I apologise in advance, this blog is not the most organised, I uploaded it 4 months late, tried to fill in gaps.

16/05/13

Bangkok, you crazy!

--Two days later--

18/05/13

What, the fuuuuuuuuuuuuck! I have 2 hours before I have to be downstairs to met the group and start ThaIntro, but my god, what a f***ing intro I've had already! As my status on facebook said; "My first 12 hours in Bangkok and I'd eaten street food, got offered sex - by a fat Thai man, had a Thai massage (not related to the previous one), ate a fried scorpion and drank with strangers until the early hours. Bangkok, you crazyyy." - And that is bang (kok) on! I'll start over though, as not to confuse... I arrived at the airport after the casual 12 hour flights/transfers from Muscat to Bangkok. The flight was on time and because I checked in online, so natuarally, I chose a seat near the front of the plane so I could get off first. I got off the plane in record time and got through immigration and customs no problem. My passport is getting more stamps than my hand on a night out in Cardiff! When I got through customs, I had directions to move to the meeting point and meet 'Sam' our tour guide, who would be wearing a flurescent tank top. Now, looking at the history of tour guides, and their choice in tops, it would be obvious if this person was a guy right? Wrong. In true Thai fashion, he was a she. But he/she wasn't there to meet me, so when I got to the meeting point to see no girl or boy wearing a ThaIntro tank top, I went to the shop, bought some water and with the change, phoned her. This was when I realised 'Sam' was a girl. She answered the phone and walked around the corner and met me. We grabbed a cab to the hostel and on the way she explained everything I needed to know about the week, the culture and customs, nights which will be heavy and the activities which we'll be doing each day. This got me excited and when we got to the hostel, she offered to take me out to the main strip an grab some street food to get my bearings. We did this, after the obligutary shower and freshen up, and met downstairs 20 minutes later. She took me out for a walk and I experienced Bangkok for the first Thaime. She left me after food and let me explore by myself, I got lost, saw some interesting stuff and found my way again. I got back at about 5pm. After this, I went and got changed, freshened up (again), updated the entry before this, and headed out. This is when s*** got real. Sam had said that people were meeting downstairs from the group that started 2 days ago and that I'm welcome to join and get to know them cus they'll be at Koh Phangan the night of the full moon pary when we're there. But! I didn't know what time this food was and presumed it was pretty early, so by the time 7pm came, I was pretty hungry and headed out. I was walking Bangkok by myself and despite the warnings, I felt pretty comfortable. These warnings are clearly aimed at people who have never travelled anywhere before! I was more travel-wise, knew the deal, I felt like I could go to the other end of Bangkok and find my way back! But, I was afterall, by myself. So I stopped at a bar with a live acoustic act and had some grub. I haven't mentioned anything about the prices yet, so 1 THB = 2p. I got a meal (in a restaurant) and a 660ml beer for 160THB. I love Thailand. After I paid the bill, I waited for my change. And that is when change happened. You see, whilst I was eating my meal I was eyeying up a group of what seemed like brits, just a few tables away, toying with the idea of asking if I could join them. But whilst I was awaiting my change, Rach approached me and asked a) If I was travelling alone, and b) If I wanted to join them. Both answers being Yes, I joined Rach, Dani and Pascal, the German. 2 British girls who went to Sexey's School, Bruton! Near Yeovil! Crazy small world! Pascal was from Berlin and despite stereotypes, the rest of the night proved he could not handle his beer. We were finishing our drinks and the sellers came around, spinny things, shiny things, but most interestingly; Fried Scorpions. I can't remember who said 'I want to try one' first, but we all bought one, I tried my bit at haggling and landed them for 40thb each instead of 40. I was the only one to eat a whole one, first the claws and legs, then the tail, finally the body. It tasted like pork crackling, but softer. An interesting experience to say the least and one I would share with others later. We left, and went to a bar above the street, almost a roof bar, but not quite, it had a nice view of the street and decent drinks. This is when the girls left us, leaving me and Pascal alone to drink and entertain ourselves. We moved on to the Irish bar on the strip and bought a tower of beer, 3.5litres for 500thb, but as I said earlier, he didn't seem to handle his beer like you'd expect a German to and he left with about a litre left in the pot. I moved over to 3 guys on the table near us and drank with them, coincidently; 2 Germans and 1 Swiss. I drank with them until we finished our beers and I decided enough was enough and I needed to go home. Via a Thai massage of course, at the cost of 220thb, I had an hour long massage and considering the amount of time I had spend out (it was now 4am) I don't know if they stole 500thb from me or if I spent it, but for the cost of 1500thb (£30) For all I consumed and bought that day, I really don't care.

