Five Dives, Two Fights a Chickboy, a Full Moon Party, and a Wedding

Alright muckers

Like I said, was offski to Thailand for a bit of a holiday within a holiday and buggered off to Thailand for two weeks, much to the green eyed envy of my bro, my boyfriend, and well, all the Sydney crew too. Anyway considering my last post neatly covered three months in a city, I amazed out how much I have squeezed into my trip to the Land of Smiles....

Will brush over the faltering start to the trip (bad turbulence, renewed fear of flying, ripped off by the Bangkok taxi driver, had booked into a hostel that looked like and probably was a crack house, Bangkok itself being a smelly hole of a place) and then spent a lovely day touring the the Grand Palace Grounds, checking out the Emerald Buddah and other assorted temples and chatting about the Meaning of Life with some middle aged Americans whilst we waited for a rain storm to abate. Then another hitch in that I couldnt get on the one hour flight to Koh Samui because yep- lack of research into my Mastercard Sponsored Jaunt meant I had arrived in the middle of public holiday peak season. Had to get on the worst over night bus I have ever been on (yes Phil, even worse than the Argentina experience), followed by being dumped in the middle of nowhere from 5 til 8- then a 3 hour ferry ride on a boat the size of a bar of soap with about 3 million backpackers on it- then praise old Buddah himself- I arrived at The Wedding Partys 5 star resort where for the last few days I have hidden for free! *big thanks to Lisa and Tracey the total stars*

THE DIVES
Okay so before wedding proceedings I nipped over to the neighbouring island of Koh Tao to visit my mate Amsterdam who has been living there for the past 4 months underwater filming scuba dives. Halfway through the boat journey a storm kicked in- and i had to take my t-shirt off to run down the gangway and use it to cover my cotton travel sack as everything was wet instantly. Yep- I had a bikini top on- no boobs akimbo shenanigans from me. Anyway great to see her even through the sheets of rain. She was like 'is that all you have on you?' I said yep- left everything else on Koh Samui. Then she pointed to her little blue motor bike and was like 'right- get on'. Now I swear the roads were now rivers and the water was rushing past my shins, down to the jetty. Seeing as my mum wasnt looking I climed on the back, hung on and remembered that i didnt have any travel insurance...

My friend had a very cool little place in the hills, on stilts, with a million dollar view of the hills falling down to the palm trees and finally the ocean. Very 'Thailand'. The place was crawling with Gekkos of all sizes and had jungle rats on the roof of a night. After being told to look for scorpions - 'Lesley, you have to kill the fukker. And then look for de other one because they always come in twos' her friend from school, Klaas, turned up. She'd forgot he was coming...'fuk man...everydink happen at once!' Im not saying this is true but when I met her on the Kiwi Experience in New Zealand she was accused of sounding like Stephen Hawkings. Whenever she tried to speak everyone started yelling in an electronic voice that 'der world should keep.on.talking'. Awww...

Anyway spent a lovely 3 days there taking my Open Water scuba course with the dive school she worked for -Phoenix Divers- a dive in a pool and two days in the ocean...it was so good. A Whale Shark had been spotted that week and we were all supposed to get excited about it... didnt see it though *phew* - only some aggro Titan Trigger Fish that actually scared the crapolla outta me! We'd been warned about them before going down 'If they have a go- it will feel like a dig in the arm or somthing- just kick 'em with your flipper like you would a yappie dog'. The thing is everything fish do underwater is quick. And everything humans with compressed oxygen tanks on their backs do is slow. Klaus the Swedish dive master got a hole bitten through his flipper. Nuff said.

THE WEDDING
Said my sad farewells to Amsterdam and Klaas and got back sharpish to Koh Samui the morning of the wedding. Motor bike taxi held no fear for me now after razzing back on the dirt tracks to Amsterdams place (in the dark unsuccessfully frog dodging) so got back pretty handy.
At 4pm, after a hair disaster for the bride (Fay, my best mates sister) where the Thai hairdresser had tried to lacquer a cake on her head, she arrived all natural, beautiful and resplendent on an elephant! Lisa led the procession (beautiful beautiful) tossing flowers ahead of her, then the female Thai dancers (about ten) then the Thai band. Then Elephant. Honestly, Footballers Wives had nothing on this! A monkmobile screeched up and six Buddist monks set their orange robes about themselves and gave a Buddhist wedding blessing. Then the tear jerker vows were exchanged, fancy photos on the beach were taken, followed by a fantastic private firework display that Paul the groom will be paying off til he dies Im sure.... So much food, dancing, and making merry and anyone not married there that day feeling like a bench mark had been set so high that we may as well all continue to live sinful common-law lives hehehe. Really though, it was fantastic.

