Part Four: The Travel Diary of South-east Asia
The Travel Diary of South-east Asia
Here continues the series for anyone who is interested about my travels over a year ago. I spent three months in South-east Asia. Though true to the actual handwritten diary in terms of events which I recorded on my trip day-to-day, I have changed the names and where possible gone into more detail for each day with the luxury of having a laptop this time around! For part three click here. Part four concerns the Full Moon Party at Ko Pha Ngan.********************************
20th of January 2019 - Phuket > Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand
It really doesn’t make any sense. It shouldn’t work. Flocks and droves of travellers swarm the coach station and there is no queue! No sane thing to follow with your eyes or mind that gives you any confidence that you and your bags are going to get to where you’ve paid to go. The various employees are live wires just like the sparking, crackling telephone wires that line the streets of Thailand. They run around shouting to each other, shouting at you in a language you don’t understand and shouting just for the general fun of it it seems. And yet they are able to negotiate you and everyone there (along with luggage) to 7 different locations with a mixture of bus and ferries simultaneously just based on what coloured sticker you have on your t-shirt. It is a beautiful chaos you can’t quite comprehend, and bizarrely, it just might be the most punctual journey I’ve ever been on. Bus, bus change, new bus, ferry, scooter taxi and there we were, Ko Pha Ngan on the eve of the full moon.
After a bit of bartering with the woman where I stopped prematurely as always (I just can’t get the hang of it), I paid and headed to star-something caravan park where Dan had jammily gotten a free bed via an instagram friend he had doing a season there. We dropped his bags and headed right into the heart of the party, which amazingly was where my hostel was situated. So far, so good, until I found the guy in charge who spoke zero English. We commenced a slow back-and-forth conversation through Google translate where we both cracked up at the inaccuracy of Google - though he may have been laughing at how worried I looked - and I began to understand that the hostel was fully booked. I showed him my confirmation, which must have made no sense to him, and he rang his boss a few times. He passed the phone over and the boss told me that he had over booked and that I was free to take a bunk in a new room still under construction. I accepted thankfully and then walked into a bombsite.
Cracked plaster lined the shoddy walls and the ceiling stayed together inexplicably when considering the vast holes that were punctured across its breadth. The beds were covered in a thick film of dust and the plug sockets weren’t working. But the aircon was and I looked out the window below to see the swathes of people and palpable energy building. I shook the cover and changed into a non-sweaty shirt as another man walked into the construction site. The same thing had happened to him and after a few moments of perplexion surveying the scene he introduced himself as Maurizio. He offered a beer and we cracked one together. I guess it wasn’t so bad. Dan came up and I left Maurizio to join the street.
The first thing Dan did was to get us both a bucket. In one word - lethal. I couldn’t even taste the coke, just pure SangSom lighting me up as I walked through the most notorious party Island in the world. Having never been on that kind of holiday before it was electrifying to be a part of. You needed 8 ears to hear every tune that blared at you as you walked down the street and along the beach. I embraced the carnival of colour entirely and got leathered in no time from a few of those buckets. It got so stupid. After a really attractive Asian woman grinded on me and bowed before walking away at the end of that particular song, me and Dan for no particular reason jumped the fence and sprinted to dodge the 100 baht charge for the main beach area. Then the madness continued. UV paint - check. Jumping through a ring of actual fire - check. Sitting on a 5 foot penis statue in the middle of one of the clubs - check. Sprinting into the sea to grab some worthless beach ball for a bunch of girls - check. Feeling my age and completely fucking myself by 3:30am - check.
I left Dan out there living it up and practically crawled back to my residence among the dust. Woke up to the sound of a female moan from Maurizio’s bed, vaguely seeing the shape of an asian woman, fell back asleep. Woke again to the sound of a different female moan from Maurizio’s bed in the shape of a completely different woman. Unbelievable. I just chatted to the very man himself before breakfast just now and the permanent grin across his face was not too dissimilar from that of the cheshire cat.
21st of January 2019 - Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand
Rise and shine, kiss me with a little meaning
Travellers cans on sun soaked sands are at our feet and,
I can’t shake this feeling, I’m not supposed to be here
It is the time of my life, but I, cut her
And I see she’s bleeding
So yeah I guess a pretty dark reflection as the day began but it quickly improved. Dan returned and joined me to head to my new hostel which was great. We got straight in the pool, had a couple of ice cold changs and switched off completely.
Dan then said he had a friend from last time he was traveling who was on the island too. Though I didn’t feel like moving at all, I reluctantly agreed to head out with him to meet her. But first, we had to hire some mopeds. I’d never done this before and was actually incredibly scared to drive one, especially remembering the taxi journey to my hostel, which had involved some pretty gnarly (a word extreme sports people say?) hills along the way. But lo and behold by the end of the first road I was flying. The wind rushing through your hair is enough to quell the boiling broth of a Hong Thong hangover, and we met up with Phoebe.
Phoebe was a beautiful, dainty air hostess from nearby Brighton, and was an immediate friend. She was in the middle of a massive trip after taking some time off from her job and had parted ways from the friend she had initially travelled with after things had turned slightly sour. It seemed me and Dan had found a worthy third musketeer.
We took the mopeds along a dusty road towards a waterfall, and hiked a gentle incline for half hour to bathe in the refreshingly cold water. I stuck my head into the full force of the fall and couldn't quite believe the force it carried as it whipped my head ferociously. I retracted and appreciated the peacefulness all the more, as the sounds of distant bird chirps peppered the scene of the green trees and white foamy falls. Phoebe suggested a place for food and I enjoyed a beautiful green curry with a light cocktail as the sun set directly in front us over golden sands. I love Thailand.