I have no idea how I woke up in my bed the next day. The next day which I did nothing. I mean; nothing. I woke up at 13:30 feeling like the world had been dropped on me. My only saviour was my semi-conscious self the night before, buying 2 bottles of water as a pre-emptive strike at my hangover. But 2 bottles was not enough, not enough by far. This is the worst hangover I have ever had to this day. I am not proud of this hangover, but a little part of me is pleased that I did it. If you remember my first night in Australia, you'll know that an entry into a country puts me in good stead, and this entry was a big'n. However! As I said, the hangover was also a major one. Leaving my air conditioned bedroom once, to get alka selzer and more water. I watched 3 films and skyped Lloren for collectively 2 hours. I had an upset stomach which I still blame on food poisoning, and only managed to get some food at around 22:00 when Vini arrived! Vinicus, or 'Vini' for short, is a Brazilian guy who I now share a room with. He's an alright guy, but when the others joined us today, he seemed a bit shy. This might be because the 3 other guys are quite 'Ladish', from Bristol and Magaluf style guys, whilst Vini's English is good, he's not confident with it. So that kind of brings us to today. Vini and I wanted to go to a tiger temple, but by the time we got our s*** together, it was about 11am and the day was already gone, so we went downstairs and met: Jim, Bungle & Craig, Taz, Phoebe, Nikita & Georgie. Me and Vini went for breakfast, got back and went for a walk with the guys. Now, there's a difference between travelling and holidaying. These guys are holidaying. I took them to the main strip to grab some food and we ended up at bar, after bar, after bar. The first day, I'm fine with this. It's a good way to get to know these guys and they are sound. After an accidental bar crawl, a hammock purchase, a scorpion feast (which definitely wasn't a meal) and the foundations for a week worth of banter were laid, we were back at the hostel, 4 hours later and £15 lighter. The girls had just got back from their walk and we dragged them out for a drink. I'll be honest, these are not the kind of girls you'd find in Magaluf, so the guys in their drunken state did not seem most appealing, but they came nonetheless and despite their Laddish nature, left before they could finish another beer. And now at 8pm, 30 minutes before I meet them and the rest downstairs, I'm going to freshen up (again!) and get ready for what tonight has in store!

22/05/13

Some of this entry was written on the 19th, but I didn't have enough time to catch up properly and I forgot what I did, so here is from then until now:

I will never look at a ping pong ball, fairy lights, coca cola or marker pens the same way again. Last night we went to a 'ping pong' show. Similar to the Amsterdam sex shows, just without the serious sex. I went to an Amsterdam sex show in 2009 which alternated between 'serious' sex and women doing some crazy stuff with their vaginas. This was just the weird and wonderful vagina shows. I will briefly describe each 'act'; The fairly lights act was when she pulled a string of fairly lights, around 3m long, out of her vagina, wrapped them around poles and started dancing with them. The coca cola is a double act, one woman opens a glass bottle of coke with her fanny, whaaat? Then another, pours water into her vagina and out comes coke. WHAAAAAT?! The marker pen, this woman wrote 'Welcome to Thailand' and drew a smilie face on a piece of paper, with her vagina. The marker pen was inside her whilst she wrote it. This, I am quite ashamed about, but we were on the front row (when people left, a few of us, including Shazia, made a shameless dash to get a good view) Sam our group leader said to me 'get that piece of paper!' You might be thinking I'm ashamed because I got it. You're wrong. I'm ashamed because I didn't. By the time she said it, I processed it and went to ask, she was gone. Finally, the ping pong act, the most famous act, was a woman putting a ping pong ball up her vaj, and shooting it towards a jug, it bounced and I'd say she had 40% accuracy. That's not bad! We got back to the hostel at about 2am and it felt like 11pm. I have skipped a lot of meeting people by this point, but I'm sure I'll just mention names as I go along.

The next day was very similar, but we actually got to see some of Bangkok's most famous things, Temples and the river. But wow, how s*** was that river cruise?! The Bangkok river is home to all the s*** and piss in Bangkok. The sewage system runs right into the river, the sewage system of north Bangkok runs into the river of North Bangkok, which runs into the river in South Bangkok, where we were. It doesn't stink, but that fact alone is off putting. The weather was murky, the water pretty dull, but it all changed when we got to a woman on a boat selling stuff. Not just tourist crap, but beer. She was the happiest woman on a boat I have ever seen. We bought beer, the girls bought fans and stuff. Then we got to the temples. The first temple we went to had a f*** ton of steps, steep steps. I was still feeling slightly fragile from the food a couple of days before, but managed to stomach a ham and chicken burger for lunch. The group were all getting on nicely and in retrospect, I don't think we've changed much as a group since then.

