nurse informed us that if we wanted to get cheaper treatment we should go to the public hospital, we were unaware that we were in a private hospital and this explained the quality of it! Back in the taxi we got and before going to the public hospital, Dan had to grab his passport and bank card from the hotel, where we were staying was setback of the main roads and because of floods the taxi driver couldn't take all the way. We had to walk a short distance down the beach, on our way we were set upon by two nasty looking barking dogs! To say we were all absolutely petrified would be an understatement! Luckily we reached our hotel unscathed. Trying to get back to the taxi, there were now four or five rabid looking dogs on the beach waiting for us! So we thought no way! We went back to our place and woke the owner up and made him give us a lift back to the taxi! He was not very happy at all about being woke up and even he said he was very scared of the all the rabid dogs that hung around at night! We didn't care though and were just glad we were safe. After about a forty five minute drive we arrived at the public hospital, we anticipated that this was going to be nowhere near as nice as the public one but didn't expect it to be as bad as we about to find out! The place was dirty, very busy, disorganised, the nurses seemed very unconvincing with their knowledge and the worst thing was when they found Dan a bed, they wheeled in a young girl on a bed who was violently vomiting and just constantly screaming, she honestly sounded as if she was going to die there and then! And they didn't even pull the curtain across; this was all just about a metre in front of us. Very uncomfortable situation indeed. The nurses came over and were very rough and careless with their care for Dan's wound. They were rough and didn't listen when we said to take it easy but then with no warning at all the nurse pulled out a cotton bud and literally pushed it in Dan's puncture wound about an inch and wiggled around! Dan was proper shaking in pain, it was horrible! Next came the first of his five to have vaccinations, as Dan was still recovering from the cleaning of the wound I suggested his squeeze my hand to try and help with the pain whilst receiving the injection. As he did so, I felt something strange on my hand- I looked down and saw what I thought was Dan's finger, all pale and wrinkly until I saw its eyes and realised that in fact -a Gecko was actually on my hand! I almost jumped out of my skin! This obviously didn't help things with Dan having the injection! We returned to the hotel, this time making sure that the taxi driver took us right to the entrance of the bungalows we were staying, she was a bit reluctant as she basically had to drive through a small river (there had been quite bad flooding recently on Koh Samui) to get there but we assured her it would be fine, obviously with only our interests in mind! JWe made it! Crazy night over!

The next morning Me, Sar, Dan and Stu decided to get the first possible boat off Koh Samui as we didn't want to spend another night on the Rabid dog infested island! We needed to be in Bangkok in a couple of days to fly to Oz, so we decided to go to Surat Thani as it was about half way between Samui and Bangkok , just to break the journey up.