Dan and Phoebe talked of Ko Tao and its infamous pub crawl and I was sold on it as our next destination. We booked the ferry for the morning on our way home and I sat up smoking and people watching the hostel bar’s occupants as they loudly complained about the snorkeling they had done earlier and continued their voyage of drunkenness from the night before. Feeling pensive and slightly melancholy I penned some more lyrics:
Rise and shine, kiss me with a little meaning
Travellers cans on sun soaked sands are at our feet and,
I can’t shake this feeling, I’m not supposed to be here
It is the time of my life, but I, cut her
And I see she’s bleeding
We ran this island down, on to the next one now
Scarred from the locals frowns, on to the next one now
Deep sea dive for corals all depleted
We down Hong Thong visit bucket stalls all conceited
And I can’t shake this feeling, I’m not supposed to be here
I’m in paradise, but I, cut her
And I see she’s bleeding
We ran this island down, on to the next one now
Scarred from the locals frowns, on to the next one now
Let loose for a couple of rounds, on to the next one now
Cranked our scooters loud, on to the next one now
But honestly, I hit the sack and realised it wasn’t all that bad.
I had booked us another hostel and had not done too badly again, nice clean beds and a helpful host who got us some really nice scooters at a reasonable price. Ko tao proved to be a much more scatty drive. It was an island with scarce tarmacked roads, and we found ourselves heading up slopes that were not made for scooters. After a sharp turn, Dan came off and threw up so much dirt I was in a blind panic for 10 seconds before it finally cleared. He was OK, but the scooter had suffered some damage and Dan said they could charge you ridiculously for that kind of thing.
Anyway, after a 30 min trek in scorching heat to a viewpoint, our worries were swiftly stolen away as we made our way out of an enclosure of trees and looked out to the island and vast sea beyond. Dan powered up his speaker and we listened to Ben Howard, contentedly laid out upon rocks and shooting the breeze for I-don’t-know-how-long. I felt lucky to have made a friend in Dan. Out here his friendship had been as solid as the rock beneath me. A guide, a companion and a great person to chat about anything with, as well as drink with.
After getting back and getting away with the scooter (phew), we headed to a place that Dan had frequented the last time he was in Ko Tao called Fizz. The restaurant lay on the beach as so many out here do and the food was quite something. I changed it up and went for a penang curry with tofu and I was blown away. We watched fire jugglers as the evening ascended, checking out the best ones and watching the ones who were just scraping by. These guys are so easy to take for granted, I’d seen a fair few in Ko Pha Ngan, but when you really focus on what they’re doing it’s hard to fathom. Groups threw flaming balls from one side of the seating area to the other and every time they caught them with ease. Then each one took their turn in making their instruments spark and sent them into a whirlwind of movement that etched the patterns into your very eyes. We got steadily drunk as we moved along the beach surveying each one until everything closed and then we walked back. Phoebe would join us tomorrow, and the craziness of the Ko Tao pub crawl would begin.
We down Hong Thong visit bucket stalls all conceited
And I can’t shake this feeling, I’m not supposed to be here
I’m in paradise, but I, cut her
And I see she’s bleeding
We ran this island down, on to the next one now
Scarred from the locals frowns, on to the next one now
Let loose for a couple of rounds, on to the next one now
Cranked our scooters loud, on to the next one now
But honestly, I hit the sack and realised it wasn’t all that bad.
22nd of January 2019 - Ko Pha Ngan > Ko Tao, Thailand
I had booked us another hostel and had not done too badly again, nice clean beds and a helpful host who got us some really nice scooters at a reasonable price. Ko tao proved to be a much more scatty drive. It was an island with scarce tarmacked roads, and we found ourselves heading up slopes that were not made for scooters. After a sharp turn, Dan came off and threw up so much dirt I was in a blind panic for 10 seconds before it finally cleared. He was OK, but the scooter had suffered some damage and Dan said they could charge you ridiculously for that kind of thing.
Anyway, after a 30 min trek in scorching heat to a viewpoint, our worries were swiftly stolen away as we made our way out of an enclosure of trees and looked out to the island and vast sea beyond. Dan powered up his speaker and we listened to Ben Howard, contentedly laid out upon rocks and shooting the breeze for I-don’t-know-how-long. I felt lucky to have made a friend in Dan. Out here his friendship had been as solid as the rock beneath me. A guide, a companion and a great person to chat about anything with, as well as drink with.
After getting back and getting away with the scooter (phew), we headed to a place that Dan had frequented the last time he was in Ko Tao called Fizz. The restaurant lay on the beach as so many out here do and the food was quite something. I changed it up and went for a penang curry with tofu and I was blown away. We watched fire jugglers as the evening ascended, checking out the best ones and watching the ones who were just scraping by. These guys are so easy to take for granted, I’d seen a fair few in Ko Pha Ngan, but when you really focus on what they’re doing it’s hard to fathom. Groups threw flaming balls from one side of the seating area to the other and every time they caught them with ease. Then each one took their turn in making their instruments spark and sent them into a whirlwind of movement that etched the patterns into your very eyes. We got steadily drunk as we moved along the beach surveying each one until everything closed and then we walked back. Phoebe would join us tomorrow, and the craziness of the Ko Tao pub crawl would begin.
For part five click here
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