26/05/13

I have slacked. Massively on the blog writing. To the point where I gave up and now I have to catch up. So, where was I... After the first temple, we went on to another temple, home of the happy budda. The Thai budda is completely different to the Chinese budda you're thinking of. The Thai Budda is slim and content. Different hand positions meaning different things, but this golden, lying down budda was huge. Our tour guide was a Thai guy called 'James Bond', he was a funny Thai guy and all in all, a decent guide. After the giant budda, me and a few of the girls, well, most of the girls, stopped to take a couple of photos. After these photos we realise we had lost the others. We were walking around this huge temple complex and eventually found them again.

27/05/13

Here is where I stopped writing, I missed a few days, so forgive me, but these points are just to remind me what happened:

Temples - Indian meal before night out -
Bucket bar, bugs buffet, thumb war children, The Club - Ladyboy Jim - Vini friend - Talking with Shaz and others until 4am -

10am - wake up - Cooking course Vini: "f*** your cooking course" - awkward songs - weird dancing and dressing up. Picture taken "Take your glasses off"

After, bar. Another bar, home for 4pm. Didn't leave until 5pm had another beer, to train station. Being called 'vice group leader'. KFC, 711, Get on train.

Bar, drunk, drinking games, hanging out the carriage, 30 minutes alone, closed at 1am, Ben, Adam very drunk, Bed at 1:30am.

Got up, off the train at 7:10, van to boat, boat to swim, boat to bungalows, lunch buffet, swim all afternoon, kyaks, games, Vini very drunk.

Get up, dive straight in. Cold 'cooked' breakfast, boat, bus, boat.

Elephant trekking, monkey comforting, farewell meal, thai boxing match, Dave & Vini in hospital

Pre-full moon epic party

26/05/13

Whilst it's still in my head, here is the full moon party: We all got kitted out and met up at different times at the bar, some having had food, some not. This wasn't a problem. We weren't on a schedule any more. If people made it, awesome, if not, it didn't matter. We headed to the Reggae bar where we were the night before last, we got painted up under the UV light and had a 'few beers'. Vini and Dave, who had been temporarily discharged from the clinic, joined us, but I don't remember seeing them at the beach, so I think they left beforehand. We walked to the beach and I grabbed another M150, this is a lethal dose of red bull which I discovered earlier that evening. It sends you to an energetic state minutes after consumption which is what I needed if I was to make it to sunrise. We got to the beach and the expected happened. We lost everyone. There were a few of us stood at the bar, chilling and chatting before Laura left and Shaz said "I'm going to go get lost in the crowd", which was exactly what I intended to do too! But my crowd was different; She wandered into the crowd of people, I wondered towards the more sparsely populated people. Now, this was a surprise. I had been told, and imagined, that the full moon party was crowded, really crowded. No room to breath kinda crowded. But I was pleasantly surprised! There was room to sit in a group, away from the hussel and bussel. To many people, this might sound boring, but to me, this is what I want to do. Chill on a beach, talk to strangers and get drunk. I sat there for a bit, by myself, watching this Canadian guy draw a circle around himself and offer hugs to passersby. His 'hug circle' as he inventively named it, was a sacred space to get away from the crowds. I gave him a hug, and people around me did the same. We got talking, and it turned out, these were Canadians too! We spoke about Canada, the UK, and the differences and as I said before, this might sound like a s*** 'party' and one of the most famous parties in the world; The Full Moon Party. And I'm spending it sat on the beach talking geography with a Canadian chick, but it was awesome. So we were sat there and I didn't realise the girl on the other side was her friend, s***! I haven't been talking to her at all! Luckily, George miraculously found me and started chatting to her. This did form a bit of a problem, I wasn't hitting on these girls, I just wanted to chat. After 10 minutes of George being there, we went for a walk along the beach, and bumped into Craig and Fiona. It was clear George was trying to hit on one of them and after about an hour of dancing, he left. Leaving me with an awkward stance, so I left. I sat in a boat and watched the sunrise. It seems very short, and it felt like it went very quick, but the beach section lasted about 6 hours.