Fight 1: Songkran - Thai New Year
The very next day, with our hangovers, was Songkran! All of Thailand had been warming up for this for weeks. It's a water festival where the Thai people 'playfully' throw water over each other for goodluck. Im sure it was playful a few years ago, but I have never seen anything like this. Pump action water guns, water barrells lining the streets so you can re-fill, a half hour stretch of road having a four hour traffic jam while trucks of soaking wet Thais absolutely SOAK the hell out of each other with anything they can. The Police had to keep their guns in plastic bags and whilst they tried to direct traffic, time and again people just chucked water over them. They also rubbed talc on your face and some genius put red dye in his water gun to add a splash of colour. Some of the talc had tiger balm in it so it could sting abit...
Right in the knot of the traffic there was banging Techo music, Thais clutching bottles of singha and dancing in the street- even the ladyboy (a fat one, with no boobs, in fact just a bloke in a dress and more worthy of the title Tranny) Fay had given her hen night wings and L-Plate to 3 days previous, was out on the road, pished, soaked and still wearing the wings.
It was mental. We had water backpacks on with pump action guns and were out for 4 hours and didnt get bored, even when our hands got wrinkly from the water...

Full Moon Party
We were all abit knackered with the days water fight exertions but Full Moon Party on the island of Koh Pangang was on the same night. A few die hards from the group got the ferry over just to check it out. About 5000 people had descended on Hadrin Beach looking to party. Little sand buckets containing a quarter bottle of your fave tipple (voddy, whisky, gin, whatever) with a Coke and a Red Bull were being sold all over the gaff for 300 baht- about a fiver. This meant there were bodies strewn all over the length of the beach, unconcious and therefore couldnt hear the crap banging music that was blearing from every bar on the front. Not my cup of tea and the night was only salvaged by James & Dowey (wedding guests, dentists, and all round dastardly shagger rapscallions) inventing Human Hurdles! Legged it down the length of the beach, jumping, leaping, and free style flinging ourselves over unconscious revellers. At one point I had to get an attendant to check that about nine SE Asians werent actually dead. Looked abit like Morcambe bloody beach (sorrrrry, tasteless joke so tasteless!)
Anyway cant be bothered telling you about the annoying American (who like, thinks China is a 'sleeping dragon, and like, is gunna take over the world in like, 5 years you watch) or much else so better tell you how I nearly got battered by a Ladyboy...

Fight 2 : Ladyboy with Attitude
The main place to be in the commercial hotspot that is Cheweing in Koh Samui is The Green Mango. It heaves a plenty with many a dodgy sweaty western bloke (fat, white, mid thirties, forties or older) cruising the tiny thai locals, prostitutes and chick boys for action. After all we are in Thailand. Anyway me and the Lundberg (thats Lisa for those not in the know) are getting merrrrrily drunk, taking in the scenes, alternating between being amused and being repulsed. Two normal looking dudes from Bristol strike up a conversation and one of them, Paddy, is tall and blonde. There is a flurry amongst the Shims...
Then James turns up (all the Thai girls love him, get their knickers in a twist and shout that he looks like Tom Cruise. And no, he doesnt.) Then he's followed by Dowey, Dan and Dans girlfriend Ria. So many not so ugly under 30's boys in one go must have been too much for the Chicks with... well y'know. Paddy is dragged off by one of them who despite her/his size two hips and 6 foot frame, was still a geezer and had a head like a Klingon. S/he wanted to have a photo with him. He came back all flustered and burrowed into our gang. I jumped off the wall to get a round in only to see Klingon Chickboy point at me, and then mime that i had a fat stomache! Obviously this is true comparitively to the chick boy slinky hips but i was pissed, and pissed off. I waited til s/he was looking at me and then I pointed at her, and grabbed my crotch mouthing 'Man'. Oh my god you should have seen her face. Childishly she 'mimed' with her hands back to me that I indeed had a rather large, ahem, lady garden. I smiled indulgently, laughed and nodded and shouted 'yeah! Ive got one!' and was so pleased with myself I re-enacted the whole thing a couple of times to my pals. S/he stormed up waggling her fist asking for a fight. I smiled and was like 'nooo no, your alright love go away' and s/he started giving me the middle finger and hissing 'yoo a fukking WHORE! Fukking beech!'. We all laughed a bit more. Then s/he stormed into the middle of our group with her top off, boobs out shouting 'am no fukking man'. I remarked s/he hadnt took the old jeans off... though pervy James conceded s/he 'had a nice pair'. Then she started on Ria, calling her a 'fukking whore' and telling her that 'you beta wach your bak!' then, a bit like the Titan Trigger fish, she just kept darting past us. It was only when James was like 'here are Les look out' that I saw him/her right up next to me clutching a bottle. But when I turned around s/he had lost the nerve to do whatever it was she was going to do and scurried off. James went over to smoothe things over with a 'Im sorry if my friend offended you' but s/he just screamed 'fukkkkkk offfff fuk offffff!' and he got back over to us quick smart- leaving her/m making slicing gestures at his/her neck and pointing at us.
With the realisation that s/he was actually a TOTAL PSYCHO and probably knew every Daddy-O pimp in town- we made a speedy exit.

So the rest of the holiday had the groom flashing his chest at me and calling me a 'fukin whore' and laughing. Ha. My God........

Oh and Thai people cant say 'Seven'. They say 'Seben'.

The End