Apres full moon

Our fortunes changed for the better: The wind dropped and allowed us to leave koh tao on the day of the full moon party.

1st mission was to get pissed - success! Then an intrepid journey over many of the islands "roads" to hat rin where the party takes place. It's a lovely spot and you can look out to the ocean for as far as the eye can see. Anyway, bearing in mind I'm already pissed - the first thing we did was to buy ourselves a bucket each. These consist of a 35cl bottle of whiskey, a coke and a red bull, all neatly mixed a small plastic bucket and served with a straw. The red bull here is full of amphetamines and does funny things on it's own! Let alone being used as a mixer. Suffice to say after that small drink I appropriately passed out, lost everyone and spent the whole night on my own. Still had an awesome time though - all sorts of dance music was playing. Got home at 9am. Slept for three hours - felt sick for the rest of the day.

One point that sticks in the mind - was surprised to see a really fit chick with her wonderful breasts out! Of course we approached for closer inspection.. but were shocked to find that "her" pair were quite literally a lovely set of top bollocks. Very deceiving indeed.

Today, Mike managed to break a hire Jeep, and I have been practising more off road skillz on the bike. I might buy one when I get home..

Evening all.

Oh no!

Well the weather has taken a turn for the worse and it seems that due to a typhoon en route to koh phangan (the home of the infamous full moon party, that takes place tomorrow on the 26th) has cut off all transport connections from the island we are on at the mo. That means no full moon party and more koh tao - but with nothing to do..

Anyhoo have completed the diving course and now am a PADI "Open Water" diver. It's good fun and I'd recommend it to anyone coming out here (Norm..) Dive with Crystal Dive and get a guy called Dave as your instructor and you'll have fun. The guy's non-stop!

Also have hired some motorbikes and have learnt to ride the bad boys - Little Honda Sonics.. might get one when I get home. Told the dude we didn't have a clue what we were doing. He just laughed and handed us the keys to a couple of his shiny new bikes.

gotta go!

see ya later y'all

al

that train ride I was on about..

Swodikap,

The scary one from Bangkok to Chiang Mai? Well it crashed about 2 days after we were on it..

Koh Tao is wicked, We're doing our PADI divers courses the few days we are here. This island rocks, if anyone would like to be even more jealous, then take a look at the island on the net.

A big butterfly has just landed on my hand. How cute.

All those accustomed to late night/early morning Gloucester food establisments might like to know there is a "Best Pancake" takeaway stall here. Clearly a foreign franchise of our favorite apres-discotheque eatery, and a welcome sight.

All the notes are making me smile. Cheers all!!

photos

Ok photos are available through a site that *clever* mike walker has set up.

The site is www.walkersplace.co.uk

You have to register as a user (doesn't take 2 mins) and then you can log in and view the piccies.

The thailand pics are under a section called thailand

I hope they entertain sufficiently

What with heading to the beach and all (nightmare) I don't know when I will be able to return to this trusty blog. I hear it's been snowing in england!! hope you're all having fun

al

friday (it's friday? blimey) 19.11.04

lots has happened!!

redbull goes down like cough syrup
they drive proper kuh-razy here. it's a wonder we're still alive
mike was the sickest i have ever heard someone be sick. i thought he was possibly dying. very worried at the time. now it's just funny
buddhist monks are cool. i said "shit" to one cos he couldn't pronounce the "ch" noise. he was trying to say cheat. i rule cos i have sworn at a buddhist monk.
temples are placed everywhere
the norf is a beautiful spot.

a brief round up of the last few days: we went to chiang mai. much nicer place than bkk. then trekked for 3 days in the norf by burma. stayed at some old skool villages with no leccy etc. quite an interesing experience. saw some big spiders. have photos. one village had a really (sorry for the word): cute kitten.. just before we went to bed we saw this white plastic bag crawling around. they had selaed the bag with the cat inside it to keep it quiet for us! we protested: it was released. anyhoo.. met some cool guys on the trek; sacha and korine, and monti and henrik (hello!) and our trek guide louie was a legend.

then came south a bit. sukhothai is cool with some nice roads for bikeride and lots of temples. roadtrippin'.

ayutthaya is less cool, a small hybrid of dirty bits of bangkok and boring bits of sukhothai.

now in bangkok. going south to islands for the next couple of weeks. full moon on 26th!

i have to go now. sorry for the report style of update.

will be back soon

tara

ps thanks for all the notes you are very kind. it was good to read them all :)

Hello part II

I have a little longer this eve to inform all of what is happening. I shall endure the pesky mozzies (they all got the munchies) flying around the room just for you guys.

Since yesterday we stuck ourselves in 1st class on the night train to Chiang Mai and I now sit in a little computer room with one lonely pc on the ground floor of our "Silver place" hotel. Telling a tuk tuk driver to go to "the silver place" is not a fun task.. "It's not a shop damn it. It's a hotel!" Anyone who's been here, you know what I mean.

The train ride comprised of a 14 long hour ride on a track dead straight for as long as the eye could see. How then, was it that with no corners, it was still a properly scary experience causing enough concern to wake us up reapeatedly during the night? Are trains meant to bounce around and heavily lean sideways when travelling in a straight line? I think I can count it as my first white knuckle experience. All the same we made it alive and well (maybe - food results pending, if you know what i mean).

Totally different place to Bangkok, is the north, and quite a relief it is too. Much calmer lifestyle, pretty scenery and blinking hot! Today we managed to make friends with Paulo, our new Buddhist pal. He was pretty cool and told us what Buddhists do. He didn't sell it very well, but he seemed happy about it so I do too.

We go trekking tomorrow... Promises to be quite an experience with elephants riding rafts or something.. I wasn't really listening.

Mum and Dad, I'm still alive.

ps. Oh yeah, them Australian bastids want my chest x-rayed before I get a working visa. I have asked them kindly if I have to, as Dad's TB was 46 years ago. Lets see how gay they want to be.

Peace out mo'fo's, tell me if anything interesting happens at home.

Al

Bangkok smells

funny in a lot of places. They have one dish here (we haven't worked out what it is yet) that turns our stomachs everytime we walk past. I presume the same smell brings on hunger in many Thai people.

I'm currently sitting in a little internet cafe in downtown Bangkok. You can tell it's very different in Thailand but there is a lot of western influence in the mix in this central city. Our adventure proper starts tonight, as we take a posh railway for 14 hours up to Chang Mai. Not much time for hanging about as we have booked an itinerary for the entire month including the full moon party on the 26th so gotta do the north in quick time... Starting from now! Time to go.. somewhere.. Don't have a residence and got no plans for the afternoon. :)

Will update this as I have more time.

Mum and Dad, you can presume by this update that I'm still alive.

See ya

packing..

To be honest, I'm f'cking scared. Seriously.